TEMPE, Ariz. — This is all so foreign to the Arizona Cardinals. They are, incredibly, the reigning NFC champions. A franchise that had one playoff victory in more than a half-century won three last year and came within a breath of a Super Bowl title.

Yet the Cardinals also staggered down the stretch in the regular season, with ugly late losses at home to Minnesota and at New England.
Perhaps the Super Bowl run signaled the arrival of coach Ken Whisenhunt’s team as a perennial contender, or maybe it was a blip of success not to be repeated by a franchise coming off its first winning season in a decade.
After all, seven of the last eight Super Bowl losers didn’t even make the playoffs the following season.
There isn’t a lot of talk, outside of the hard-core Cardinal fan base, of Arizona as an NFL title contender in 2009.
“We haven’t done anything. We were a 9-7 football team last season,” Whisenhunt said. “...We didn’t have a lot of respect going into the playoffs, so that doesn’t surprise me. Until we win consistently that’s not going to happen. So I think that we welcome that challenge because it is a chance for us to prove that we are a good team.”
Their hopes rest on a prolific passing game behind a 38-year-old quarterback and perhaps the most talented corps of receivers in the league, led by All-Pro Larry Fitzgerald and three-time Pro Bowler Anquan Boldin.
They believe their running game, with second-year pro Tim Hightower and rookie Beanie Wells, is improved.
As always, a lack of injuries is a big element in a successful season. Warner is on a string of 31 consecutive starts, and the Arizona offensive line started all 20 games last season.
The Cardinals’ aggressive but sometimes undisciplined defense, under new coordinator Bill Davis, is looking to eliminate the big plays that haunted the squad a year ago.
“That’s what we’re striving for. That’s what we were striving for last year,” nose tackle Bryan Robinson said. “Now it remains to be seen if that happens. You want to go into every year fresh with a clear mind and you have goals set up for you. Our goal is to play more consistent.”
While there weren’t many personnel changes in the offseason, there was a shakeup on the coaching staff.
Offensive coordinator Todd Haley rode his success to a head coaching job in Kansas City, and Whisenhunt fired defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. Whisenhunt will call the plays this year, while Davis was promoted to defensive coordinator from linebackers coach.
No team in the NFL allowed more touchdown passes last year than did the Cardinals, who have replaced cornerback Rod Hood with ex-Pittsburgh Steeler Bryant McFadden. The team’s other change on defense came at end, where Antonio Smith left via free agency and signed with Houston. Calais Campbell, a 6-foot-8 second-year player, is counted on to take Smith’s place.
The defense has some dominant playmakers in safety Adrian Wilson, inside linebacker Karlos Dansby and tackle Darnell Dockett, but the Cardinals’ success comes from their offense.
Warner, who signed a two-year, $23 million contract in the offseason, was tremendous in the postseason last year, throwing for 1,147 yards and 11 touchdowns in four games. Fitzgerald had one of the best playoffs of any receiver in NFL history, breaking league playoff records for receptions (30), yards receiving (546) and touchdown catches (seven).
Boldin, meanwhile, put his contract squabble aside in training camp but was hampered by a sore hamstring. When he’s healthy, he and Fitzgerald arguably are the best receiving tandem in the game.
Then there’s Steve Breaston, who topped 1,000 yards receiving last year, too.
One of the few bright spots in the preseason was the improvement in the running game. Edgerrin James is gone, making Hightower the starter. Behind him is first-round draft pick Wells, who had a strong preseason after coming back from a sprained ankle.
“If you look at just our yards per carry in the preseason (3.9),” Whisenhunt said. “I know that we didn’t spend a lot of time running the ball. We didn’t have a large number of carries, but the carries we did have were productive.”
The team sputtered through an 0-4 preseason with the first-team offense managing just one touchdown.
Whisenhunt brushed aside the results, noting that the Cardinals did not have a game plan for any of those contests. But Warner, who didn’t have a touchdown pass in the preseason, saw it as a cause for frustration, if not concern.
“We didn’t play efficient enough. We didn’t make the plays that were there to be made. That was the reason we didn’t have success,” Warner said. “Could we have maybe confused a team by game planning or throwing some other stuff at them? Yeah, possibly. But just coming down to X’s and O’s and performing and executing, we just didn’t do it well enough.”
So that leads to the pertinent questions. Can the Cardinals handle success? Is the team mature and talented enough to pick up where it left off last February and meet high expectations?
“I don’t know,” Warner said. “I mean, right now, after the preseason, all I’m worried about is getting out and playing some good football. I’m not thinking about anything beyond week number one. I don’t feel those expectations people talk about. It’s really just about playing football and going out and doing what we do and allowing everything else to take care of itself.”