The Vig

TRP took me to task for believing the hype.  I wasn’t going to spend the next seven months hopping up and down about the officials like a damned Seahawks fan who thought, like a late-90s Blazer fan, that Paul Allens billions entitled them to a Super Bowl ring.  I thought the zebras did a fine job.  It was the interception at the end of the first half that doomed my team.  They made a valiant comeback in the second half, but if they could have just scored there at the end of the first half and taken the kick-off in the second half, I think it would have been a different result.  Alas.

I can’t wait for next season to begin.  Not that I expect my team to go back to the super big game, I just miss watching them.  I miss them already.

I went out with a couple of friends Tuesday night.  We watched a five-minute piece on SportsCenter about blown calls during the Super Bowl while I ate a salad and they gorged on pizza.  I thought it was funny that I was the only Cardinals fan in the room and somehow I was the only one who wasn’t all worked up about any of the calls.

Now Will Leitch gives us this.  I was Zen with what happened.  Now?  Now, I don’t even want to talk about it.

Thanks to all who texted and Facebooked this afternoon.  Obviously I’m disappointed.  But not crushed.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this team was Tom Hanks in Cast Away.  Only they made it over the giant wave on the first try instead of really having to take time and plan for their title run.  Once the team got past Carolina, they were in uncharted territory.  The last three weeks has been all gravy.

That’s not to say I wasn’t frustrated.  The defense for the first three quarters looked a lot like the defense I’d become accustomed to this season.  They looked to knock guys over rather than tackle.  They blew a couple of assignments.  And they let an average Pittsburgh defense look pretty damned good.  On the other side of the ball, it was another typical performance.  When they showed Warner’s final stats, everyone in the room wondered how in the hell he’d done it.  Warner finished 31-for-43 with 377 yards passing, three touchdowns and a pick.  If you would have told nearly anyone before the game that would be Warner’s line, they would have said the Cards would win in a walk.  Heck, I think I would have been talked into it.

Only this was the same Warner I’d seen all season.  This offense is about him distributing the ball like a point guard and letting his teammates make plays.  Ultimately the Steelers kept everything in front of them and did a spectacular job of wrapping up.  And that was the difference.  Yeah, take away the interception at the end of the first half, and the Cards probably win.  If the Steelers tackle Fitzgerald on that touchdown catch and allow Arizona to chew some more time off the clock before scoring, the Cards win.  Ultimately it came down to Pittsburgh’s defense.  They bent but didn’t break.

A couple of other thoughts before I hit the hay:

• Springsteen.  Wow.  I didn’t see Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out coming, but it could have started no other way.  The kids in the room looked at The Boss like he was from Mars, but by the end they were dancing.  My brother texted to ask if Clarence was a man of the cloth.  I texted back that he was tonight.  It was as it should have been.  I watched it again on the Tivo at home.  Wow.  They can’t get back to town soon enough.
• The best ad.  The Doritos Snow Globe was an early favorite.  The Monster Moose and Careerbuilder.com’s Hate Work ads were both pretty good as well.  Pedigree dog food came out of nowhere with a great one.  Probably the best of the game.  Budweiser was neither funny nor creative.  And Pepsi’s just sucked.  The best ad of the day though ran during the pre-game show.  Castrol’s Dipstick ad was genius.
• Alex Flanagan, the reporter assigned to the Cardinals sideline, should have been sent back to the minors the second she invoked F. Scott Fitzgerald during her pre-game spot.  The Super Bowl is a football game, not some grand commentary on America.  Yes, it’s treated like a national holiday.  And it probably is.  But its not exactly a highbrow deal, you know?  It’s when reporters try to get too cute that they get into trouble.  Flanagan tried to make the day out to be way more than it was.  Fortunately she now works for the NFL Network, a channel seen in so few American homes, it’s doubtful anyone will ever see her again.

Update: Will Leitch captures exactly what I’m feeling tonight.

