Another offseason, and another Kevin Kolb bonus sitting squarely in the middle of the Cardinals’ plans. Last year it was a $7 million roster bonus due to Kolb that essentially forced the Cardinals to excuse themselves from Peyton Manning’s table. This year, it’s a $2 million roster bonus that Kolb is owed if he’s on […]
This morning I wrote that I agreed with what NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reported about the Cardinals; that they were very pessimistic the Niners would ever trade Alex Smith to a division rival. That column had the shelf life of day-old bread. Right after it posted, the Niners traded Smith to the Chiefs. Clearly the Cardinals […]
I’d like to think I’m an optimistic guy. I own several ‘Life is Good’ t-shirts to prove it. But when it comes to the possibility of the Niners shipping Alex Smith to their division rival the Cardinals, I tend to agree with NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport’s assessment of the Cardinals own opinion on the subject: Very […]
An Alex Smith trade is “effectively complete”? Matt Barkley won’t get past the Arizona Cardinals at number 7 in the draft? Unfortunately, a day after Ben Affleck delivered the only genuine acceptance speech of the whole Oscar telecast, my internal B.S. meter is a little out of whack. Too bad. This time of year it […]
The “Uptown” sign has been mothballed and donated to Goodwill. Major League Baseball is trying to sell its own script of brotherly love: The NFL has the Harbaughs? We see your DNA and raise you the Uptons. No team underwent the offseason face-lift the D-backs did, and they have the scars to prove it. The […]
Who is in the mood for an analogy or two or three? The Suns are like the restaurant I used to eat at every Friday night. I go back now and the food isn’t very good, the building is all run down, and the health code violations are stacking up. I don’t want to eat […]
This tweet Friday was spot-on accurate: If upton gets traded today @gambo620 @burns620 @burnsandgambo heads will explode — Mike Raley (@MikeHoncho48) January 18, 2013 Between Bruce Arians, Ray Horton and Alvin Gentry, there were plenty of comings and goings. Fortunately nothing exploded. At least not yet (its 3:50 p.m. as I write this, Upton is […]
There’s nothing wrong with being the second choice. Harrison Ford wasn’t the first choice to play Indiana Jones; Tom Selleck was. Both Tom Hanks and Kevin Costner turned down the role of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption. Thank you very much, says Tim Robbins. Keanu Reeves can also send a thank you note to […]
Have you ever been fired before? I have and to be frank…it was misery. Easily one of the worst days of my life. I can remember every specific detail of the day, including the movie my wife and I went to that night; the Harrison Ford suckfest “Six Days Seven Nights.” The film broke halfway […]
It would be a better column if I could remember the exact date. I could cheat and look it up but I won’t. So the story alone — absent of the hard-core facts — will have to do. At halftime of Game 1 of the 1996 NBA Finals between the Seattle Sonics and Chicago Bulls, […]
When you make your living talking about sports, through the sheer nature of quantity, you’re going to ending up saying some things that you don’t really believe will come to fruition. You discuss hypotheticals. You play devil’s advocate. Suffice to say, most of these what-if scenarios you end up discussing never happen. So last week […]
Pretty soon we’ll get a break from all the negativity. Then we’ll see if real change is in order. I could be talking about the election. I could be talking about Cardinals football heading into the bye. The two were woven together all Sunday morning. While candidates were busy attacking each other, this football team […]
I’ve always been impressed with the movies that can take several different stories, with several different characters and somehow intertwine them throughout the course of two and a half hours. I’m talking about movies like “Traffic” and “Crash” and even “Pulp Fiction” (in fact if you Google “movies with intertwining storylines” you get this). How […]
Usually I’m the movie guy; always at the ready with a line, character or scene from a flick that tries to sum up the typically misguided point I’m trying to make. Today though, the Arizona Cardinals have me quoting Springsteen: “You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above if you want […]
I recall an interview with director Quentin Tarantino, who listed his 25 favorite movies since he became a director. The Matrix rightfully made the list, but he almost kept it off. His reasoning was that the two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, were so horrible that they minimized the greatness of the […]
When he spoke the words, Ken Whisenhunt did it with such certitude; it could convince even the most skeptical of souls: “It’s not luck…it can’t be luck.” Clearly the coach subscribes to Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”) and not Donald Trump (“Everything in life is […]
It seems history was on everybody’s mind at University of Phoenix Stadium. Right next to me in the press box, our own Vince Marotta is furiously finding the top TV shows, songs and movies from the last time the Cardinals started a season 3-0; 1974. (It was, by the way, a damn good year for […]
Once upon a time I guaranteed the Cardinals would not — could not — win a playoff game in Carolina. I boldly and foolishly claimed that, if proven wrong, I would literally eat crow. When a caller suggested that not only would the Cardinals win but they would go on to host the NFC Championship […]
On Friday I said that I had never had such low expectations for a Ken Whisenhunt coached Arizona Cardinal team (the first year doesn’t count of course). Did the Cardinals opening win over Seattle put me in a revisionist mood? No. Not yet. Were this a trial, and I was the jury, an argument based […]
Am I shocked? Am I surprised? I am happy. I’m happy the Cardinals went with John Skelton as their starting quarterback. His selection feels right and natural. Comfortable. He never grabbed the job as forcefully as we would’ve liked, but between his arm strength, pocket poise and size it seems to me he gives the […]
It was a surreal moment as I made my way to the Sun Devil Stadium press box; I couldn’t recall if I had set foot in the building during the entire Dennis Erickson era. Sun Devil fans can certainly relate. Outside of a Holiday Bowl run in year one and the horrendous stumbles of the […]
The Cardinals quarterback competition is like getting lost in the woods. We’ve come all this way only to find we’ve been walking in a giant circle. John Skelton (not Jonathon Trent Dilfer) was the night’s biggest letdown. He completed 4-of-10 passes for 41 yards, tossed a pick on an overthrow and has a QB rating […]
There can’t be much left to decide, can there? There was never any doubt for me that the Cardinals game against the Raiders boiled down to a referendum on Kevin Kolb. While there were certainly other issues that required attention (defense, running game), the focus was on Kolb. This was going to be his night […]