It was a year full of ironic moments – New England’s Tom Brady got knocked out in his team’s first game, San Diego made an 8-8 playoff run, and Baltimore’s rookie quarterback Joe Flacco led his team to the AFC Championship. So, it makes perfect sense that the Arizona Cardinals will be playing in the Super Bowl, I guess.
Actually, it doesn’t. Not at all. No matter how many times I say it, it just doesn’t sound right in my mind.
The Steelers made the Super Bowl too, right? No big deal, it’s happened before and it will happen again.
But, come on, the Arizona?
Is it going to become some type of emerging NFC West superpower?
Warner is getting too old to start a dynasty.
Will Matt Leinart ever be able to inherit its power and successfully succeed Warners’ empire?
Warner will become just the fourth quarterback ever to start a Super Bowl game at the not-getting-any younger-age of 37 – Rich Gannon, John Elway and Johnny Unitas were the only others to do so.
The first to do it? Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts, just in case you thought Gannon was the elder of the trio.
The year was 1971 and the Colts beat the Cowboys 16-13 in Super Bowl V.
Unitas, however, was pulled out of the game – and it wasn’t because of old age.
So before we get sidetracked a little more, lets get back to the point of this all: old guys don’t belong under center in the Super Bowl, and neither do the Arizona Cardinals.
So, if not the Cardinals, then who belongs in the Super Bowl to represent the NFC?
Well, for starters, how about the Buccaneers, Bears or Cowboys?
They all went 9-7 – just like the Cardinals.
Oh yeah, they play in real divisions with teams that actual compete in that thing called the regular season.
(Interesting to note – the only other team to have gone 6-0 in their division this year was the Steelers, but they actually have a real team – Baltimore – in their division)
And six of Arizona’s nine wins came against San Francisco, Seattle and St. Louis, which combined to win a total of 13 games – Tennessee won just as many as the rest of the Cardinals division.
Essentially (now here’s the part you need to bare with me and imagine that the Cardinals have not beat the Falcons, Panthers and Eagles during a shocking playoff run, while also imagining the Cardinals divisional games don’t count and they have a 10 game schedule. Yes, I know, that’s a lot of imagining.), the Cardinals won three games and lost seven.
How in the world does a team that beat Miami, Buffalo and Dallas, yet lose to Washington, New York (Jets), Carolina, New York (Giants), Philadelphia, Minnesota and New England get to play in the Super Bowl?
Well, first you got to come from the worst division in football (let’s not pick on the AFC West today), be a franchise who is historically well-known for losing and have a quarterback who is old enough to have physically fathered rookies on your team.
Ok, it’s all starting to make sense now.
No, wait it isn’t. I’m more confused than ever.
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