It feels all right. It feels raw, and throbbing, and palpable. It feels what it feels like to be a sports fan. It feels like I cheer for a team that matters. It feels like we’ve got some hair on our chest now. We couldn’t really compare ourselves to the Bills before, or the Browns, those franchises who have come close enough to taste the nectar. Now we can. Now we’ve had some actual suffering. It’s not just a dull slow ache. We’ve actually bled.And you know what? I’m grateful. I’m grateful for Kurt Warner, and Ken Whisenhunt, and Anquan Boldin, and Larry Fitzgerald. I’m grateful for Aeneas Williams, and Jake Plummer, and Adrian Wilson. I’m grateful that, tonight, being a fan of the Arizona Cardinals actually meant something. I’m grateful that we did not fade. I’m grateful that it didn’t just fizzle out. I’m grateful that it really hurt.

It’s starting to sink in a little bit.  I jokingly mentioned to a friend that we’d be back in another three or four decades.  I really hope it doesn’t take that long, but in my heart I know it will.  This isn’t a Cubs/loveable loser thing.  No one loves the Cardinals except for the few sentenced to walk  this path.  The bandwagoners will all fade away this off-season and move on to something else.  For those who remain, this is something completely different.  This is something I hope to remember for a long time.  The joy of watching Fitzgerald’s run.  The agony of not being able to stop James Harrison.  All of it.  Because in all likelihood, we won’t be this close ever again.

The bandwagon has become really crowded over the last three weeks.  Not so much after the Carolina game, but after they beat the Iggles, things have definitely picked up.  You can’t find a Cards hat or jersey anywhere in Portland.  People have been forced to download images from the Internet in order to make their party decorations.  But there’s one item every party in town will be missing and you still have time to snag.

A real life Cardinals fan.

It’s true!  I’m a diehard Cards fan.  Have been since I lived there in 2000.  We’re talking the Vince Tobin era!

I’ve hemmed and I’ve hawed about where to watch the game this Sunday.  Do I go to my regular bar?  Heck no!  That’s a Steelers bar!  Do I go to my buddy’s party?  At a church?  I don’t think so.  I won’t be in a very churchy place.  Do I go to the big sports bar/bowling alley?  Please.  $10 for four hot wings?  Yeah right.

No no.  I’m looking for a party with some good food and good people.  As a bonus you get to watch a real Cardinals fan weep in the joy of victory or cry the tears of defeat.  What do you say?  Tell me why your party is the place to be and you might land a real life Cardinals fan!

Are you kidding me?  I’ll take two dozen.

See you in Tampa, suckas!

HT: Will Leitch

I wish I could find the post I read the other day dissing the Cardinals selecting Levi Brown over Adrian Peterson in the 2007 draft.  Every time I hear this brought up, I want to scream.  Here are the facts:

• The Cardinals already had their franchise running back in Edgerrin James.
• James’ 2006 season sucked because the Cardinals lacked a decent offensive line.  With nowhere to run in his first year in the desert, James ended up with his worst statistical year.
• The Cardinals drafted Matt Leinart in 2006 and needed to make sure they had someone to protect him as well.  Notice Brown plays right tackle.  He was placed there in anticipation of one day protecting the left-handed Leinart’s blind side.
• Adrian Peterson arrived in Minnesota a year after Steve Hutchinson left Seattle.  The Seahawks’ ground game has never recovered.  Meanwhile the Vikings are blasting holes the size of Lake Vermilion for their backs to run through.

Had the Cardinals drafted Peterson instead of Brown, they still wouldn’t have an o-line.  What then?  What good is Adrian Peterson if he doesn’t have anyone to open up holes for him?  More importantly, the Cards cut their sacks from 35 in 2006 to 24 in 2007.  They gave up 28 this season, which was the 5th best in the NFC.  You don’t do that without an o-line.

Like Bowie over Jordan, the Levi Brown pick was correct.  You’ll never convince me otherwise.

Eat, drink and be merry, Cardinals fans.  For tomorrow we die.

