Philadelphia cornerback Asante Samuel celebrates after intercepting a pass against the New York Giants in the Eagles' victory last Sunday. Philly heads to the desert to take on the surging Arizona Cardinals in the NFC title game this Sunday.

TEMPE, Ariz. — Accustomed to life as a pro football bottom feeder, this NFC championship game stuff sure is strange to the Arizona Cardinals.

A litany of losing that seemed ingrained in a franchise that hasn't won a league crown since 1947 has made Sunday's conference title game almost surreal.

Sure, the Eagles being a part of it isn't strange: This is Philadelphia's fifth trip in eight seasons. But the Cardinals?

"It just shows that's why you play the game," Arizona defensive end Bertrand Berry said Thursday. "Every time people talk about this matchup should go a certain way, if it did, it would be a sitcom. There would be no reason to play it.

"We're in a good position now. We earned our way to this point. Despite what everybody else thought about us, we're here and we're not going anywhere."

Well, B-Train, you want to go to Tampa and the Super Bowl, right?

"Sure. Everybody is relishing this. I'm definitely relishing this moment," he added. "It's something that I always thought could happen, but we actually had to go out and make it happen. That's the most gratifying thing about this, we're actually going out and making it happen."

The Cardinals have occupied a variety of divisional basements representing Chicago, St. Louis and now Arizona. Until coach Ken Whisenhunt changed the culture in the Valley of the Sun, bringing in a positive attitude and winning ways from Pittsburgh when he was hired two years ago, the Cardinals were a laughingstock.

Heading into this season, coming off an 8-8 record, Arizona still was an afterthought, rated behind perennial NFC West winner Seattle and supposedly-rising San Francisco.

And even after the Cardinals (11-7) were the first division winner in 2008, they fed into the doubters with mediocre — or worse — performances in December.

Among their worst losses was a 48-20 whipping at Philadelphia. So when the playoffs began, the Cardinals were underdogs at home against Atlanta.

They won.

In a rematch of one of their only decent showings in the eastern time zone, at Carolina, they blitzed the favored Panthers last Saturday.

Now, they are underdogs again to the Eagles, who have won at Minnesota and at the Meadowlands, knocking off the defending champion Giants to get within one step of the Super Bowl.

"The game is here, it's in our home," said Berry, knowing the Cardinals are 7-2 at University of Phoenix Stadium this season and 13-4 overall under Whisenhunt. "We've earned that right, as well, so we don't make any apologies to anybody. If you don't want to watch us, you don't have to turn on the TV. We're going to play the game whether people watch it or not."

Viewers also might wonder how the Eagles managed such a strong run after coach Andy Reid benched quarterback Donovan McNabb in a loss to Baltimore that followed a tie at lowly Cincinnati. Or how Philly (11-6-1) even sneaked into the postseason parade considering all the help it needed.

But here the Eagles are, in the first conference title game featuring teams with only nine regular-season victories.

"Just because of the situation of how we got into the playoffs and us being a six seed, a lot of people didn't expect much from us and we've kind of surprised some people there," Eagles running back Brian Westbrook said. "But now we are kind of opening people's eyes a little bit and that's what we want to do as we continue — to continue to open people's eyes, see the things that we are able to do offensively, defensively and as a team."