Fond memories

All memories don't have to be amazingly memorable. As an Arizona Cardinals fan, I consider the Arians-Palmer era as a decent and fun one though they didn't win a championship or even make it to the Super Bowl. Cards are not quite the New England Patriots and given their checkered past, living through this era felt a lot better to me than it actually was. Cards have been to just 5 playoffs in 20 years and 6 in around 35 years. Arians-Palmer took us to 2 of those playoffs in the last 5 and had a losing season only once. So, we might as well call this era a dynasty of epic proportions and compare them to Hoodie and Brady. Life is all about context and perspective and this is practically a dynasty for the Cards fans. Both Arians and Palmer retired this week and that puts a nice wrap on this stretch. They also started together in the desert in 2013.

The high point of their combined run was obviously the 2015 season with a 13-3 regular season, a first round playoff bye, and a NFC championship game appearance. The highlight of that season and probably a top-5 moment in the history of the AZ Cardinals was the OT win against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers in a classic playoff game. That Cards' season ended in Carolina in an embarrassing fashion for Palmer. You never know which Palmer showed up and the one in Carolina was definitely not the good one. They missed the playoffs the next 2 years. 2014 had a lot of potential too until Palmer got injured. Between his injuries and inconsistency, Palmer left a lot to be desired. Arians was up and down too with his coaching. But I will still miss them both. It was a mostly positive experience with these two at the helm and I thank them for the memories.

As for the here and now, the NFL playoffs are kicking off this weekend. Parity rules in the NFL and there is always a healthy dose of churn and surprises in the list of playoff teams every year. This year's entrants are no different and even more fascinating! Some real long playoff droughts are being terminated this weekend. The Bills are in the playoffs after a staggering 18-year break. I can't believe they have not made it since their loss in the music city miracle back in the day. Their last playoff appearance pre-dates iPhones and HD TVs. Even the QB they lost to in that game, Steve McNair, is unfortunately dead already. The bad news for the Bills is, they didn't really make it to the playoffs this year either. They pulled the ultimate back-door maneuver to sneak in. Of course the Bills' fans don't care and it's not their problem that the Baltimore Ravens collapsed and lost to let Buffalo in.

And here's the even worse news for the Bills. They probably have no shot against the Jaguars, who are ending a 10-year playoff drought. Thats saying something given that they will be playing against a Blake Bortels led Jaguars team. Of course, nobody will be surprised if the Bills do win and thats saying something about Blake himself. This is not going to be a made-for-TV matchup with a lot of excitement and star power. Hope it stays close so people have something to watch in this game. The other not-so-sexy matchup sends Titans to Kansas City. The Titans are ending a 9-year playoff drought. Come Monday, they will be ready to start another drought after the loss to the Chiefs. The NFC match-ups are a lot more interesting. The Saints-Panthers is the headliner. I like the Saints in this one, though Cam and the Panthers are no joke. The Falcons @ Rams will be a good one and probably the closest contest of the weekend.

The Rams are ending a long 13-year playoff drought themselves, but it feels much shorter because they are new to LA. So, LA doesn't care about the drought nor about the Rams in general for that matter, but there will be enough bandwagon fans to join this playoff spectacle anyways. I give the Falcons a slight edge to pull off the upset here due to their playoff experience, but if they can't contain Gurley, they will be done. As always, the Falcons may win the first 2.5 quarters and then mail it in at the most inappropriate moment. We shall see. In the larger picture, all of these teams seem like nothing more than a nice bait for the Patriots. There is an explosive ESPN piece today on the palace intrigue and politics between the Hoodie, Brady, and Kraft. For most teams, this would be a major detraction. Of course for the Patriots this is probably the best thing ever. Hoodie will craft this into motivational fodder and the Pats may have just clinched their Super Bowl, though that seemed like an eventuality this season anyways.

Football is rolling already.

