In recent years, the Cardinals never really have been a team that needed to worry about believing its own hype. The first seven seasons of the new millennium were losing ones, followed by an 8-8 campaign in 2007.
Even in 2008, when they went all the way to the Super Bowl, they were dubbed by NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth as the worst playoff team in history. Arizona won 10 games the next year, but then fell into a quarterback-less wasteland that led to the dismissal of former coach Ken Whisenhunt and the hire of current coach Bruce Arians.