Arizona Cardinals: America’s lovable loser
Michael Jasper
It may be easier for Brett Favre to stay retired, than it is for someone to be a die-hard Arizona Cardinals fan.Every season seems to be splattered with heartache, gut-wrenching losses, excuses and controversy.
It seems that there comes a point in every Cardinals fans life when they consider cheering for another team.
One that does not consistently disappoint.
How green those pastures look over there for those Patriots fans.
And yet, after 20 futile years in Arizona the Cardinals have become the lovable loser that everyone cheers for at the end of a movie.
Die-hard Cardinals fans, or eternal optimists, who will rant about how Jake Plummer threw 24 interceptions in 1999, or insist that if the Cardinals would have won a Super Bowl if they could have signed Joe Montana in 1993 are few and far between, but who honestly isn’t secretly rooting for those “Cardiac Cards”?
Think about it, nobody hates or has a reason to hate the Cardinals, they have won so few games in the past 20 years that no team is truly concerned about the Cardinals becoming a juggernaut of a team.
Yet, nearly every year sportswriters, experts, and analysts will list the Cards as their “sleeper team” even when their senses tell them not to.
They do this because they are silently rooting for a team that has spent years in the basement of the NFL.
Yet, the Cardinals are slowly becoming an underdog that many are beginning to cheer for.
Call me an idiot, but take notice during a FOX halftime show when the commentators are recapping earlier games,
Terry Bradshaw always seems to have a little excitement and surprise in his voice when he reports a Cardinals victory.
On Oct. 16, 2006, the eyes of the country were watching the Monday night game between the Cardinals and the Chicago Bears.
Everyone was rooting for the Cards as they went into halftime with a 20-0 lead, but after a tumultuous meltdown in the second half that left Cardinals fans in tears and resulted in a Bears 24-23 victory the nation caught a glimpse of what us Cardinals fans have felt for years.
Snatching defeat out of the claws of victory.
People always ask me “Why are you a Cardinals fan?” maybe I just like the color red, or I enjoy suffering, but I really have no final answer.
I just keep waiting for that light at the end of a tunnel, and it’s been a really long wait.