Put simply, Kurt Warner must start for the Cards next season.  He has to.  And because it wont be Leinart, it’s time to take a good long look at cutting our losses and trading him.  He’s got to be good for a draft pick or two, doesn’t he?

Getting to the office this morning, my first stop was to my buddy Scotty.  He’s been a huge Broncos fan since his childhood in Colorado.  As such, he’s been through all the ups and downs of the franchise.  The lean years.  The 55-10 thrashing at the hands of Joe Montana.  And the eventual redemption 8 years later.

“How the hell am I supposed to deal with this?” I asked him, still wide-eyed from the weekend, “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“You just gotta try and keep an even keel, my man…don’t get too high and don’t get too low.”

“I’m way past that,” I replied, “that ship sailed on Saturday night.”

And it has.  No one expected the Cards to be here.  Saturday’s game was like that scene from Cast Away when Tom Hanks first tries to sail off the island, only to run into that giant wave that throws him crashing back onto the rocks of his prison.  Only instead of being thrown backward, the Cards somehow made it over the wave and into open water.  What the hell do we do now?  We, and by “we” I mean Cardinals fans, truly weren’t prepared for this.

It’s gonna be a long week.  Thankfully I have a level-headed friend who’s been there to help guide me through it.

For the record, I participate in Jack’s underdog pool.  It’s actually run by a friend of ours’, but the point is I play it.  And this weekend I took the Cardinals.  The fact I needed a home run certainly affected my decision, but I also had a hunch.  Not a big one.  But enough of one that I thought they had a puncher’s chance against the Panthers.

Unlike the rest of the country and especially the local (Scukanec) and national media, I saw probably 85% of the Cardinals snaps this year.  The only game I turned off was the debacle against the Jets.  Every other game I saw through to the bitter end.  They had a tough schedule down the stretch (at Philly on Thanksgiving night, at New England in a blizzard, and at home against (at the time) an unstoppable Giants team).  I told you a year ago this schedule would be a nightmare, and I was right.  Of course I said the Cards would be 4-12, so what do I know?

This isn’t a bad team.  Their only two glaring weaknesses this year have been the running game and tackling.  Oh God, the tackling.  Once a back gets the ball into the secondary, they can run forever.  Get a pass in there, and it’s the same thing.  If the defensive backs don’t knock the ball down, a receiver will be able to run 20 yards before anyone touches him.  And all I can do at that point is hang my head.

Somehow after the Patriots game Whisenhunt has figured out how to turn both of his negatives into positives.  The rebirth of Edgerin James has been a sight to behold.  Hightower is clearly the future down there, but Edge has given the team a lift.  One that could get them a third-rounder in the upcoming draft.  More likely it’ll be a fourth-rounder, but you never know.  And somehow the defense has taken it up a notch against two pretty good offenses.  They kept Atlanta, who were 6th in the league in total yards-per-game this season with 361,  to just 250 yards in their first round playoff game.  Yesterday they allowed just 269 to the Panthers, who average 350.  If they can continue to keep their opponents under 300 yards while scoring 20 or more points, they’ll go a long way.

Yes, I was just happy to be there yesterday.  I called my buddy Doug at halftime and told him despite how everything looked, I knew we were doomed.  I asked him to call me an hour later to make sure I hadn’t slit my wrists.  I knew what was coming.  Yet, it never did.  And as the game wore on, the Cards kept everything going.  The run.  The defense.  Everything!

I was talking with a friend of mine today about next week’s match-up.  I told him how as a Cardinals fan, we usually sit back and enjoy ourselves as fans of real teams tear their hair out.  This feeling is so weird.  Even as a Diamondbacks fan in 2001, I didn’t feel anything like this.  It’s going to be a long week.  I used to laugh at guys who didn’t change their underwear during game week.  Now I’m that guy!  I mean I’m still keeping up with my hygiene and all, but woe unto the poor S.O.B. who invites me to their place to watch the game next week.  I may not be pleasant company.