When A Bird Invades the Super Bowl.

I'm relaxing from the music discussion for a bit since the music industry itself is having its "relaxing period" through January. Next week, Animal Collective's new record Merriweather Post Pavilion is coming out in stores, and I plan to go in-depth on that. But for now, I shall be fixated on sports, since my favorite sport, uhm...football, is winding down its season.

I have to admit, the way the season has fallen has left me feeling a bit apathetic. None of the four teams seem worthy as a Super Bowl team to me, which has made me cheer the most for the one team who had the least chance of surviving. That team is the Arizona Cardinals, who have magically wandered into a major chance to make their first Super Bowl in history. Mind you, they have to beat the team that sportswriters have already crowned the NFC Champs, the Philadelphia Eagles. But what's the interest of the Eagles here? Most common fans would say Donovan McNabb, but I don't see why I should be so vested in McNabb. I don't know, being benched for a half doesn't seem like it suddenly turns the path of a quarterback around to him being amazing. Plus, it's a poorly built angle based on one mediocre game that led to a surprise hot streak to end the season. I don't get it.

Meanwhile, Arizona's more fascinating to me. They are statistically and logistically the weakest team out of the twelve teams that made the postseason, as even the San Diego Chargers weren't a totally weak team at 8-8. While they have a solid offense, they have roughly one defensive player that I remember by name -- this being Cardinals cornerback Adrian Wilson. They got beat by 40 points by a team not even in the playoffs (the 11-5 New England Patriots) and sucked for a majority of the season, only getting into the playoffs by virtue of being in the worst division in a major pro sports conference in the NFC West. So by all definitions, they should not be here at all and should get shellacked by the Eagles on Sunday.

Well, let's hope to god they don't. And here's why.

The Cardinals have the real comeback story of the year in Kurt Warner at quarterback. Kurt Warner is currently 37 years old. After becoming an NFL MVP twice, he got cast aside. He was considered too old to be a genuine starter, and was only hired in Arizona in the first place as a lead-in to big deal youngster Matt Leinart. It's weird how things work, because Warner has been the man who has almost exclusively taken the snaps over his run in Arizona, and it's his solid performance that has gotten Arizona to this point. And considering that quarterbacks in their late-30s are becoming more known for torpedoing their franchises, (*cough* the man who wears #4 for the Jets *cough*) Warner's all the more impressive. And he's not even doing anything that radically different than his quarterbacking style from the past few seasons, his team just happens to win slightly more than 50% of their games now, rather than slightly less than 50%.

I have no comment on the AFC title game, because I frankly don't care. Joe Flacco is a horrible name for a quarterback, and he seems like a pedestrian who does okay at quarterback and does his job while putting up mediocre pedestrian numbers. Did I say pedestrian enough? Pedestrian. Anyways, I don't really want to see him quarterbacking a Super Bowl, and I don't want to see the 2005 Joe Flacco -- or Big Ben or whatever -- do it, either. I guess I hate young kids at quarterback. Those ungrateful kids, thinking they can start with great defenses and ride by on that success. Why in my day, we had Troy Aikman...who did the same thing, but he was interesting. I just don't see why them kids would cheer that Flacco kid. Them Cowboys in the Super Bowl was so much simpler...