The NFL season kicked off in style and is off and running in full force already. We got some great games, fantastic finishes, and good story lines as always. The Carolina at Denver game on Thursday night kicked things off  with a close finish. Despite my reduced expectation for that game, it gave us fans exactly what we wanted. Trevor Siemian's play and Cam Newton's beating were the headlines from that game. Cam is an absolute baller. He had a great game despite the monster hits he suffered. Both the man and his game are large and the zebras are having problems officiating him appropriately. Some of the hits were brutal, especially for a QB, and the flags were nowhere to be found. This may change how the Panthers play Cam in the near future. They need to protect him. They should cut down on his scrambles and runs, though a lot of his hits in this game happened in the pocket. But why increase his exposure anyways? He is too important for the reigning NFC champions. Big win for Denver and Siemian. The Broncos have a good team with that defense and a running game centered around C.J.Anderson.

It's been a while since the Raiders were the top story of the week. They sure were the headliner this week as coach Jack Del Rio went for 2 and a win at the end of regulation instead of a tie and overtime. I have never seen that in the NFL. Definitely not in week 1 with a young team trying to make the playoffs for a franchise coming of several horrible years. You see such calls once in a while in college but only towards the end of the season in the NFL with real bad teams that have nothing to play for. Del Rio nailed it here and this win should give the Raiders a tonne of confidence and self-belief. Saints D is horrible and the Raiders D didn't play much better either, but the Raiders are going to truly believe they are playoff-bound after this road win. It's about time for the silver and black. Packers, Chiefs, Giants, Lions, Cowboys, and the Patriots won close and exciting games on this fun NFL Sunday.

That last game in that list between the Patriots and the Cardinals was a heart-breaker for us Cards fans. Kicker Chandler Catanzaro missed what should have been a game winning field goal. The Super Bowl dreaming Cards lost to Hoodie who came in without his pretty boy QB, super star TE, and couple of other key players and still stole a win. Tough loss for the Cards who have to be now satisfied with a good week for David Johnson coupled with a decent performance by Carson Palmer and live to fight another day. They better win next week against Tampa Bay. Dolphins almost knocked off the Seahawks, but "almost" doesn't get you a "w" in the standings. The Monday night games were duds as  Pittsburgh crushed Washington and the Rams looked so horrible that the LA fans probably want them to move back to St. Louis after just one game. The Rams made the 49ers look like world beaters. Blaine Gabbert and the Niners offense were turrible as Chales Barkley would say, but they still won 28-0. Kaep's protest is spreading as many NFL players either kneeled, locked arms, or raised their fist during the anthem even on 9/11. Peaceful protests continue. As always, injuries in the NFL blows and Keenan Allen's season-ending ACL tear was unfortunate. Poor guy can't catch a break.

Napalmered

If you are a fan of any team, that team's losses in the playoffs can be pretty frustrating. The further the team advances in the playoffs, the more the losses hurt as the expectations grow higher with every round of the playoffs and consequently, the fall is harder. And every team has to fall and fail in every league eventually except one champion. I have seen many highs and mostly lows being a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Comparatively speaking, I am not as emotionally attached to the Arizona Cardinals as I am to the Phoenix Suns. But their loss against the Carolina Panthers was still one of the most frustrating losses I have seen. Carson Palmer single-handedly lost this game for the Cardinals. He didn't lose by making a big mistake at a crucial moment, but rather by not showing up nor playing with any level of consistency or quality. The Cardinals were basically napalmed by Palmer.

The final score was a horrible 49-15 in favor of the Panthers and they seemed to dominate every aspect of this game. It's not just the Cardinals offense and Palmer that had troubles. Their defense wasn't much better either. Despite all of that, the most frustrating part of this game for me was, it was a very winnable game for the Cards. Even late into the second quarter with the Panthers having scored a couple of times and Palmer having fumbled once already, the Cards still had a legitimate shot at winning this game. David Johnson was running pretty effectively, Cards had scored once, and even forced the Panthers into a couple of 3 and outs. With less than 6 minutes to go in the first half and the score at 17-7, Patrick Peterson committed a costly mistake. He fumbled the punt return after one of the few Panther's 3 and outs and that was a punch in the Cardinals' gut. Panthers pushed it to 24-7. Peterson redeemed himself by intercepting Cam Newton in one of the subsequent possessions and returning it all the way to Carolina 22. But then Palmer followed that up right away with a break-breaking interception in the end zone - a horrible throw forced into double coverage. That was pretty much the ballgame.

