If their team loses to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII, Arizona Cardinal fans can thank Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News for it.
The torch really has been passed now. The best player in the NFL plays for the Arizona Cardinals, and his name is Larry Fitzgerald. He’s the reason the Steelers will not become the first franchise to win six Super Bowls this time around.
The Cardinals, leaving the Detroit Lions as the only team to participate in all 43 seasons without reaching a Super Bowl, will become the 18th franchise to win their first.
These Cardinals aren’t the best team in the NFL, and they weren’t anything close to it during the regular season. But suddenly their defense stops every team’s running attack. Suddenly, their secondary that got beat up so often makes all the right plays.
Kurt Warner is playing as if he’s 27, not 37, and the biggest reason for that is a game-breaking and game-changing receiver that the Steelers will not be able to cover.
It has been six decades since the Cardinals won a title and four decades since I decided as a kid they were going to produce a superior product than the Cowboys.
Needless to say, I spent a lot of years being wrong on that one.
That’s why it feels so good now to be right.
After Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution jinxed the Falcons by stating that they would beat the Cardinals in the wild card round three weeks ago, I warned Gary Myers of the New York Daily News that he crimped the Giants by claiming there was no way the Eagles would beat the G-Men in the divisional round.
And now this – Cowlishaw, a former Cardinal fan, is doing the same thing to ‘Zona for the Super Bowl. NFL columnists are 0-2 this postseason when they write an article claiming one team will emphatically beat their opponent. Now Sir Jinx-A-Lot the III is about to make NFL columnists 0-3 in the postseason.
Looks like I’m going with the Steel Curtain when I make my Super Bowl prediction next week. Thanks, Cowlishaw.
