The best last game

And then we came to the end.

On Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers will meet in Tampa for the forty-third Super Bowl; a middle-aged man will use song to encourage the citizens of the world to strap their hands across his engines; countless party hosts will attempt to fix pony kegs that are in fact not broken.

At which point there will be no football for twenty-eight Sundays.

ESPN talking-heads, six-foot sub enthusiasts, and TiVo salesmen are preoccupied with this notion that an Arizona/Pittsburgh meeting is not the “best” game the NFL could showcase. For folks whose livelihood depends on a high scoring, poorly officiated game between two teams from cities synonymous with offbeat sandwich toppings, this is understandable. For the rest of us, though, this doesn’t need to be the “best” game—it just needs to be the last game.

The Best Last Game.

And that’s what this game is. Arizona isn’t a particularly good team, and probably doesn’t deserve to be in this spot—as Chuck Pierce of Slate argued so convincingly earlier this week—but they are. And while nobody is sleeping on the high-powered Cardinals, many people certainly are “Secretly Sneaking Off To The Carport To Smoke A Bowl” on Arizona.

There are 2.5 reasons why this is a mistake:

1. Larry Fitzgerald
2. Clancy Pendergast
3. Kurt Warner

The Steelers are roughly the same team they were Week 1, with an improved offensive line and short-yardage back. Unfortunately, that’s a team with iffy CB play and a QB prone to being rattled by exotic blitzes. And throwing the ball and blitzing the QB are the two things Ariozna does scary-well.

I can’t tell you what to do Sunday, but please, be safe and try not to be involved in any Couple Fights. Also, watch out for these folks:

GARY RUSSELL

Back before the University of Minnesota decided to give up football, head coach Glen Mason (the college football equivalent of the dad in “Rachel Getting Married”) used to attract top talent with the promise of a domed stadium and classes where you didn’t have to know how to read. One of these players was running back Gary Russell, who in two years at UM split time with Marion Barber and a prelapsarian Laurence Maroney. Speaking as somebody who watches an ungodly amount of Big Ten football, there was no player more terrifying over those two years—Michael Robinson was more explosive, Brett Basanez was more of a FLAT-OUT-COMPETITOR, and Joe Thomas altered more game plans, but every time Russell got the ball, I would flip out like a four-year-old when the Child Catcher shows up in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” The guy was a hoss—Glen Mason was the only one who could keep him under 100 yards. He’s currently better than any RB on the Arizona roster. Tomlin and Arians need to get him ten touches.

RYAN CLARK

Not to get into a whole Redskins thing on you, but Dan Snyder refused to match Pittsburgh’s 4yr/$7million offer for Ryan Clark after the 2005 season. Instead, he gave 7rs/$35 million to Adam Archuleta. Adam Archuleta! The man whose incompetence single-handedly led to the Arch Deluxe being discontinued at all DC-area McDonalds. Who is running this franchise??? Yes he got Gibbs to come back, but other than that, Matt Bowen’s near-decapitation of Trung Candidate in the ’03 training camp is still the high-water point the Snyder era.

CLANCY PENDERGAST

They may be Facebook friends, but there is no love lost between Mike Lombardi and Cardinals D-coordinator Clancy Pendergast (who, it should be noted, looks like Terry O’Quinn’s character in “The Stepfather”). There’s a very special segment of my AT&T bill devoted to incredulous Mike Lombardi text messages about Pendergast’s defensive alignments. Mike’s thesis, as I understand it, is that it’s not practical to field a defense comprised entirely of 6’9 cornerbacks or 5’7 linemen. I dunno, I think it’s why Clancy might secretly be a genius. Why can’t somebody apply Leachian principles to the defensive side of the ball? It’s not like the Cardinals have the talent, other than Adrian Wilson, Karlos Dansby, and Darnell Dockett (and maybe Gerald Hayes and Antrelle Rolle). Imagine how bad they’d be without Pendergast. Pendergast’s exotic looks are a new challenge for the maligned Steelers O-line

LEFTWICH/LEINART

With Roethlisberger’s head/shoulder injuries and Warner’s Parkinson’s, there’s maybe a one-in-three chance one of these former top-ten picks sees time. If this happens, it will be the most heroic cameo by a backup QB since Tony Banks’ brief appearance in 2001. So, who would you rather have? The kneejerk response is Leinart, since he doesn’t throw like somebody from the 20s, and his forty time didn’t start with an 8. But Leftwich already one won game for the Steelers this year (on Monday night in DC, no less), and, as somebody who watched the Pats/Cardinals game, I can safely say, if you think dead-rat litigant Todd Haley hates Anquan Boldin, you should see him tear into Matty Ice. Kurt Warner’s long-lost brother is NOT PLEASED! Plus, Leftwich apparently wants to come to DC to challenge Jason Campbell for the Redskins starting job, which is just adorable.

            10 Songs To Rock Your Super Bowl

            1. ‘Sweet Disposition’ by The Temper Trap

            2. ‘Silver Tiles’ by Matt and Kim (**NOT THE WEAK SAUCE ‘LIVE AT LOLLAPALOOZA’ VERSION. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!**)

            3. ‘Xavia’ by The Submarines

            4. ‘I Said I’m Sorry’ by British India

            5. ‘Unknown Legend’ by Tunde Adebimpe

            6. ‘Raised by Wolves’ by Foxtrot

            7. ‘The Underwood Typewriter’ by Fionn Regan

            8. ‘Black Sand’ by Jenny Lewis

            9. ‘The Heart Is The Place’ by Goldrush

            10. ‘Sing Me Spanish Techno’ by The New Pornographers

MITCH BERGER/BEN GRAHAM

Our good friend Stefan Fatsis wrote “A Few Seconds of Panic” a great book about his time posing as a place-kicker in Broncos training camp. What I’ve never asked Stefan is why he thought being a FG kicker was the best way for a 40-something sportswriter to infiltrate an NFL training camp. Say what you want about field goal kickers, but it’s an ethos, man: they come over from Europe (or one of the Dakotas), play for nineteen teams, and eventually settle down to a lucrative life writing neocon genre fiction. Other than somebody like Mike Scifres pulling the occasional Person from Porlock-act during a big game, it seems as if punters are getting worse. Berger and Graham are absolutely terrible. Tomlin and Whisenhunt should be scouting the Punt, Pass & Kick competition for an eight-year-old to replace these guys.

MEDIA DAY

Covering Super bowl XL, Chuck Klosterman opined about the notion of media day-as-circus “If the circus was really like media day, it would be less popular among school-age children.” Indeed, modern media day is only really intriguing for those good folks who have never seen a Puerto Rican transvestite question Mike Tomlin about how he was able to square his Cover-2 tendencies with Dick Le Beau’s 3-4 scheme. FASCINATING. But not nearly as interesting as the time Willie Gault solved a murder at the 1986 media day.

MIKE TOMLIN

The backlash against Tomlin was inevitable, what with the high-fiving and not-looking-silly-in-a-puffy coat. The logic being, if he doesn’t call plays and they’re not running his defensive scheme, what is he really doing? Mike Lombardi can explain to you the day-to-day duties of the NFL head coach (including a thrilling chapter on ‘Art Shell & the Art of Locking Yourself Out Of Your Office’), but it seems to me Tomlin has mastered the art of coaching the position of his expertise (improving the undermanned Steelers secondary), timeout management, and the punt/go-for-it decision. The best coach not named Belichick.

Enjoy, I’ll be back next week for a wrap-up.

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