Joe Starkey

They beat the Bengals, the Seahawks, and I think the JV Ravens or maybe Cleveland.

I don't remember.

Yeah, it was the Ravens in the final game.

That wasn't nearly like this.

Not nearly as surprising a run to the playoffs.

How about the 2006-07 Penguins?

They went from 58 points to 105, but we all knew that team was on the rise.

Anybody could see that.

The roster up and down was loaded with first-round studs.

It was just a matter of time.

Maybe not that dramatic.

I mean, my God, they almost got better by 50 points, but just a very different team in a very different time.

in their history so that doesn't match this the 97 98 penguins under kevin constantine maybe it seemed like it was the end for whatever that penguin era was mario was gone and they were coming off an okay year where they barely made the playoffs that was a surprising team i'll acknowledge that kind of like this team it had a lot of cast offs and a couple stars and that was it you know

The 2013 Pirates, I mean, they did break a 20-year losing streak.

But again, they'd been knocking on the door for a couple years.

The core of that team, not the whole team, but the core of the team was young.

It was up and coming.

They had collapsed the previous two late seasons.

You could have predicted they were going to make the playoffs and have a good year.

Very obviously a young team on the rise.