Non-Winning St. Louis Teams: Could They Win the Super Bowl or World Series?

Right now, there is a very real possibility that the St. Louis Rams could make the playoffs with only an 8-8  record; they just need to beat the Seattle Seahawks in their final game. That's because they are now the division leaders in the NFC West. And if St. Louis loses, and Seattle wins, Seattle would continue into the playoffs with a LOSING record.

In so doing, the St. Louis Rams may be following the footsteps of their baseball counterpart. With an NL Central division leading, but barely winning, record of 83-78, the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals were the team with the second worst record ever to play in the World Series, and the worst record to actually win it.

That's because the Cardinals had exceptionally good pitching during the 2006 postseason that they did not enjoy during the regular season. In getting to the World Series, they defeated two teams, the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets, that they had lost the season series to.

Against the Padres, the Cardinals' ace Chris Carpenter won two games, posting a 2.23 ERA, while Jeff Weaver shut them out.  Only Jeff Suppan lost a game to San Diego.

The pennant race was a lot closer at 4-3. Chris Carpenter and Jeff Weaver did well to split their two games, 1-1, against the Mets. But Jeff Suppan, the series MVP, pitched two games with a 0.60 ERA, both of which the Cardinals won.

In the World Series, Chris Carpenter and Anthony Reyes both pitched good games that they won. Jeff Weaver pitched two games with a 2.27 ERA, but lost a game he could have won. Jeff Suppan pitched a six inning, three run quality start (4.50 ERA) that the Cardinals ultimately won.

This result was stunning, because the Detroit Tigers, the losers, had won 12 more games in the regular season than the Cardinals.

Meanwhile, in February of 2009, the Arizona Cardinals went to the Super Bowl with a relatively weak 9-7 record. They got off to a good 7-3 start, but limped 2-4 to a 9-7 finish. This was due as much as anything else to the uneven play of their 37 year old quarterback, Kurt Warner.

Critically, the Cardinals won their last game (against Seattle, giving them momentum). To get to the Super Bowl, they defeated the Philadephia Eagles and Carolina Panthers in the postseason (after having lost to both of them in the regular season), as well as the Atlanta Falcons. This made them one of a few teams to advance to the Super Bowl after three playoff rounds.

One commentator initially considered them a weak contender, but changed his mind after the three games leading to the conference crown. The Cardinals came close to upsetting the Pittsburgh Steelers, but ultimately lost 27-23 in the final minutes of the game.

Both professional baseball and football have two leagues divided into three or more divisions. In order create a "playoff", the baseball leagues need a fourth contender, which is why a wild card is awarded to the best divisional second place team. Football has four divisions, but has opted to grant two wild cards, creating a six team race in each league (with first round byes for the top two seeds).

Both the baseball and football leagues feature at least one team from each division, even if it means denying slots to other second place teams with better records than the division leaders. In general, this makes for geographical "balance."

But it could some day have the unintended effect of allowing a team to claim the grand prize (World Series or Super Bowl) while having a losing season, only because its division mates did even worse.

To get through the playoffs, a baseball team needs to win 11 out of 19 games in three series. The football playoffs feature "sudden death" through a maximum of four rounds. If the result of each of these four games were a "coin flip", a losing football team that made it into the playoffs would have one chance in 16 of winning the Super Bowl.