One reason every team can win Super Bowl 52
By John Buhler
Super Bowl 52 (LII) will be at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2018. Here’s a reason each NFL team can win the Super Bowl next year.
As the 2016 NFL season winds down, and more and more teams fail to qualify for the playoffs with each passing week, it’s time to look ahead into 2017. Not to the 2017 NFL Draft, but to Super Bowl 52 (LII), which will be played at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis in early February.
It’s insanely early, but it’s never to early to dream about a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl Champions. Some cases are harder to make than others, but here’s one reason all 32 NFL franchises can win Super Bowl 52 next season.
Arizona Cardinals: the 2015 NFC Championship Game was two years ago
The Arizona Cardinals had a lot go wrong in 2016. Arizona’s passing game shriveled up at times thanks to a porous offensive line and a declining Carson Palmer. It didn’t help that the usually strong Cardinals defense looked worse than it has at any point during the Bruce Arians era in the Valley of the Sun.
Arizona will miss out on the playoffs this year, but keep in mind the Cardinals are only a year removed from playing in an NFC Championship Game against the Carolina Panthers. Much of that 2015 roster should be back in Glendale in 2017. Who’s to say that Arians, Palmer and company can’t channel all that was good from 2015 and use it to be great once again in 2017?
The Cardinals will play a second-place schedule in 2017, as the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers are absolute grease fires. Arizona might be the worst of the second-place teams entering 2017, and Arians will let his team know it.
The Cardinals have a strong running game with David Johnson as the bell-cow back. Johnson, along with defensive stars like Tyrann Mathieu and Patrick Peterson, offer this team a solid foundation heading into 2017.
General manager Steve Keim will benefit from picking in the middle of the 2017 draft. A few carefully selected draft picks and the right free agent or two could have Arizona back in Super Bowl contention in 2017. They may have lost their mojo, but there are good reasons to think the Cardinals will find it again in 2017.