Same old Cardinals, even at 13 wins and three losses.
The Arizona Cardinals completed their winningest regular season in the 95-year history of the franchise Sunday, Jan. 3, with a 36-6 home loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
For fans who only know the National Football Conference western division champions since their first of three division titles in 2008 or their 2009 Super Bowl loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the loss had little to no meaning — at least in terms of its impact on the Cardinals’ playoff seeding.
But for the rest of us, hardened by experience with the first National Football League franchise to lose 700 games, the team that has gone the longest of any in NFL history without a championship — 67 years and counting — the loss is just a sign of collapse to come by the team we came to endure as the Phoenix Cardinals.
The year following the Cardinals’ last championship, they went undefeated, only to get shut out, 7-0, by the Philadelphia Eagles in the title game.
Now there is the season-ending injury to a key starter, as the Honey Badger, free safety Tyrann Mathieu, was lost to a torn ACL following an interception late in a blowout at Philadelphia.
The news is not all bad, though. If you don’t count the NFL’s newest team, the 2001 expansion franchise Houston Texans, the Cardinals are the only team in the league who have never lost a playoff game at home.
That’s right, the Cardinals are a perfect 4-0 in their friendly confines, including that last championship in 1947 and the NFC championship victory over the Eagles in 2008 that got Arizona into its lone Super Bowl.
I was there for that game. In the name of parity, I will attempt to revive that mojo beginning Saturday, Jan. 16, at 6:15 p.m. — and block out all doubt.
