The Cardinals entered the final week of the season in a playoff position and ended it out of one. This is due to one of the most disastrous final weeks of the season for the Birdos in recent memory. Just to verify, here are the Cardinals records over the final week of the season since 2000:
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That does not even account for playoff odds, which paints an even better picture of just how brutal for Cardinals fans this final week was to watch (those particularly sensitive to disturbing imagery might want to scroll past this):
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13191811/cardinals_last_week_playoff_odds.PNG)
On the bright side, the team made the second half of the season interesting, which is something many fans were quite doubtful of up to that point (just look at the playoff odds graph again to see why).