The second half was quite an abuse of the Cardinals with more turnovers from Palmer. The bottom-line was, ugly Palmer showed up instead of the good Palmer we have been seeing all regular season. This game confirmed everybody's worst fears about Carson Palmer -- that he is not a big-game player, he is not a clutch performer, he makes big mistakes at the worst moments etc. He proved all of those theories right. I have always been a fan of Palmer and thought that the public perception and injuries have been pretty unfair to him. But after this game, I am a believer in all the haters. I even heard one talking head say Palmer was considered a one-read QB in USC who can be easily confused and they simplified the offense big-time during his Heisman season. The skeptics are right and he can't recover from this performance. God help the Cardinals next season.

In the AFC championship game, the Broncos pulled a Pats and outsmarted them with a brilliant game plan. I thought they had the Pats confused the entire first half on both sides of the ball. They have incredible talent on defense and got to Brady at will. But the way they bottled up Edelman was brilliant and they also had a great plan on offense. Now we have the sheriff in his final Super Bowl. He has an opportunity to walk off into the sunset as a champion like his boss Elway. Broncos will face the Panthers in what should be a close Super Bowl. Brady has dominated Manning 11-6 in their personal series, but that includes a 2-3 record in the playoffs, including losses in their last three postseason meetings, all in the AFC Championship Game. Seems like Brady beats Manning except in the AFC Championship games. Goes to show how all these stereotypes that the media builds are just that - stereotypes. Football is the ultimate team game and even a Brady or a Manning need a team around them, not to mention home-field to win.

We will definitely miss the Brady-Manning rivalry. That was a long-running, high-profile, yearly event, the kind of which we may never see again.

Instant Masterpiece!

There are instant classics and then there was the Cards-Packers game last Saturday night. I don't think the term instant classic does this game justice. This was an instant masterpiece. The game featured 2 crazy hail-marys at the end of regulation to send it to OT and an exciting 75-yard play to start the OT. This little commentary will tell you all you need to know about this game. I was re-watching the 4th quarter and with around 4 mins to go in regulation, with all of the end of the game and OT drama yet to play out, analyst Cris Collinsworth already says "I have never seen anything like this game!" And then all the mayhem happened! The reason he said that was because the game already had some wild twists and turns. There was a pick-6 by Patrick Peterson called back in the first half. Also, when Cris made that comment, the Cards had just scored a go-ahead TD where Carson Palmer's pass was tipped in the end zone and somehow the ball ended up in the hands of Michael Floyd. Thats a pass that could have easily been intercepted if the ball had bounced a different way. That drive also featured a couple of passes by Palmer that could have and should have been intercepted and returned to the house the other way.

Palmer didn't have a great game. He was up and down and kept the Cards fans on pins and needles the entire game with every pass he made. But at the end of the night, he made enough great plays to win the game. Fitz was his amazing self as always and dominated the OT to single-handedly carry the Cards home. The big 75 yard pass play in OT was a beauty by both Palmer and Fitz. Aaron Rodgers made some amazing plays as well in that last drive to send the game into OT. I can't believe he completed two hail-mary TD passes at the end of games this season. For all the enjoyment this game gave us Cards fans, if the result was any different, this would have been one of the most painful losses. I am not sure if I would still be calling it a masterpiece. A-Rod completed a 61 yard pass on 4th and 20 from his own end zone with 50 seconds to go in regulation. I encourage you to do a search on Google for "4th and 26" and you will see a play from the 2004 divisional round where Donovan McNabb completes a 4th and 26 pass to Freddie Mitchell to keep a late-game drive alive against the same Packers. The Eagles forced OT and eventually won that game. To this day, thats a signature play and a painful memory for the Packer fans. If the Cards had lost this game, us Cards fans would have had multiple A-Rod plays painfully etched in our memory forever. But the Cards survived those plays behind Fitz's own signature moves.

