Someone clearly shit in Charlie Pierce's Wheaties this morning. He really hates the Cards! Yes, it is true that there is an embarrassing, Ashcroftian, Let-the-Eagle-Soar tendency to glorify the game of football as a cultural exemplar of AMERICA. Yes, it brought us that subliterate protohuman John Madden. But:
[The Cardinals] are in the position that they're in because the NFL rigs its season worse than any carny rigs his wheel. For all the macho posturing of its principal propagandists, between the jiggering of the schedule and the conniving of the draft and the socialistic revenue schemes, and the desperate grab for any mechanism that will flatten out the differences between really good teams and really bad ones, the NFL is the league that comes closest to the biddy soccer league philosophy of making sure that everyone gets a trophy.Would he rather the NFL look like MLB? What differentiates the NFL from other American professional sports leagues is that it is a league, and its efforts at parity are, I suspect, appreciated by fans. The truth is that there are still teams (My Beloved Steelers, for instance) who regularly perform with excellence, season after season, who may have the odd 8-8 or 9-7 year, but whose organizations operate with consistency, professionalism, and aplomb, just as there are teams (say, the embarrassing Cincy Bungles), who do just the opposite because of poor coaching and poor management, although from time to time they manage a decent season. Sure, Arizona is a fluky team to be ravaged and destroyed by My Beloved Steelers, but were it not for seasons like this, every damn year would look the same. Despite their miserable performances at Foxborough and elsewhere, the Cards got to the big game just like any other team: by winning their playoff games. Whaddareyagonnado?
Meanwhile, if Charlie Pierce wants better coverage, he should turn off the damn TV. My Beloved Steelers, for instance, are covered on the radio by the great team of Bill Hillgrove and Tunch Ilkin, with the delightfully wacky Craig The Wolfman Wolfley as the sideline reporter. Any time I happen to be in another city on a Sunday in the season, I turn on the local game, and am almost uniformly impressed with the quality of local radio NFL broadcasts.
15 comments:
Hey, as an Iggles fan here in Fraternadelphia, I'll give it up for the Cards. They made the adjustments they had to make after getting pasted at Thanksgiving and deserve to be in the Superbowl.
Despite rooting for the 3rd most evil team in professional football, I still love you, ma-a-an.
The thing that kills me about the Cards is their name. Other team mascots and names evoke a rugged working class aesthetic (49ers, Steelers, etc.), or raw animal savagery (Bears, Bengals, etc.), mythical power (Giants, Titans, etc.). Even the Dolphins, while not intimidating, are an intelligent and crafty animal.
The Cardinals stand alone.
"Someone clearly shit in Charlie Pierce's Wheaties this morning."
yeah no kidding. I read it earlier and thought the same thing.
Actually, traditional soccer leagues are probably the closest to whatever Charlie Pierce feels would be fair. Each team plays each other twice, home and away, and the best one after the season is the champion. There's no salary cap or revenue sharing (other than TV rights), so the biggest teams are almost always the best.
So you end up with a league like England's, where only three clubs have won the league every year for 13 seasons now. It's quite...aristocratic.
The press is full of frustrated Patriots fans who are bitter that two AFC teams can't play in the Super Bowl.
can't my man charlie get a little love from ya'll for this?
"This, of course, ignited another outbreak of hot and steamy Favre love from the easily smitten television press corps, so we have the Cardinals to blame even for that."
A sportswriter shook by the Cardinals.
A shameful sportswriter.
Cardinals 31
Steelers 24
"3rd most evil team"?
I'm struggling to think who is in front of them.
What's fun about the NFL apologists is that these are some of the same most ardent America-is-the-Free-Market-Capital-of-the-free-world dudes.
The Pauls' wet dream has long been to create a league where all teams are 8-7 or 7-8 going into the final week of regular play.
MLB also promotes mediocrity, but not at this level.
Cards, based on their wrapping up their weak-ass division early could have gone into the Playoffs with a losing record. At the least they should have been the lowest seed, and not hosted a home game in the first round.
Say what you will about the BCS, they get the seeding of the top 12 teams right. The NFL does not. Nor does it care to.
That said, neal has it right: the Cards not only will cover the spread, they will win outright.
Ken W. has the Big Dummy's number.
Sorry Ioz.
Mike
Typical Patriots blowing Boston writer. "The Pats beat up the Cards in week 15", never mind that Arizona had already sewn up their playoff spot and so had nothing to play for at all in that game.
So Arizona got the benefit of a weak schedule and succeeds we're supposed to look down on them. NE got to 11 wins thanks to a schedule that gave them 8 games against two of the crappiest divisions the league's seen in years and we're supposed to admire them. OK, Charlie.
I swear, the next reasonably informed or intelligent article I see from a Boston sports writer or fan will be the first.
I much prefer the open steppe, with a falcon at my wrist and the wind in Larry Fitzgerald's hair.
You're absolutely correct about the high quality of local radio broadcasters of NFL games and their superiority to TV announcers (Phil Simms a noteworthy exception).
There are several reasons for this, including greater familiarity with the home team and less motivation to show off to a nationwide audience. But the biggest factor is this: If you're listening to a football game on the radio, you're a hardcore fan, and the announcers are appropriately smart and insightful. On TV, the announcers dumb it down for the lowest common denominator (and which we see to an even greater degree at the Super Bowl).
Whereas a radio announcer will point out that Polamalu was freed up to rush the quarterback by Aarom Smith's dropping back into coverage, and that this is the essence of the zone blitz, the TV announcer will simply blather about what an animal Polamalu is, as if it's simply a matter of will. The radio announcer feels a liberty to teach his listeners, but a TV guy fears being too "technical." Hence, John Madden says "Boom" and is pronounced an announcing genius.
Someone clearly shit in Charlie Pierce's Wheaties this morning Actually it was Brett Favre who played poorly enough to lose to Miami which eliminated the Patriots of Why God is Like Tom Brady or whatever the fuck the name of the book Pierce wrote is.
The Ravens radio announcers are worse than almost all TV announcers, sad to say. Watching without sound is fine, if boring. The other Maryland team's announcers (Huff and Jurgensen) are great.
The Steelers are the most hated team in my house, but I can understand your affection. 24-13 Arizona.
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