We predicted last year that the 2007 Cardinals would have their best season in modern times (with 8 wins and 8 losses). Damned if we weren't on the money! And we said this success would be inspired by new head coach Ken Whisenhunt, he of Pittsburgh Steelers grit and grime as offensive coordinator of that team's championship in Super Bowl XL. Now, Whisenhunt is a shrewd operator. He used sleight of hand (trick plays) and an aged quarterback to have a respectable first season with the Cards, but do it he did! Thing is, except for incredibly bad luck (sometimes you think the team is, indeed, jinxed), the Cards would have been 10-6; Whisenhunt's boys in red and white lost to lowly San Francisco twice.
The reason the new coach had to use dinosaur QB Kurt Warner was that star-of-the future Matt Leinart suffered a broken collarbone in the fifth game of the season. But Warner played admirably (and he's played admirably in the early-going this season). This year, our prediction's that the wily Whisenhunt — with the help of a stellar defense he's put together — will take the team to that 10-6 season and a playoff berth.
Disappointed? Yeah, we know all you long-suffering fans want the team to not just get in (but win!) the Super Bowl, but who're we kidding?! The former X's & O's whiz for the Steel Curtain, no-bullshit and turf smart though he certainly is, can work only a minor miracle for this team. After all, they're the Cardinals, and there's good evidence that they're, indeed, jinxed, all the way back back to the time when they were the Pottsville Cards in 1925 and grasped tightly to a championship that wasn't won on the field ("Here's Why the Cardinals have Sucked Forever," Robert Nelson, January 11). Their dismalness over the years got the superstitious fans among us conjuring up the Pottsville Curse bugaboo. Though not up there with the Curse of the Bambino (Boston Red Sox) or the Curse of the Billy Goat (Chicago Cubs), the P-Ville Curse certainly would explain why our Red Birds have often resembled Dead Birds.