But getting back to the Cardinals… when a depressing franchise like this finally gets to the big game, it’s always exciting for me as a sportswriter because I get to write about something new. Consider that their opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers, are in their SEVENTH Super Bowl. Nothing against the team or the city, but from a historical perspective, everything and anything has already been written about them. The Cardinals, on the other hand, is that rare organization that has been around since before the inception of the NFL, but has very little to show for it in the ‘Win’ column. This is even more exciting than an expansion team making it, because there is a long history here already—a history of almost total incompetence. Who wants to read about Joe Greene and Terry Bradshaw for the millionth time when there are nuggets about Timm Rosenbach and Buddy Ryan to be unearthed and examined?

I suppose a good place for me to start is what I wrote about Arizona in my 2007 NFL Preview (and we now can be certain that previewing the NFL is a waste of time):

It’s the 88th season for this franchise, which can best be described as “not particularly storied.” Their new coach is a guy named Ken Whisenhunt, former offensive coordinator for the Steelers. That makes him the 36th head coach in team history. Thirty-six! On average, the Cards hire a new coach every 2.44 years. Start making plans for early 2010, Ken.

Well, Whisenhunt will probably get a contract extension after this season, but could you blame me at the time? If there had been one thing as certain as death and taxes, it was the Cardinals finishing in third or fourth place. Call them Detroit Lions West. Last year they scrapped to an 8-8 record and second place before 2008’s 9-7 juggernaut. And let’s examine the 2008 season a bit, shall we? This is a team that got smoked by 40 points by New England in week 16. Philadelphia hung 48 on them in a Thanksgiving win. Arizona did score 35 on the Jets… but the Jets returned the favor for 56. The Cardinals won the NFC West, probably the worst division in football, by two games. In so doing, they scored one more point than they allowed. This team is a gossamer’s thread better than mediocre.

Now they’re in the Super Bowl against the franchise nearly synonymous with that game, a club gunning for its sixth Lombardi Trophy. David versus Goliath? Not quite. The Cards are not 1-15 pushovers looking to take down the world champions. They’re good. Sort of. Sometimes. Sometimes they’re terrible. And they are taking on Excellence. If there were ever a Super Bowl that could be billed as Salieri versus Mozart, it’s this one: LXIII.

When you look at this team’s history, you’ll see that mediocrity was usually the best it got. The Cardinals are, along with the Chicago Bears, one of two remaining charter members of the NFL from 1920. The franchise has two NFL Championships, although one, from 1925, is considered questionable at best: The Pottsville Maroons finished with the best overall record that year (when no championship games were played), but league president Joseph Carr gave the title to the Cardinals when it was discovered that Pottsville had allegedly played in an unsanctioned exhibition game with Notre Dame. Whatever the legitimacy of the claims, the Cards’ first championship was completely by default.

The second was in 1947, when the Chicago Cardinals defeated the Eagles at Comiskey Park. Since then, the team moved to St. Louis, won a couple of division titles (but no playoff games) in the ‘70s, moved to the Phoenix area in 1988, cobbled together a winning season in 1998 and upset the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs. Since then, their most notable events were tragically losing a former player in Afghanistan, and the Dennis Green press conference meltdown. In the span of 60 seasons, they had won one playoff game, and now they’ve reeled off three in a row.