Fox Sports columnist: Cardinals have legit chance at Super Bowl

Excitement for the 2016 Arizona Cardinals is growing.

In the offseason, football journalists and bloggers endlessly postulate and rank and hypothesize the upcoming season. For Cardinals fans, this might be fun to watch lately; another writer has given Arizona a nod as a Super Bowl contender.

Chris Chase of Fox Sports put forth a list of NFL teams and placed them into categories of their “*actual* chances of winning the Super Bowl” this year. The Cardinals landed in the category titled, “One of these 7 teams is winning the Super Bowl.”

Arizona Cardinals – It’s still hard to take the Cardinals seriously as a contender. It has nothing to do with the team’s talent and coaching staff, both of which are top-notch. It’s just one of those deals about the leopard and its spots. I keep waiting for University of Phoenix Stadium to disappear and the woeful Cardinals to magically be transformed back to playing in front of half-empty bleachers at Arizona State, like this was all a dream from a Kangol-wearing Cinderella-like godfather.

The Cardinals came to Arizona for the 1988 season and played 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium, making the playoffs just once (1998). Since moving into their $455 million venue in 2006, the Cards have made the playoffs four times in 10 years with one trip to the Super Bowl.

Now, Chase joins a list of analysts, bloggers and columnists who think Arizona can reach the Super Bowl again, perhaps winning it this time behind a “Kangol-wearing” head coach in Bruce Arians.

The 2015 NFC West Division-winning Cardinals went 13-3, and return with the offensive weapons that led last year’s NFL in yards. With a healthy Tyrann Mathieu and the addition of Chandler Jones and Robert Nkemdiche, expecting this team to appear in the Super Bowl a year after losing the NFC Championship Game doesn’t seem unreasonable.

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