MVP Candidate Carson Palmer, Cardinals Stand Out in Playoff Crowd

In an NFL weekend full of incredible upsets, overtime heroics and horrifying kicker #fail, one front-running title contender walked into a classic trap game and effortlessly took care of business.

Carson Palmer, making another emphatic case for his MVP candidacy, dismantled the St. Louis Rams' supposedly stoutly built defense. Palmer didn't even need the help of tailback Chris Johnson, now on injured reserve, whose performance had helped fuel the Cardinals' midseason hot streak.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Cardinals haven't lost a bit of their lunch-bucket tenacity. Despite losing coordinator Todd Bowles to the New York Jets and letting interior stalwart Darnell Dockett walk, the 2015 Cardinals defense is even harder to run on—and better at picking off passes—than the 2014 edition.

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These facts were obvious against St. Louis.

Vaunted rookie running back Todd Gurley carried just nine times for 41 yards, getting the bulk of the Rams' 13 carries and 68 ground yards (excepting quarterback Nick Foles' two carries for minus-two). Foles was completely ineffective. He completed a brutal 42.9 percent of his 35 pass attempts for a miserable 4.2 yards per attempt average, no touchdowns and one interception.

The Cardinals completely shut the Rams down: St. Louis was just 1-of-12 on third downs and had only 212 total offensive yards—compared to 104 yards of penalties.

Meanwhile, Palmer completed 65 percent of his 40 attempts for an average of 8.9 yards per attempt, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Youngsters David Johnson, Kerwynn Williams and Stepfan Taylor picked up the slack at tailback; they combined for a whopping 178 yards on 33 carries (a robust average of 5.4 yards per carry).

It was a complete all-phases domination, a 27-3 beatdown every bit as emphatic as the scoreline suggested. The Cardinals even gave team president Michael Bidwill, owner Bill Bidwill's son, a rare executive water bath:

What's notable from this game isn't necessarily the individual performances of each of these players, but what they mean for the season as a whole. Had the Cardinals gone into the Edward Jones Dome and struggled against a divisional rival fighting to keep slim postseason hopes alive, it would have been understandable. Expected, even.

But Palmer is a man on a mission, and head coach Bruce Arians is on the top of his play-calling game. This Cardinals offense is playing extraordinary football; coming into the game it was the best scoring unit in the league.

As Palmer said after the game, according to a tweet by Paul Calvisi of ABC15, this one meant a little something extra to the Cardinals, who were out to avenge their Week 4 home loss against St. Louis:

As I wrote back in June, 2015 had the potential to be a career-defining season for Palmer. With an exceptional year, and a Super Bowl run for the Cardinals, Palmer could turn the sad what-might-have-been story of a talented guy who never quite put it together into a possible Hall of Fame candidacy.

After 13 weeks of the season—just shy of Palmer's 36th birthday—he's on pace to do exactly that.

Palmer entered the week just behind Tom Brady as the NFL's second-highest rated passer, per Pro-Football-Reference.com, with an eye-popping 105.6 efficiency rating. Palmer was Pro Football Focus' best-graded quarterback; at a whopping plus-41.7 he was 2.5 points ahead of Brady (who was 13.7 points ahead of No. 3, Ben Roethlisberger).

L.G. Patterson/Associated Press

Palmer came into the week leading the league in touchdown rate at 7.1 percent, leading the league in average yards per attempt at 8.8 and leading the league in total QBR at 82.07. Almost all of these numbers will go up after Sunday's performance.

The big win over the Rams is the Cardinals' sixth in a row, carrying them from the season's low point—a 25-13 road loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers—to an outstanding 10-2 record. With the Seattle Seahawks doing to the Minnesota Vikings exactly what the Cardinals did to the Rams, Arizona has a two-game lead on the rest of the NFC for the No. 2 seed.

What's more, three of the Cardinals' four remaining games are home matchups against teams trying to catch them: They host the Vikings in Week 14, the Green Bay Packers in Week 16 and the Seattle Seahawks in Week 17. The Cardinals can clinch that all-important bye by beating these teams head-to-head and setting the stage for a potential rematch against one of them in the playoffs' divisional round.

At the most critical point in the season, the Cardinals are playing their best football of the year. In fact, it seems like they're still getting better. Not only is that bad news for the contenders packing the Cardinals' stretch run, it's bad news for anyone hoping to keep Palmer and Arians and Co. from finishing last year's unfinished playoff business.