The Arizona Cardinals have come a long way. The franchise has been around since 1920 and has won 10 or more games only 5 times, and never more than 11. The last time they had double digit wins was almost 30 years ago. From 2002 to 2006, the Cardinals won 25 games, averaging 5 wins a year. ESPN’s Graham Hayes even nominated them as the worst franchise in sports a couple years ago.

But in a little over 1 year under Ken Whisenhunt, the Cardinals are 15-12, and have basically clinched their first playoff trip in 10 years. Their offense is one of the best in the league and their defense is probably a little underrated. They have things going in the right direction.

With all that said, I could not help but feel a little taken aback by the way some of the Cardinals players carried themselves. It seemed like every play, one of their players would try to pick a fight with any Giant they could find; shoving players when the refs weren’t looking and trying to “start something.” I believe that the Cardinals feel that they are the young upstart team and therefore they had to stick it to the big boys from New York, but since they weren’t confident that they could do it through their play, they had to assert themselves by physically attacking the Giants’ players after the whistles. We call this an inferiority complex.

What made this even worse was the fact that the refs (short for referees- by shortening “referees” to “refs,” I will save time in the future) were calling every possible penalty on the Giants, while letting the Cardinals get away with multiple holds and obvious offside penalties and even a couple of helmet to helmet hits. I sound like a biased fan here, but the fact is that I am right 103% of the time. Aaron Ross was given absolutely no leeway with the Cardinals’ physical receivers and was called for pass interference 4 times and let’s just say that a couple of them were questionable. Finally the refs (again, short for referees) threw a bone the Giants’ way by flagging the Cards for an illegal pick, but then legally picked up the flag and decided not to penalize those poor Cardinals. Yet many of the players showed a great amount of greed (one of the seven deadly sins, mind you, Kurt Warner) continually trying to plead their case for even more gift calls. I’m glad that the Giants didn’t publicly criticize the refs, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.

And it wasn’t just the refs who made some home-town calls. Fox color commentator and former Dallas Cowboy; Daryl “Moose” Johnston swept all of the missed calls under the rug, constantly ignoring and even supporting questionable and downright awful calls. When Tom Coughlin tried to challenge the touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin because he thought there were ineligible linemen past the line of scrimmage, FOX showed a quick replay from an angle that could not possibly show where the line of scrimmage was. Johnston drew a messy yellow line and said “Oh yeah, you can clearly see that the linemen aren’t past this yellow line that I just hastily drew where the line of scrimmage might be. I’m Daryl Johnston. I used to block for Emmitt Smith when I played for the Dallas Cowboys.” Those weren’t his exact words, but you get the gist.

And then, to put the icing on the cake, the Cardinals organization showed off an inordinate flair for sore-loserness when they filed a complaint over the Giants not playing their best offensive player. This is the sort of sore-loserness usually reserved for the losing party after a presidential election. I believe I even saw some Cardinals players wearing a shirt featuring Eli Manning’s face and the words “not my Super Bowl XLII MVP.”

• Big ups (that’s how the kids say “nice job.” Also acceptable is “mad props” and “good looks”) to Kenny Phillips on his best game as a pro. Phillips was everywhere, literally covering 100% of the field at all times. He amassed 7 tackles and made a key play when he knocked the ball out of Larry Fitzgerald’s hands in the end zone, saving the Giants 4 big points. No less impressive (maybe a smidge less impressive) was the work of fellow first-day-pick-defensive-back-rookie Terrell Thomas. Forced into an extended roll due to the injuries in the secondary and Arizona’s prolific passing attack, Thomas performed like a seasoned veteran, leading the team with 8 tackles and gobbling up a key interception late in the game. I would suggest splitting the game ball between Phillips and Thomas, but I’m sure one of the Cardinals players took the ball and went home when it became clear that they weren’t going to win.

• For weeks I have been telling Tom Coughlin (through this blog) to put Domenik Hixon on kick returns. Finally he listens to me and the man racks up 200 return yards. As Stewie Griffin said: “Well I hate to say I told you so but…wait a minute, I love to say I told you so! Heh. Doi! Heh. Hey! Stewie Griffin, meet Stewie Griffin. Heh. Nice to meet you! Charmed, I’m sure! Great outfit! Oh go on! No it is!” Yeah…all that stuff is what I’d say if I ever met Tom Coughlin.

• Does Brandon Jacobs still get paid for this game, even though he did not play? I vote that he should, as I believe he has earned his ten pounds of human brain per week, but only if the embargo on imported brains has been dropped. It’s not that I’m so much into foreign trade policies and international politics and such, I just don’t want Brandon Jacobs eating my brain.

• Good to see Matt Leinart is keeping himself busy on game day.

  

• It’s a good thing the Cardinals didn’t have Bill Gramatica around to attempt the free-kick.  If he tore his ACL celebrating a 42-yard field goal against the Giants, I’d hate to see what he’d do to himself if he nailed the NFL record free-kick.  And by “Hate” I mean “Love”– I get those two confused sometimes.

• Steve Breaston is the new Richie Sexson. By this I mean he has taken over the role as player whose name makes me feel immature. There were so many times when I wanted to shout out “they were holding Breaston on that play” or “Breaston is really softer than I’d imagined” or “look at the size of that Breaston” or “Warner put the ball right on Breaston.” But I did not say these things, because I am an adult.

Bonehead of the Week: I already did this yesterday. Keep up.