SAN FRANCISCO — Sitting on a three-game division lead with eight to play, the Cardinals' magic number is six.

That'd be no surprise in the NL Central, but it's a minor miracle in the NFC West, where a pro football tradition stretching beyond the last half-century is likely to end this winter.

Thanks to the simultaneous awfulness of the injury-ravaged Seahawks, the leaderless 49ers and the squabbling Rams, the long-suffering Arizona Cardinals appear destined to charge into the playoffs with barely a whimper of competition.

Yes, those Cardinals — the eternal cellar-dwellers with one postseason appearance in 24 years, one winning season during two decades in the desert and one measly playoff victory in the past 60 years.

Led by Kurt Warner's pack of fleet-footed receivers and clever coach Ken Whisenhunt, they're on track to hang a division title banner on some otherwise naked rafter in their gorgeous stadium in January before the franchise hosts a postseason game for the first time since 1947.

The Cardinals are far from perfect, yet they've got just one fewer victory than the other three members of this miserable division combined. Seattle, San Francisco and St. Louis are all 2-6, with all three clubs bumbling through coaching upheaval and inept efforts by overpaid players in front of booing home fans.

With quarterback Matt Hasselbeck's injured back progressing more slowly than Floyd "Pork Chop" Womack in a 40-yard dash, the Seahawks' run of four straight division titles seems finished along with coach Mike Holmgren's tenure. At least Holmgren will keep his job until December, something Scott Linehan and Mike Nolan couldn't do.

Seattle's lengthy run as the best in the West had to end sometime — but who would have thought this season was in the Cards?

Arizona Cardinals (5-3)

If these Cardinals can just keep looking nothing like the regular Cardinals for eight more weeks, they'll win their first division title since 1975.

And they'll deserve it. Despite their three road losses and an occasionally overmatched defensive secondary, the Cardinals have been consistent and balanced. Warner is directing the NFL's highest-scoring offense (234 points), and Arizona is 3-0 at home, where the fans can get awfully loud when their voices aren't muffled by paper bags on their heads.

In another boon to the Cardinals' division title hopes, their remaining schedule is looking a bit soft: Four of their final eight games are against division foes, starting next Monday night with the woeful 49ers.

No Cardinals fan is remotely comfortable yet, but the NFC West's other three teams haven't given Arizona any real reason to worry. With the NFL's second-biggest division lead, the Cards can only beat themselves at this point.

Of course, that's the only victory this franchise has always been able to count on.

Grade: B.

Seattle Seahawks (2-6)

Jim Mora's inheritance is getting smaller by the week.

The Seahawks' all-around underachievement in Holmgren's final season is mitigated only by Hasselbeck's absence, which magnifies every other problem the veteran coach must muddle through before his well-deserved year off from football.

Holmgren built a consistent winner in the Pacific Northwest, but after five straight playoff appearances, the Seahawks are off to their worst start in six years. Qwest Field is filled with boos for the NFL's 31st-ranked offense and a defense that played without its top two injured stars — defensive lineman Patrick Kerney and linebacker Lofa Tatupu — last week during the Seahawks' fourth loss in five games.

Unless Hasselbeck's back miraculously heals or his teammates improbably get it together, Microsoft's favorite team might need a total reboot next year when Mora takes over.

Grade: D.

St. Louis Rams (2-6)

At least the Rams might have finally hit bottom in their long, slow decline from their Mike Martz-engineered heyday. It's hard to imagine St. Louis sinking much lower than the last season and a half.

After four straight blowout losses to open this year, the Rams ended Linehan's disastrous tenure and replaced him with no-nonsense Jim Haslett, who opened a sliver of optimism with immediate wins over Washington and Dallas.

But St. Louis has slipped back into misery with two more defeats, giving the Rams 19 losses in their past 24 games. A new problem seems to spring up every week, particularly on Haslett's defense, which has allowed a whopping 235 points — 110 more than the Rams have scored.

Receiver Torry Holt also feels marginalized, while running back Steven Jackson was reluctant to run certain plays that bothered his strained thigh muscle last week. Marc Bulger briefly lost his job to Trent Green in Linehan's last-ditch effort to save his job, but the veteran hasn't done much to deserve the starting spot recently.

Some think new owner Chip Rosenbloom is itching to gut his franchise for a complete remodel, and even a minor second-half rally this season is unlikely to cancel the extreme makeover.

Grade: D-minus.

San Francisco 49ers (2-6)

The York family has one major accomplishment during its near-decade of owning the 49ers: They're making the Bidwills look good.

John, Denise and now 27-year-old Jed York have firmly supplanted the Cardinals' first family as the laughingstock of the West Coast for their lamebrained personnel decisions, ham-fisted public relations and the inability to secure a replacement for decrepit Candlestick Park. After five straight losing seasons, nobody in the Bay Area believes the Yorks can build a winner, so why would San Francisco or Santa Clara build them a stadium?

And that's to say nothing of this season's boring, tedious team, which is on its second coach and second quarterback of the season after just one regulation victory — over the NFL-worst Detroit Lions. Nolan was inelegantly fired one week before the team's bye, setting up interim coach Mike Singletary for a predictably disastrous debut in a 21-point home loss to lowly Seattle.

The Niners have no proven quarterback, an overpaid defense that's giving up nearly 30 points a game, and a five-game losing streak. Singletary is getting attention mostly for embarrassing tight end Vernon Davis and dropping his pants to motivate his players, which probably means the Yorks will be starting over again this winter.

Grade: F.