Super Bowl XLIII Running Thread

Flattening out the Cardinals' season into a pure average where they have been a 9-7 team each week is silly.

And, this team would have beaten any number of past SB teams by double digits... because of Warner and his receivers.

When was the last time you saw such a trinity get pasted in a Super Bowl?

Whoever wins, either way, though, will be among the least-impressive NFL champions ever.

The Steelers are as incomplete a team as the Cardinals. There is a reason the line is less than 7.

 

Anyone see the Week 4 game in which Warner coughed up 6 turnovers in the first half? Against the Jets? Just me?

He threw for 470+ yards, but still.

 

No one is disputing that if the Steelers get pressure, it's ball game.

 

Simon, EVERY NFL team, including the eventual Super Bowl champ, turns in one absolute stinkeroo performance per season. Sometimes good teams playing badly win that game because their opponent is either to weak to capitalize or is batting the same bad biorhythms, but this is about as close to a universal rule of pro football as I have formed from decades of observation.
So if the Cards' loss to the Pats had been a singularity, I'd ignore it. But it isn't. I can't think of another Super Bowl team that has had so many 20-point plus losses and games where they surrendered nearly or more than 50 points. Once is happenstance, three or more is a trend. They are more likely to come out and stink than most Super Bowl teams.
To summarize, the Cardinals contain significant downside risk. They could win, but to me, they look like a synthetic debt obligation of a bet.

 

I can't think of any team in your lifetime or mine that scored 30+ points in each of three playoff games leading into the Super Bowl.

Can you?

 

They were a dreadful regular-season Eastern road team, , especially defensively, and especially when cursed with early starts.

Warner's yards against the Jets were 94% garbage yards, after his mates got their doors blown off in the first half.

At least they've had a few days to acclimate, and are looking at a night kickoff.



Used to be that Super Bowl winners never, ever got blown out more than once, per regular season, but that trend was broadly
established in a smaller league, boasting greater individual team depth.

 

Yes. Ask the Panthers how that went.

The Cards were 9-7, true enough.

But, I like that the stretch that ruined their record was so compressed. It's indicative, to me, of a talented team that mentally derailed as opposed to a purely mediocre one that wins one week, and loses the next.

Plus, they have scored 30+ points in each of the past four games headed into the big game... I have never seen that.

 

Simon, you made me do research. A preliminary survey indicates that only three NFL teams have scored 30 or more points in three straight playoff games. All three include a Super Bowl in the streak, meaning they were all good enough to get a wild-card round bye.
1. 1978 Steelers
2. 1992 Cowboys
3. 1994 49ers

I think it is a real stretch to think the 2008 Cards are a peer to those teams.

PS: There are a whole lot of teams that scored 30 or more in back-to-back playoff games before reaching the Super Bowl. Most of them lost their third game, from Indianapolis to the Pats in the 2003 AFC title game to the 1984 Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX.

 

I think it is MORE of a stretch to call this the worst Super Bowl team ever.

My point was, and is, NO team has been on such an offensive roll headed into the Super Bowl.

 

Find a weaker Super Bowl entrant. I'm not being combative, I think this is a good question for debate. The 1994 Chargers are about the lamest one I can think of. The 2000 Giants are contenders, and surely some of those 1980s Broncos teams have to be in the mix. The only other 9-7 team to make the bowl, the 1980 Raiders, won two straight road games to get there, which IMO is more impressive than scoring 30 plus three times straight.

 

1985 Patriots.

 

And the Chargers.

Not even close.