It's gonna be hard for me to put one penny on the Arizona Cardinals against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl 43 - - but I'm gonna do it.  Why?  Those of you who followed us over from the old site know I don't go with the odds, the facts, the numbers or any of that other practical crap.  Every logical, Jameson-drenched bone in my skinny corpse is begging me not to bet against Roethlisberger and the Steelers, but I gotta go with my heart on this one.  I am, afterall and unfortunately, about as pragmatic as the outgoing Bush Administration (good riddens, by the way) when it comes to picking winners.

My favorite teams growing up in the 70's were the sorry-ass Chicago Bears (completely unwatchable had it not been for Sweetness and the human voulge that was Doug Plank) and the Lombardi Trophy intolerant Minnesota Vikings.  It was the Vikings' Super Bowl 9 loss to the Steelers which so thoroughly choked my chicken to to the point where to this day I wish some daring flight attendant would have slipped Franco Harris the ol' Visene Mickey on the team flight to New Orleans (or maybe not, my apologies Franco).  So obviously, I can never openly root for the Steelers...unless perhaps they are playing the Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders, USC or any number of other teams that pass through my weekly death row.

The Cardinals on the other hand, have never really done anything to dig their way under my skin - - especially not in their current desert incarnation.  With Chicago as their birthplace, I could even stretch a claim to them as an old hometown team, but they'd long since moved to St. Louis by the time I began cuttin' Sunday Mass to watch the truly divine Walter Payton perform his own miracles.  So as far as my system of alliances and grudges go, I have deemed the Football Cardinals pretty much a non-combatant (me and everyone else - - outside of Dan Dierdorf and his wet dream Conrad Dobler).
Any spareable hard-earned money I decide to squander on a Super Bowl 43 bet, therefore, is on the docile Arizona Cardinals.  Or more accurately, not on the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Now if Steelers were playing the Green Bay Packers or maybe the Toledo Rockets, well-hell-hell...now that would be a different story.


For refernce, and with no further explanation, here is a quick portion of my Pittsburgh Steelers Bowl Balance Sheet:

PROS
Bruce Davis is a UCLA Bruin
Travis Krschke is a UCLA Bruin
Logo only on one side of helmet is old school cool
Traj Essex is a Northwestern Wildcat
Rashard Mendenhall is an Illinois Fighting Illini
Carey Davis is an Illinois Fighting Illini
Roethlisberger from a MAC school (not going to mention the school)
Pittsburgh is not located in Texas or Florida
Tommy Maddox was a UCLA Bruin
Mike Tomlin does not bug

CONS
Beat Vikings in Super Bowl 9
Logo only on one side of helmet is dorky
Beat Vikings in Super Bowl 9 only because they wore special shoes
7 Super Bowls is enough for now
Beat Vikings in Super Bowl 9 even though I wore my purple Donnie Osmond socks during the game
Troy Polamalu is a USC Trojan
Bill Cowher just drove me nuts
Uniforms remind me of Iowa Hawkeyes
Ousted Chargers from playoffs last week