Arizooma vs. the Steel City and the Steal Safety.
PHX vs. PIT, for airline travelers. Cardinals vs. Steelers, for football fanatics. Andrew Carnegie vs. Barry Goldwater, for Phoenix and Pittsburgh old-timers. Ben Roethlisberger vs. Kurt Warner, for newcomers.
Larry Fitzgerald, the former Vikings’ ball boy, and Warner, the former grocery sack boy, led the Cardinals past the Eagles in a sanitized dome, and Troy Polamalu’s theft of a pass for a touchdown led the Steelers past the Ravens in a snowy stadium. Barely. The conference championship games were rather tedious for a while, but Philadelphia and Baltimore rallied in the second halves, and the games got fascinating.
Maybe S.B. will be OK.
How many of you picked both Pittsburgh and Arizona to be in the Super Bowl before the season?
Raise your hands. You three can lower your hands. Liars, liars, pants ablaze.
If you indeed had believed and bet (legally) $1,000 on a Cardinals-Steelers Super Bowl, at 1,000 to 1, today you would be a millionaire — albeit briefly in this economy.
Maybe, back in August, you thought the Steelers, but probably the Patriots or the Colts or even the Chargers, and likely the Giants or the Cowboys or . . . that’s about it . . . but you’d have gone with the Spotted Towhee Sparrows over the Cardinals.
Arizona was admitted to the union on Valentine’s Day in 1912 as the 48th and last contiguous state. Since then, Arizona’s never had a team in the Super Bowl. How contiguous. Alaska and Hawaii had a better chance, and neither possesses an NFL team.
Now I’m all over Arizona, despite the team’s owner, because it is Colorado’s neighbor at the Four Corners. And Pittsburgh has won the Super Bowl enough. It’s somebody else’s turn.
The Cardinals earned the NFC championship. They got up on Philadelphia, got down and got back.
Fitzgerald makes you want to pull for Arizona. And Warner. And Troon North golf course.
The Cardinals, as everyone knows, are the oldest American professional football team, with an inception as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898.
But here’s the most amazing thing you’ll read over and over about the Cardinals-Steelers matchup:
In 1944, because of World War II and because so many players from the Chicago Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers had become soldiers, the two franchises merged for the season and played at Forbes Field and Comiskey Park. The team finished the year 0-12 and was referred to as the Car-Pitts (“carpets”). The amalgamation was outscored 328-108.
The following season the teams split. Now they’re back together again apart.
What you’ll also read 5,280 times is that Ken Whisenhunt, the Cardinals’ head coach, was the Steelers’ offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh’s last Super Bowl victory and wanted to be the Pittsburgh coach when Bill Cowher walked off. Mike Tomlin became the Steelers’ coach. Whisenhunt became the Cardinals’ coach.
And you’ll read that the Cardinals’ 1925 NFL championship victory over the Pottsville Maroons was tainted, just as the Cardinals’ victory Sunday was tainted by the officials’ failure to call an obvious interference penalty on Arizona on fourth down late. It’s been that kind of season for the officials.
But the Cardinals withstood the Eagles’ scoring blitz in the second half, scored the winning touchdown and stopped Donovan McNabb, who lost for the fourth time in five NFC title games. Philadelphians boo; the Cardinals cheer.
If the Ravens could have defeated the Steelers, Super Bowl XLIII (which is either 43 or 108) would have featured two wild-card teams for the first time and two bird nicknames for the first time. But this is not the time.
Rookie Joe Flacco couldn’t hang with Roethlisberger. Flacco completed only 13-of-30 passes, unless you count the three completions to the Steelers. Roethlisberger passed for one touchdown, 0 interceptions.
So it’s Gentle Ben, who has won a Super Bowl, against Warner, who has won a Super Bowl, has risen like the phoenix and with Arizona.
The game is not the Giants against the Patriots or Brett Favre with or against the Packers or Philly vs. Pitt in an all-Penn Super Bowl or Mike Shanahan vs. Wade Phillips or Florida vs. Oklahoma.
But you’ve got the newest Cinderfellas from Arizona against the old school Steelers, and you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about Deuce Lutui and Limas Sweed.
And despite what you read, the game is not in Tampa Bay, which is a body of water, not a city.
And despite what you may hear or read, nobody picked the Cardinals to play the Steelers in the Super Bowl — unless your neighbor has a new Lamborghini.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1295 or wpaige@denverpost.com
