The Arizona Cardinals history is not great.

In fact, since moving to the desert you barely needed your second hand to count the number of above .500 seasons for the team (six).

If you include .500 seasons the Cardinals have 10 in their Arizona history. 32 years, six of them winning seasons.

That’s why when you look through the history of the Arizona Cardinals it’s easy to pick out the best team that never won a Super Bowl.

That was the task set to us by the mothership of SB Nation, what was the best Arizona Cardinals team to not win a championship?

The answer for me is easy. It’s the one that got away. It was the best team, with the best defense, with the best coordinator and coaches. It was the team that should have been the NFC Champions and represented the NFC in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots.

This was the year for the team, but then Carson Palmer blew out his knee and it was over.

The Arizona Cardinals sat at 8-1, 6-0 with Carson Palmer at the helm. Their one loss was when Drew Stanton was hurt in a game against the Denver Broncos and Logan Thomas played.

It’s a team that with Palmer healthy for six games averaged 26 points per game and a defense that only gave up 17 points per game.

They may have even been the Philadelphia Eagles with Nick Foles if Drew Stanton stayed healthy.

With Stanton starting the Cardinals were 5-3 but that includes the Denver game where he played only half.

If Palmer is healthy for the entire season the Cardinals are the team to beat in the NFC. They have the defense to hang with anyone and an offense that only got six games together. They had the savvy, would likely have had home field advantage throughout the playoffs… including the Super Bowl.

The 2014 Arizona Cardinals will be the greatest “What if” in the teams history until Kyler Murray leads this organization to a Super Bowl. Then they’ll be the forgotten one.

However, until that time comes we will always remember the 2014 Arizona Cardinals as the best team that never won a championship.