Super surprises: Cardinals and Steelers are similar - but in different ways
Randy Covitz (MCT)
Issue date: 1/28/09 Section: Sports
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"I've said the last few years, the NFL stands for Never Figure League," said Madden, who will broadcast the game for NBC. "When you think you know what's going to happen, you realize you don't know a doggone thing."
No one saw this one coming.
Arizona, champion of a weak NFC West, lost four of its last six regular-season games by an average margin of 24.2 points per game and was an underdog in all three playoff games, including two at home.
Yet the Cardinals, whose last NFL championship was in 1947 when they were based in Chicago, became the first No. 4 seed ever to reach the Super Bowl, and unquestionably are the most unlikely team to play for the title.
"When you look back at it, it's kind of staggering," Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt said of his team's wild ride to the Super Bowl.
Even the Steelers, who won Super Bowl XL as a sixth seed three years ago, are a mild surprise. They were a second seed and had lost 31-14 to top-seeded Tennessee in the second-to-last regular-season game.
But in the playoffs, the Titans were upset by Baltimore in the second round ... Indianapolis, which had won its last nine regular-season games, was taken out by San Diego in the first round ... and Pittsburgh, taking advantage of home-field advantage, beat Baltimore in the AFC championship game and will be appearing in its seventh Super Bowl and aiming for a record sixth Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The seven trips to the Super Bowl are the second most in NFL history, trailing only the Dallas Cowboys, with eight. And Pittsburgh's five rings are tied for the most Super Bowl wins with Dallas and San Francisco.
Both Arizona and Pittsburgh are led by second-year coaches in the Steelers' Mike Tomlin, who at 36 is the youngest head coach to reach the Super Bowl, and Whisenhunt, who was the Steelers' offensive coordinator when they won Super Bowl XL under Bill Cowher.
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