"Go Kurt! Part Deux" or "Huh??"

Cardinals 33, Panthers 13? What? At Carolina?? These are the Football Cardinals, right??

I had a gig last night at a private party in a country club. In the distance I could see a T.V., which had the Cardinals/Panthers playoff game playing. I could see pretty much who had the ball, where they might be on the field at the time, and a very vague sense of what was going on. But I was way too far to see any screen rolls or running scores.

And I saw my man Kurt. A lot. And I mean a lot. I don't know what the time of possession margin was, but it must've been huge. I saw Jake Delhomme cringing after an interception (I didn't realize until well after the game was over Jake pretty much single-handedly lost the game by his lonesome by throwing five picks altogether).

But I was worried. I saw one Cardinal drive stall out with a field goal, and then another. I saw a Panther touchdown. And I had visions of a 7-6 Panther lead, and the Cardinals doing their best to one-up the Titans (who earlier that day had squandered opportunity after opportunity), and letting Carolina hang around, only to pull the game out. Then I saw a Cardinal receiver on a reception, getting tackled at about the four or five, but s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g to get the ball over the end zone line. I never saw the call on the play, for I was called on to play (a solo over a blues in E, or some such).

Then I saw the score in the 3rd quarter (27-7, apparently the halftime margin). Who knew? Who knew?

Watch out for the Cardinals next week in the game to get to the Super Bowl. My feeling after last night is that this team has come to the belief, somehow, some way, that they can actually win the game they are playing. That happens to a team sometimes...Hey, why can't we win it? Don't see any reason why not--let's go and get it done. No one expects them to win. I think teams in this mode don't necessarily expect themselves to win (e.g., Patriots of last year--they expected to win every game). It's different--I think they just don't see necessarily why they have to go out and meet expectations and lose--why not just win this next one? And the next one? And so on. This is what happened to the baseball Cardinals when they won the World Series in 2006. They limped into the playoffs, but suddenly were sort of healthy, and figured, why not win this game, this series, the next series, the whole enchilada?

So watch out. I don't think these football Cardinals expect to win. But I think they haven't also gotten the message they're supposed to lose: "What the heck, we're here, we've got football uniforms on, we've practiced and watched the films...what's say we just go out and score more points than the other guys?" And who better to lead them than Kurt Warner--I think we tend to forget that the Super Bowl winning Rams weren't supposed to go all the way either, even deep into the playoffs. But somebody forgot to tell that to weepy Dick Vermeil, "Mad Mike" Martz, "Marshall, Marshall, Marshall" Faulk, the Reverend Ike Bruce and that HyVee stock boy they had at QB for the fallen Trent Green.

Keep them away from anyone associated with the Chicago Cubs.

Rams-blings

Marc Bulger should demand to be traded. Now. I don't know if he should do it publicly or privately, although I think he's smart not to talk about his benching publicly, as then his trade value might be diminished if he is branded a "problem" player.

The Arizona Cardinals are on St. Louis TV before the Rams inevitable crushing at the hands of the Bills later this afternoon. And there is our old pal, Kurt Warner, still playing for the Cards. He's been through a lot, and I can't say I always was confident in his playing (relative to Bulger's abilities or otherwise). But I think all Kurt has ever wanted to do was play ball. He wants to get well paid, too, I'm sure, but he strikes me as more of a throw-back (no pun intended), in that really, bottom line, he just wants to get in and play ball. And he may not be Johnny Unitas, Peyton Manning or Bart Star (or even Kurt Warner, circa 1999-2000). But he is still at least moderately effective most of the time, still may fumble a lot, but also brilliant at times. Good for Kurt. I am happy for him. I really am.

One thing that has been consistent with the Rams, even in the glory years of 1999 to 2001 (with the good blip in 2003 as well)--they've never protected the quarterback. Warner got pounded, as did Bulger (not to mention our old buddy Trent Green, the guy starting for Bulger today who went out because of a devastating sack in pre-season '99 that paved the way for the former Hi-Vee grocery clerk). If Warner had stayed with the Rams, does anyone doubt that he'd have retired years ago from too many concussions, too many aches and pains (and maybe worse) to the body? We've let Bulger just get bloodied up, and yes, while he has not been effective this year (and a lot of last), it is just not reasonable to ask or expect anyone to get blistered and still be effective throwing the ball.

So for Bulger to preserve his career, he should do what Warner did--run as fast as he can from the Rams to preserve his body and his brain. Warner's decision was tougher--he went from a winning organization to a perennial loser (or pretender). But the Rams are just a stinky football team now, probably the worst (or certainly in the bottom 3) in the NFL. Why stay?

Run, Marc. Run fast. Before it's too late for you.