Why Do You Follow the Cardinals?

[kerouac9]

Since this next month is as off as the NFL offseason gets, I thought we might take a little time off from hating on Graves, Plummer, Boston, Section 11, etc. and reflect on the team a little bit.

I was thinking about why I love this team, and was wondering why others did, as well. I love the football in general, and the NFL in particular, but I like a lot of different teams, and for a number of different reasons. Once I started thinking about it, I found:

I like the Falcons because I like the players. Vick, Kearney, Brooking, Dunn, even Finneran's all right in my book.

I like the Steelers because I like the history of the team, the fact that they ran the 3-4 before anyone else in the modern era, they've had the same coach for forever, and they have cool unis and helmets.

I liked the Bucs because they played nasty D and ran the ball. They had the coolest Unis and stadium in the NFL (C'mon, the pirate ship?) Then they got Brad Johnson and benched Shaun King, did Dungy they way they did, and then Gruden came and brough Michael Pittman with him, and I don't really like 'em anymore.

I love the Cards because I love the team. I don't really care about KVB, or Bryan Gilmore or Kasper, or Jeff Blake or Emmitt Smith or Marcel Shipp. They're all right players, but I can't really get behind them, because I don't really think that they're all that good. I like the potential of guys like Fisher, Bryant, B. Johnson, A. Boldin, Big, and A. Wilson, but it's hard to really get behind a player that hasn't really done anything or lived up to the hype.

I love the Cards because I love the team. I followed them when I was just a kid, and rediscovered them during that dream 97 season. I like playing with a team that's consistently bad in Madden, and knowing that they're (usually) better than billed. Yes, the Bidwills are some of the worst owners in the NFL, and every year we talk about how this or that indicates that they've turned the corner, but every year we talk about how they need to be different again. But they're the home team, and you watch them, and you pray every July that this might be the year.

That's why I love the Cards. What about you?

 

[arthurracoon]

I was a Bills fan in Buffalo
I'm a Card's fan in PHX

I still follow the bills
I will always follow and love the Cards

 

[arthurracoon]

Originally posted by kerouac9
you pray every July that this might be the year.

YOU GOTTA BELIEVE!!!

 

[40yearfan]

I've always rooted for the under dog and I can't find a dog more under than the Cardinals

 

[Assface]

I like all of the polls. POLLS ROCK!!

 

[SECTION 11]

It was the hometown team, at first.
Now, even if I moved, it's too late. It's Cardinals all the way.
Season tickets were the first thing I bought when I graduated that wasn't beer.

I don't have any gradiose tales of being a fan since I was a kid. I can't talk Cardinal football with my 84 year old grandma like I can the Huskers.
I'm a newbie. Only six years (?) into the thick of it, which for all intents and purposes means going to the all the games and facing the "horrible reality of this program" head on.
But, I'm also there every game despite how brutally miserable it might appear to some.

I can't be brought down. I don't know why people even try.
If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. So to me the record is secondary. It doesn't make them any less frustrating, but I just don't really care enough to let it get in the way of cheap comedy.
Well, that and the fact that bandwagon fans are losers.

I don't drive the bandwagon, but I do rotate the tires occasionally, and I change the oil every 17K miles.

 

[denverbirdfan]

because my dad took me to see lomax to roy green bombs at busch stadium. nothing was better than a st. louis come from bewhind win against the cowboys! can we suit neil up again?

 

[40yearfan]

Originally posted by SECTION 11
I don't drive the bandwagon, but I do rotate the tires occasionally, and I change the oil every 17K miles.

I hope you treat your car better than that.

 

[Krangodnzr]

I started going during the Buddy Ryan Era.

I was a young teenager, and I actually (trout slap ) liked the Cowboys. I went to the Cowgirls-Cards game where we thoroughly got our butts kicked. The whole underdog thing kicked in and I've loved them ever since.

 

[Ryanwb]

Originally posted by 40yearfan
I hope you treat your car better than that.

My mother in law once went 3 years with out changing her oil...I finally changed it for her and the stuff looked like black maple syrup, super thick.

After I saw that car take abuse like that and still run, I bought one....Honda baby!!

 

[Krangodnzr]

Originally posted by kerouac9


I love the Cards because I love the team. I don't really care about KVB, or Bryan Gilmore or Kasper, or Jeff Blake or Emmitt Smith or Marcel Shipp. They're all right players, but I can't really get behind them, because I don't really think that they're all that good. I like the potential of guys like Fisher, Bryant, B. Johnson, A. Boldin, Big, and A. Wilson, but it's hard to really get behind a player that hasn't really done anything or lived up to the hype.

Oh, but Thomas Jones is just soooo much more talented than Jones? Just kidding Kerouac!

But you actually like Warrick Dunn? I'm kind of a closet FSU fan, and I can stay that I don't really see what is the big deal with him. Sure he has decent speed and hands, but other than that he really is a mediocre player and the Falcons overpaid him badly.

 

[AzCards21]

Originally posted by SECTION 11
It was the hometown team, at first.
Now, even if I moved, it's too late. It's Cardinals all the way.
Season tickets were the first thing I bought when I graduated that wasn't beer.

I don't have any gradiose tales of being a fan since I was a kid. I can't talk Cardinal football with my 84 year old grandma like I can the Huskers.
I'm a newbie. Only six years (?) into the thick of it, which for all intents and purposes means going to the all the games and facing the "horrible reality of this program" head on.
But, I'm also there every game despite how brutally miserable it might appear to some.

