The Rich Top 5: Teetering NFL Teams Whose Seasons are Not Dead Yet

The NFL season has hit the halfway point, and some fan bases are feeling down and out. Rich is not one of those people. "My default is to see a glass and say, 'That's half full,'" he said. "I don't see empty seats in a stadium. I see fans who attend."

So he opened the show with a Top 5 of teams that are not dead yet, complete with a Monty Python "he's not quite dead" drop before and after every entry.

At No. 5, the 3-5 Arizona Cardinals. Down 14 last week, they turned to Gardner Minshew. Rich could not have been more delighted: "your bucket hat, and your flowing locks, and your right arm, and those two legs." Now Minshew heads to Seattle, where he once played in Apple Cups for Mike Leach, who, as Rich told it, urged him not to go hold a clipboard at Alabama but to stay and lead the country in passing, which he did. The schedule gets daunting after that with the Rams and Kansas City, which is why Arizona sits at No. 5. But "you never know," Rich said.

No. 4 went out to the Raiders fan in the room. Las Vegas started 3-0, then lost four straight, and is now one-for-one since the skid. "Kirk D. Cousins is winging it around," Rich said. Brock Bowers is "unguardable." Ashton Jeanty is getting vultured a little bit, Rich joked, which is irritating people. It doesn't matter, because Tre Tucker goes off one week and somebody else the next. Add Maxx Crosby on defense. "They're four and four, baby," Rich said. Next up: at San Francisco, home for Seattle, at Denver. "You're four and four at the Week 9 part. You're not dead yet."

At No. 3, Rich said, "you know I'm going here." The Los Angeles Rams. When a Rams fan in the studio wondered who thought they were dead, Rich pointed right at him. Everyone else, Rich said, is asking where this player went or that one, with Davante Adams out with a torn hamstring. But the Rams "know it's a marathon. We're not sprinting." Every week, Kyren gets one and Blake Corum gets one. Next comes a trip to Washington, where Rich imagined Corum looking at Sonny Styles and reminding him who won those matchups when they played. Then Arizona and a bye.

No. 2 is the New Orleans Saints, a team Rich would normally write off at 2-5. Then he looked at the neighborhood. "Look at the NFC South standings," he said. The Saints are in last place, but only half a game behind two division neighbors and a game behind the one "that walks around the block saying, 'Look at my car. Look at my lawn.'" Rich called New Orleans "a data center in the neighborhood," making noise. Coming off a bye, the schedule runs Cleveland, Carolina, at Chicago, at Cincinnati and home for Green Bay.

And at No. 1, the Houston Texans. "I can't quit the Texans," Rich said. "I can't quit them. Don't want to quit them." He admitted the path is fuzzy, "kind of like a Back to the Future Polaroid right now," unlike the paths he laid out for the others. But coming off a bye, Houston gets at the Chargers, at Cleveland, home for Indy and home for Baltimore, a stretch where "they can make some hay right now" before Sunday night in Pittsburgh in Week 13, a trip to Washington, Jacksonville at home, at Philadelphia, and Tennessee to close. "If the Texans of last year show up," Rich said, "they're not dead yet."

Then Rich added one more, a bonus entry with a nod to TJ. If he can include the 3-5 Cardinals, he can include the 3-5 Dallas Cowboys. They are two games behind the Giants in the division, and while the North makes the wild card troublesome, Dallas is only one game behind the Rams and Seahawks. "You're closer in the wild card than you are in division, which is wild," Rich said.

The Cowboys start at Indianapolis, then face San Francisco, with Tennessee and Philadelphia at home after that. There are tough games beyond. "But you're not dead now. Right now," Rich said. "There's still a pulse. There's still a heartbeat."