NFL Super Bowl Report No. 4, Wednesday Jan. 28, 2009
TAMPA — Here in Florida’s Bay Area, there appears to be one major problem with Super BowlXLIII. Other than Cardinals wideout Larry Fitzgerald’s offer to restructure his contract to keep teammate Anquan Boldin in Arizona, there is no compelling story.
Both teams are filled with nice guys. The quarterbacks each have good stories as professionals, but no one is overcoming a debilitating disease or a horrible childhood. It’s just a nice collection of former college stars who have grown up to be solid pros.
Sadly, there is also a feeling that this game will be over before it starts. Pittsburgh is a seven-point favourite today and could be an 8 or 10 point favourite by Sunday.
Obviously, somebody needs to shoot himself at a strip joint (and there are a million strip joints in Tampa) or somebody needs to get caught soliciting a hooker. Somebody? Anybody?
2) Down here on the West Coast of Florida and over in Orlando/Lake Buena Vista, you would not know the Arizona Cardinals were in this coming Sunday’s Super Bowl. This place is dominated by Pittsburgh Steelers fans.
Steelers shirts and hoodies are everywhere and it makes you wonder if either Cards fans have yet to arrive from the West or if they’re ever going to arrive at all. It would appear that on Sunday, the Cardinals will be the home team in name only.
3) You might not think these two Super Bowl Teams have much in common. The Pittsburgh Steelers, the AFC champs, are from a hardscrabble industrial town and will be playing in their seventh Super Bowl. The Arizona Cardinals, the NFC Champs, are from the hot, dry desert and will be playing in their first.
However, there is one thing that keeps these two franchises forever linked.
Way back in 1944, there was a shortage of players – and men for that matter – because of the Second World War, so the Steelers and Cardinals merged for a season and formed a team called Card-Pitt. The Cardinals were based in Chicago at the time and the teams split home games between’s Chicago’s Comiskey Park and Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.
So how good were they? Sportswriters at the time nicknamed them “the Carpets.”