I can't be brought down. I don't know why people even try.
If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. So to me the record is secondary. It doesn't make them any less frustrating, but I just don't really care enough to let it get in the way of cheap comedy.
Well, that and the fact that bandwagon fans are losers.

I don't drive the bandwagon, but I do rotate the tires occasionally, and I change the oil every 17K miles.

And there is the answer!
Thanks for typing it out 11.

 

[arthurracoon]

Originally posted by SECTION 11
It was the hometown team, at first.
Now, even if I moved, it's too late. It's Cardinals all the way.

Exactly.

 

[jmt]

Genetic disease. Dad was a Chicago Cardinal fan and he passed it down.

GBR!

 

[Cheesebeef]

Originally posted by SECTION 11
It was the hometown team, at first.
Now, even if I moved, it's too late. It's Cardinals all the way.
Season tickets were the first thing I bought when I graduated that wasn't beer.

I don't have any gradiose tales of being a fan since I was a kid. I can't talk Cardinal football with my 84 year old grandma like I can the Huskers.
I'm a newbie. Only six years (?) into the thick of it, which for all intents and purposes means going to the all the games and facing the "horrible reality of this program" head on.
But, I'm also there every game despite how brutally miserable it might appear to some.

I can't be brought down. I don't know why people even try.
If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong. So to me the record is secondary. It doesn't make them any less frustrating, but I just don't really care enough to let it get in the way of cheap comedy.
Well, that and the fact that bandwagon fans are losers.

I don't drive the bandwagon, but I do rotate the tires occasionally, and I change the oil every 17K miles.

Only six years? I'm shocked.

 

[Tyrestud]

I am loyal to the valley. While growing up in the valley we did'nt have an NFL team so I was a Cowboys fan (born in Dallas, raised in PHX). In 88 the Cardinals came to town and that was all it took. I immediately bought my "Phoenix Cardinals" gear and displayed it proudly. In fact by 88 I had finished school and was living in Santa Fe NM. Actually have not lived in Arizona since 87 but I still remain loyal to the Cards and Suns. Being a true fan means being loyal through thick and thin, nothing earns respect from me like the guy at the bar who proudly wears all of his Bengals gear week after miserable week.

 

[BigRed]

Been so long it's hard to remember. Started watching when Hart, Metcalf and Jackie Smith played. Since then I'm addicted.

 

[CardNots]

Home team rules...

 

[Mel Gray TD]

When I was a kid, we would go to the local Methodist Church and church did not get out until 11:30 a.m. I would run to the car and honk the horn until Mom and Dad came. We would then rush to get home to watch the Cardinals as Mom went in and made a huge Sunday dinner that we would gulp down during halftime. His name was MacArthur Lane, and I thought he was the neatest thing I had ever seen. The red jersey and birds on the helmet were awesome. Being a Missouri boy, all we had were Cardinal baseball and Cardinal football. Then came along Hart, Gray, Metcalf, Otis, etc... I have been hooked ever since. Playoff losses to Los Angeles and Minnesota did not get me down. Then it was Lomax to Green. Then heartbreak as they moved from St. Louis. I followed them the best I could for a few years then along came Direct TV. What a country!!! I will alway cheer for the Cardinals!

 

[JeffGollin]

Why Do You Follow the Cardinals?
I prefer to think that we folks on ASFN help lead the team.

Seriously - I started out a StL Cardinal baseball fan at the tender age of 5. (Each night, I'd ask my Dad: "Did the Cardinals win today?"). That was in 1944 (the year they beat the Browns in the World Series).

The following year, I became interested in football, thought the Cardinal name was cool and became a Chicago Cardinal fan. Two years later, the Chi Cards - with Trippi, Angsmann, Harder and Christman - became champs for two years, and that about nailed it. After that, loyalty set in for the duration (and I have a mound of empty Maalox boxes to prove it).

 

[CardAvenger]

I'd have to say that it's an A & C combo. I wasn't a Cardinals fan before they came to Phoenix, but as soon as they did, they infected me like a disease.

 

[jtav10]

JEFF BLAKE, and if he doesnt play well its going to be a long season.

 

[justAndy]

in the 70's...

Phx was Cowboy country. I would watch the Cardinals play the boys and root for the Cards, cuz the Cows were the glamor team, "America's team". The Cards would always be in the thick of it and fade towards the end of the year. I related to them as the underdog. I liked the Patriots in the AFC for the same reason.
In my 20's, when the Cards first came here, I was too busy playing in a punk band, pool skating, dj-ing at the "gentlemen's" club, girls and drugs to care about sports. In the 90's, I started to follow the Cards in the paper and on the radio, started going to games in '92, and slowly but surely they have become my favorite team, even eclipsing my Suns - who I have followed since 1975!

 

[kerouac9]

Re: Re: Why Do You Follow the Cardinals?

Originally posted by Krangthebrain
But you actually like Warrick Dunn? I'm kind of a closet FSU fan, and I can stay that I don't really see what is the big deal with him. Sure he has decent speed and hands, but other than that he really is a mediocre player and the Falcons overpaid him badly.

Yeah. I liked Warrick when he was a Buc because he was kind of the Wild Card, never wore down, never got hurt, even though everyone said that he was too small and too sleight and would get killed. He's a good change of pace back, and I hope that the Falcs will allow T.J. Duckett to be more of a player this year, and let Dunn do his thing.

When I read on ESPN.com that Dunn and Duckett (D & D, baby!) were deciding among themselves who would play on each down, I was shocked. I'm not sure that's totally true.

 

[kerouac9]

Also, how funny is it that no one likes this team because they like the players?