For the second playoffs in a row, Aaron Rodgers lost in OT where he didn't even get to touch the ball. As excited as I am about this game and happy that the Cards won, I agree with Clay Matthews that they have to change the OT rules. Few years back, NFL changed the rule to make sure a field goal in the first drive of OT didn't end the game right there. That change was good, but didn't go far enough.  Now, a TD in the first drive in OT ends the game. The logic being, football is a team sport and the defense has to do it's job and prevent the TD to be able to continue the game. I don't agree with this and both offenses deserve at least one shot. NFL has a hard salary cap and super star QBs like Aaron Rodgers are paid handsomely, every dollar of which they richly deserve. This means such teams may not have enough money to build a strong defense as much as they may want to. Point being, different teams have different philosophies of team building and different strengths and weaknesses. If a team doesn't have a good enough defense, today they will probably lose the game if they lose the coin flip in OT. Thats not right.

Forget whats right and whats wrong. Purely from a business and entertainment perspective, how does it make sense for the NFL to decide a big playoff game in overtime with Aaron Rodgers, one of the legendary players in the history of the league, standing on the sidelines and not even being allowed to participate? Thats like Cleveland Cavaliers playing the OT of a game 7 in the NBA playoffs and the result being decided by the bench players of the Cavs with LeBron just standing on the sideline and not getting a chance to touch the ball. NFL better fix this. I will add this though. The college type OT rule is better, but it is also flawed. In that scheme, the team playing second has a huge advantage in that they know exactly how much to score and are in 4 down territory the entire way. The team playing first on the other hand, has to pick between a field goal or a TD as they get close to field goal territory. May be we should just have a 10 minute OT period and let the chips fall where they may at the end of it.

This is a good topic for the off-season, though I doubt if the NFL will touch this. For now, the Cards march on and don't have to explain a bunch of crazy events from this game. I loved Bruce Arians throwing on 2nd down towards the end in an attempt to completely keep the ball away from Aaron Rodgers. The throw fell on the ground and they ended up giving A-Rod an extra 35 seconds. A QB like that can do a lot of damage, whether you give him 90 seconds or 120 seconds. So I was fine with them going for the kill there. But if they had lost, that would have been the talk of the town. It turns out it was Palmer's call based on what he saw at the line. Arians would have still had to explain that call, plus he would not have thrown Palmer under the bus if they had lost. All of this is moot now since they won. Now they get to play the scary looking Panthers in Carolina. Panthers dominated the first half against the Seahawks and barely held on to win the game in the second half. Broncos and Pats won at home too. There were 4 good games last weekend, but the other 3 pale in comparison to the masterpiece theatre that was the Packers-Cards featuring the prestigious thespian Larry Fitzgerald.

Bring on the Cards-season, AKA post-season!

There is always what you think is going to happen and then there is what you want to happen. The title of this article probably give it all away, though I am not sure what part of that is what I think versus what I want. My Super Bowl pick is Arizona Cardinals over the New England Patriots, a matchup supposedly America also wants based on a recent poll on the most exciting potential Super Bowl even over the Seahawks-Pats possibility that was awesome last year. I may be biased in favor of the Cards, but they are definitely capable and poised to make a deep run this post-season. It won't be a walk in the park - it never is, especially if they play like they did in week 16 against the Seahawks, but they didn't have much to play for then and they did show us they are way better over the previous 15 weeks. So I am going to cut them some slack. As for the Pats, they have been in a funk too, but I can't imagine the other AFC wannabes unseating Brady and Belichick this season. Thats my prognostication, but thats neither here nor there this weekend because the Super Bowl at Levi is a month away. The first round of the playoffs is kicking off today and these two teams are not even playing this weekend.

