A funny thing happened when the NFL playoffs began. The Arizona Cardinals, most people’s pick as the worst of eight division champions, discovered a rushing attack they’d been missing most of the season. In doing so, they’ve taken an already explosive offense and turned it dominant.

The Cardinals benefited throughout the season from playing in a weak NFC West division, sweeping six games against those foes. They struggled outside the division, especially in games on the east coast.

That’s why, heading into the playoffs, many figured Arizona would lose the first home playoff game the organization had hosted since the Cardinals were in Chicago in 1947.

Even those who thought they’d get past Atlanta in the first round had to be shocked by their dominance in dismantling Carolina Saturday night.

So let’s take a look at some numbers.

In the two playoff games, Arizona rushed 28 times against Atlanta and 43 times against Carolina. During the last eight games of the regular season the Cardinals reached 20 rushes just twice, defeating St. Louis 34-10 on Dec. 7 to clinch the West and three weeks earlier when they defeated Seattle on the strength of 24 rushes.

During the other six games, the team rushed 19 times twice, winning both of those games – including the regular season finale, during which the coaching staff rediscovered a frustrated-but-rested Edgerrin James, who did reach the 100 yard plateau.

The other weeks, they ran 15 times (47-7 loss to New England), seven times (35-14 loss to Minnesota), 10 times (48-20 loss to Philadelphia), and 15 times (37-29 loss to the New York Giants).

While I will admit I haven’t seen every minute of these Cardinals games, I would guess that there are a couple of common sense conclusions to derive from these statistics.

Understandably, the Cardinals have won the time of possession battle in all four of the 10 run-heavy games (playoffs included) involved in this analysis, indicating that the emphasis on the ground game is helping keep the other teams’ offenses off the field – as a balanced offense is supposed to do..

It also appears to be keeping the Cardinals opportunistic-but-inconsistent defense fresh and sharp. Notice, in the games in which Arizona had 20-plus rushing attempts the defense gave up 13, 24, 10 and 20 points, or an average of 17. When the Cardinals didn’t have 20 rushes, they gave up 21, 47, 35, 48, 37, and 24 points, for an average of 35.

The other thing that impresses me is that when the Cardinals rush 22 times or more, it doesn’t detract from its potent passing attack – in fact it seems to enhance it.

Including the playoff wins, Cardinals quarterbacks have never thrown fewer than 32 passes in those rush-heavy games – important when you have weapons like Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Steve Breaston running routes and Kurt Warner tossing the pig.

It’s oft-said that come playoff time the teams that win are the ones that can run the ball and the ones that can stop the other teams from doing so. The improbable run of the last couple weeks has the Cardinals hosting the NFC Championship game against Philadelphia next weekend. And the stretch coincided with am increased emphasis on utilizing Edgerrin James, Tim Hightower and J.J. Arrington, which does nothing to disprove that adage.