New Orleans, the third-best team in the NFC West, drove that point home last week. Kansas City will attempt to pile on Sunday afternoon at Arrowhead Stadium. Dallas has clearly developed a split personality in the first three months of the season. Still, recent history suggests it's premature to dismiss the Cowboys simply because they play in a weak division. Conventional wisdom states otherwise.
Sports is built on the ideal that a team becomes the best by playing against the best.
That's one of the advantages of coming up in a competitive division. Again, that sounds good. But playing in the tough AFC West in recent years hasn't helped the Chiefs advance to the Super Bowl. San Francisco, meanwhile, has built its rich tradition on the bones of opponents in an historically weak division. It's a lot more how you are, how your team is and how you played than it is who you played during the course of the year.