In an admittedly snap judgment, SI’s Don Banks writes that the Arizona Cardinals earned the tag “most unlikely Super Bowl team of all time” by punching their ticket with a victory over the sixth-seeded Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
Given their desultory franchise history, their years of wandering in the proverbial NFL desert, their so-so 9-7 regular-season mark, and the wholly un-competitive way they played down the stretch of the regular season, I can’t think of another Super club that came out of nowhere quite like them.
My short list would include the 2001 Patriots, who were then largely viewed as a collection of blue-collar players and spare parts, led by a sixth-round quarterback; the 2007 Giants, a No. 5 seed whose title run somehow didn’t even start until a Week 17 loss; and the 1979 Rams, who were a 9-7 but veteran-laden club that had been a playoff perennial throughout that decade.
But to me, all three of those teams were in a different league than this year’s Cardinals, a club that has suffered more embarrassing losses this season than any Super Bowl club in history.
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