The wild card weekend is the best weekend of the NFL playoffs in a lot of ways. We get two games on Saturday and two on Sunday. The divisional round also feature 4 games, but then the well-rested big boys come out and blow fools out sometimes. Wild card weekend on the other hand usually features good, but not great teams and they typically give us closer games. This year's version lacks a little bit of sex appeal due to some new teams and injuries, but the games may be even crazier than usual. This is illustrated by the fact that all four road teams are favored to win this wild card weekend! I am not a gambling junkie, but I really doubt if the lines look like that often. Let's see if Vegas got it right this time, but here are my picks.

Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans: This is probably the toughest game to pick. It involves two teams that have turned their season around and are rolling into the playoffs, but the Chiefs' transformation is a lot more impressive. Neither team has a hall of fame QB and that always makes it hard to dissect, but I pick the Chiefs to win this one on the road. We don't get to see Arian Foster or Jamaal Charles, but we will see a good game here.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals: Andy Dalton has been ruled out of this game and I am not even sure if it's a bad thing given his past post-season performances. All kidding aside, the Bengals will miss him and the Steelers should steal this one. Big Ben and Antonio Brown need to be on their A Game, but they are capable of an A+ game any given day. Ben has not consistently been A+ this season, but has been good enough to put the fear of god in most opponents. They are actually a trendy Super Bowl pick due to that reason. I won't go that far, but the Steelers should win this AFC North matchup, a division which more than any other seem to throw an intra-division wild card contest year in and year out. Those 3rd rivalry game of the season are always fun.

Seattle Seahawks @ Minnesota Vikings: Last week, the Vikings went into Green Bay and rudely snatched the NFC North title from the Packers. What do they get in return? A home playoff game and a lot of money for their owners, but possibly a loss to the surging Seattle Seahawks. They probably would have been better off losing a close game and the division last week and going back into Green Bay this week for a wild-card matchup on the road. The Seahawks look scary good on offense and their defense has not dropped off that much. Russell Wilson has absolutely played at a MVP level the last half of the season and he has reinvented this offense behind his arm and Doug Baldwin's legs. I doubt if any amount of Minnesota cold can stop them. I want the Vikes to win, but Seahwaks will win this one.

Green Bay Packers @ Washington No-Namers: Why are the Packers, who started the season 6-0 and have Aaron Rodgers playing QB, going into Washington to play a wild-card game on the road? This defies explanation except the obvious cliche "football games are won in the trenches." The Packers offensive line has been offensive much like their opponent's nicknames that I try to avoid. This O-line has made Rodgers look shaky and Eddie Lacy look fat! I can't believe I am saying this, but Rodgers is going to lose to Kirk Daniel Cousins this weekend. The Washington players and their leader Cousins might be penny pinchers and cheap off the field (what a cute story that is), but their offense has been prolific and confident on the field. I can't see this Packers team dominating them on either side of the ball. Rogers need to play at a hall-of-fame level to win this one and he absolutely can, but I am picking the No-Namers to win.

There you have it. Four more teams will be gone fishing in a couple of days and lets start the countdown to the Super Bowl.

NFC Best

Parity is the word that makes NFL great. Lots of good things come out of parity, though it does have some negatives like it enables mediocrity across the league more than greatness in some teams. But one of the things parity leads to is last-to-first and first-to-last transformation of teams overnight. As rosters are bunched together so closely on the talent-scale, an addition here or a subtraction there of a couple of talented players or even some solid experience can alter the NFL landscape dramatically. This is why we see a whole bunch of new teams making the playoffs every season. The best example of this phenomenon this year is the NFC West. This conference was the worst just 2 years back. Seattle won it with an unheard of 7-9 record in 2010. A rookie quarterback, Sam Bradford, in a bad team almost won that division that year. Then in 2011, Seattle moved sideways, St. Louis took a step back, and Arizona went nowhere like they have been doing since Kurt Warner hung up his cleats. Jim Harbaugh grabbed the division by it's throat and made the niners the team to beat.

