Better late than never

If you had asked anyone at the beginning of the year, who was going to win the Super Bowl, you probably would have at least heard a few people say the Steelers.

My prediction is that very little to none would have said the Cardinals were going to make it to the big game, let alone win it.

However, it got me thinking recently about the Cardinals. How did they get here? Is this a fluke or were they really that good?

A little more than two years ago, I was working at a restaurant in the Mandalay Bay with a group of waiters who loved to gamble. I was only 20 at the time, so I really couldn’t place bets, but I would hear them talk.

But I do remember one guy who said, “I’m taking the Cardinals to win the Super Bowl. They’re the sleeper this year.”

He wasn’t the only one saying that.

Denny Green was the coach and in his third season. Matt Leinart and Edgerrin James were the apparent final pieces to the puzzle and along the best receiving tandem in the league was going to lift the bottom feeding Cards to their first Super Bowl.

Then something funny happened.

With the extra expectations, the Cardinals started to falter, headlined by Green’s almost infamous line following a meltdown against Chicago, “The Bears were what we thought they were.”

They finished 5-11 that year, Green was fired and anyone who believed that Arizona was going to be a sleeper team, started to curse the world they lived in and started questioning their analysis of football.

Bring in Ken Whisenhunt, who saw what Green had built and started working with it. 

He went to Kurt Warner, a quarterback who had fallen from the graces of the elite to lead this team and give it a steady hand at quarterback.

His first season, the team went 8-8 and finished second in the NFC West — not bad considering the previous season.
Then this season came along with nobody picking them as sleeper, nobody expecting them to do better than winning the NFC West.

The Cards went 9-7, winning the division. But after dismal showings on the east coast against the Giants and Eagles during the regular season, led everyone to believe that they the weakest playoff team in the bunch. Arizona went on to prove those doubters wrong, winning game after game and now they find themselves on the verge of winning the franchise's first Super Bowl and first NFL title since 1947.

They didn’t have the high expectations that tend to hurt teams. They played to the best of their ability, and it proved to be enough.

The talent was always there. Fans and media wouldn’t have chosen Arizona as the sleepers two years ago, if they didn’t have talent. The Cardinals have the best receiving corp in the league, a quarterback who can make the big throw and manage the game and a fresh, running game that hasn’t been used all season.
The Cardinals were the sleeper team of the 2008 NFL season, two years after they were expected to be it.

Better late than never.