The Cardinals are going to the playoffs. No, the Arizona Cardinals. The football team. No really.

That’s right — those Cardinals. They’re sitting at 7-3, dominating what might be the worst division in NFL history.

The rest of the NFC West this season is a combined 7-23. Of those seven wins, four of them are against other NFC West teams. This division is so bad, I can’t even find the words to describe it.

I can only imagine the excitement amongst the 23,000 or so real Cardinal fans living in the greater Phoenix area, as the possibility exists that they will not only appear in, but actually host, an NFL playoff game.

As a young radio reporter, I covered the Arizona Cardinals beat. I was at practice every day, all of the press conferences and all of the games. I know the history of this team. I know how far from division dominance this team was just three years ago.

The Cardinals have had a winning record just one time in the last 24 years. The last time they went to the playoffs was in that one winning season. They clinched their playoff spot that year on the final play of the final game of the year. A Chris Jacke field goal led to an NFL stadium (or college stadium on loan) having its goal posts taken down. That’s a sight you don’t see in the NFL too often.

Now, this same Cardinal franchise, under the same despicable ownership, with poster boy Matt Leinart wearing a headset more than a helmet, and with marquee free agent Edgerrin James riding the pines is heading to the playoffs.

How? Are they really this good?

The answer, quite simply, is no. They are good, to be sure. They might be a playoff team in any division, but they wouldn’t be 7-3, ready to clinch. They are 4-0 against their pathetic division “rivals,” and an average 3-3 against all non-division opponents.

They got beaten all three times they traveled to the east coast, but do have three quality non-division wins. They are a good team. With Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald, they are a matchup nightmare for any secondary in the league.

They can clinch the NFC West with a win this weekend over the New York Football Giants, along with a loss or tie by Seattle and a loss by San Francisco.

That’s right, the Cardinals could be division champs with five games to spare.

Of course, the Cards are 3 1/2 point underdogs at home this week to the Giants, and may have to wait a week or two before popping the champagne, but even the biggest Cardinal hater in Phoenix (and there’s plenty of them) has to accept that it’s going to happen.

I’ve been too close to this team to root for or against them, but I can say objectively that what they’ve accomplished in the last few years is nothing short of amazing. Even without the sudden fall of the rest of the division, the Cardinals deserve credit. They could have just as easily put out the same tired team of aging free agents and under-performing draft picks and made this division closer, but they didn’t.

They recovered from the Dennis Green era and Bill Bidwill finally let his son, Michael, handle the important decision. Factor that in with the increase in revenue from their new stadium and the Cards have built a true playoff football team.

They’ve been the pick du jour for the past few seasons, but we all eventually just accepted that no matter how good they look on paper, they just won’t win.

Well, now they’ve done the unthinkable. The Arizona Cardinals have proved us wrong and put together a legitimate playoff football team. Congratulations to the Cards. They’ve given the people of Phoenix a long awaited, long overdue reason to pull for the home town team, instead of the quasi-home team visitors.

I never thought I’d see the day that a Cardinals home game was full of red, as the fans of the home team rooted for a division winning team.

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