But this season, the NFC West has been the best division in all of football. Everybody expected the niners to be a Super Bowl contender. The seahawks were expected to be slightly better.  We knew Jeff Fisher will make the rams better, but not right away and we didn't know what to expect of the cardinals. Fast forward to the here and now, this division has the most wins in all of football - 15, with 3 teams tied with a 4-2 record at the top before the Thursday night game. The niners are still an elite team, their embarrassing loss to the New York giants last weekend notwithstanding. I am not even sure if there is anything embarrassing at all in any kind of loss to the Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning led giants. They are still the most under-rated coach-QB combo in the league. The seahawks and the cards are much better than originally expected and the rams have improved dramatically, at least on the defensive side. And all these teams will have some staying power through the season since they are all built on solid defense. All the offenses in this division are shaky, but defense wins championships and defense doesn't disappear easily either.

The niners-seahawks game tonight took on an added meaning because of the records and how difficult this division is expected to play the rest of the season. The game was a defensive struggle as expected, but the physical running game of both teams had some success against the other defense. It was fun watching Marshawn Lynch and Frank Gore run wild on great defenses, but that's what winning teams do. Frank Gore ended up with the better numbers and the niners won the game, but this game is going to repeat itself multiple times this season as the niners, cards, rams, and seahawks defenses lock horns. This was the niners first division game of this season, though the seahawks are already done with all of their road, divisional games. Nice win for the niners before they go in to the desert for a Monday night showdown with the cards. This game was a little bit of a letdown for the Seahawks after their impressive win over Tom Brady and the Patriots, but this season is still going according to plan for them for the most part. Their quarterback Russell Wilson is no joke. I have been waiting for him to lose his job to Matt Flynn, but he is a fighter and is here to stay.

In baseball, yankees lose, the-e-e-e yankees lose!

Kolb in da house!

The only thing better than football being back in our lives is having a QB back in our team. As a closet Arizona Cardinals fan, I am used to mediocrity and failure more than success and excellence. Kurt Warner changed all that for a couple of years, but then the Cards went back to where they belong once Warner retired. As bad as Matt Leinart was and as much as I hated him, it still was a bad idea to let him go last year just because they had no other option. As soon as the lockout was lifted this week, there was a flurry of activity around the league and I was glad the Cardinals triggered one of the bigger moves right away. They traded Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a second-round pick to the Eagles for Kevin Kolb. They then signed him to a 5 year 63 million dollar deal. Big money for a new QB.

Did they pay too much for Kolb? Probably. Is Kolb still unproven for the most part? You bet! But you are nothing without a QB in this league. You might as well stay locked out. And the QBs don't come cheap. You either pay for promise or pay a rookie similar money and wait for a year or two hoping he turns out to be a Sam Bradford and not Alex Smith or Matt Leinart. I would rather pay for promise and somewhat of a known entity like Kolb instead of gambling on a rookie in the draft who has taken just as many NFL snaps as me. It was also important they did this now because Larry Fitzgerald is a free agent next season and there is no way he resigns without a good QB. So I am perfectly fine with this trade and this is one more reason I am looking forward to this NFL season.

The Eagles were involved in the other big splash too. They signed Nnamdi Asomugha as if DRC and Asante Samuel were not enough in that secondary. They now have 3 stud corners and given all that talent on offense, they are now promoted to a title contender status - may be even ahead of the Packers. They just need to take care of DeSean Jackson and they will be a great team this season for sure. The Raiders, the other team I like, are a losers here but they never had a realistic shot at retaining Asomugha anyways. The Patriots are working the phones as always. They got themselves 2 huge gambles and if it works out, watch out for the hoodie. Lets hope Chad Ochocinco and Albert Haynesworth are not a "programmatic non-fits". I absolutely love all this NFL chatter.