NFL Notebook | For western teams, it's the wicked trip of the East

If those upstart Arizona Cardinals truly want to make this season magical, they need to solve the league's west-to-east puzzle.

Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego and Arizona — which spends half the year in the Pacific time zone — are 0-12 this season in games played in the Eastern time zone. The Cardinals lead the soft NFC West by four games entering a game at former division kingpin Seattle, but are 0-3 in the East. They have two more trips there during the regular season: Thanksgiving night at Philadelphia and Dec. 21 at New England.

For East Coast trips, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt leaves on Friday at the same time and has walk-through practices at the road stadium or wherever is available at the same time on Saturday.

He kept the Cardinals in the Washington, D.C. area between the Redskins and Jets games.

"When we went to New York and Washington this year we felt we made progress, and then when we went to Carolina we played our best game on the East Coast.

"We had a chance to beat Carolina in Carolina and we didn't because we turned the ball over. And that didn't have anything to do when you leave or what your sleep patterns are."

By the way, the 2009 Super Bowl is in Tampa, Fla. At least participating teams get a week to acclimate for that.

Notes

• Optimism flows from Tony Romo's return. But is it too late?

The margin of error to make the playoffs is already razor thin. Beat the Redskins and the Cowboys surge into the thick of the wild-card race. Lose, and the team probably falls into a scramble for the final playoff spot with a handful of others that could be determined by a series of tiebreakers.

"I think a lot of different people may have gotten to a point where they feel we might not have a chance to do what we hoped to do at the beginning of the year," Romo said. "So it's exciting in a way, to have a goal that no one really sees but yourself and your teammates."

• Quarterback Chad Pennington was added to the Miami Dolphins' injury report because of a sore foot, and he's listed as probable for today's game against Oakland. The Dolphins didn't elaborate on the injury or say or when it happened. Pennington ranks sixth in the NFL in passing and has led surprising Miami to a 5-4 record.

• Denver is down three starting linebackers. Nate Webster is expected to miss a few weeks with a strained MCL that he sustained against Cleveland, the same injury that sidelined D.J. Williams the week before.

Boss Bailey, the team's other top linebacker, went on injured reserve after hurting his knee at New England on Oct. 20.