The 5 worst NFL teams to ever play in a Super Bowl

I almost feel bad about including the 2008 Arizona Cardinals. Their improbable run to the Super Bowl is the type of stuff you dream of as a kid, hoping your favorite team does the impossible. At 9-7 as the No. 4-seeded team who won an atrocious NFC West, this team massively overachieved to even get to play in Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa. We can’t believe they almost won it either!

Six of the Cardinals’ nine regular-season wins in 2008 came against division rivals. I mean, you gotta get wins when you can, but how did this team even get to a Super Bowl? Well, they beat the Atlanta Falcons in Matt Ryan‘s rookie year by six points in the Wild Card round. Then, they went into Bank of America Stadium to clobber the Carolina Panthers. It got even weirder from there.

With the top three seeds eliminated in the NFC, the Cardinals hosted the No. 6-seeded Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship. With momentum on their side, Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and the rest of the Cardinals won by a touchdown to face Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl down in Tampa.

Though the 2008 Cardinals are one of the worst teams to get to a Super Bowl, this game remains one of the best in the 54 years of this championship game. If not for two miraculous touchdowns, the Cardinals would have hoisted one of the most improbable Lombardi Trophies of all time. No Super Bowl team overachieved more than them, but they were not a good football team in 2008.