A Long Way From Lambeau
The Road Ahead
by Mark Lyne-Austen
6/2/2009
The Arizona Cardinals have a mountain to climb to ensure that Larry Fitzgerald's burst through the center of the Pittsburgh Steelers defense to make it 23-20 is not the highlight of Cardinals franchise history. The defeat in Super Bowl XLIII has to be one of the most heartbreaking any team has endured with the team apparently on the verge of victory only for the greatest of all the modern era franchises to snatch the win away.
First up the Cardinals have to deal with the hoodoo of losing Super Bowl teams – it is well documented that only the Seattle Seahawks in recent years have managed to reach the post season in the year following their Super Bowl loss. Part of the reason for that is the inevitable let down that not winning it all has. For the Cardinals, the belief and expectation must have been strong. Each year, someone is anointed as the team of destiny and it must have been hard for those Cardinals players not to feel that potential.
Picking up from loss is hard. Reaching up again from a loss in the biggest event in North American sports must be incredibly difficult. There will be at least two Cardinals players who will wonder if it was their last chance. Veteran Safety Adrian Wilson stayed with the franchise through long down years and this could well have been his only shot at the NFL title. For the most heralded star on the team, Quarterback Kurt Warner, the talk of retirement is already buzzing. This is the second problem that Arizona must overcome – players will move on.
Warner would undoubtedly have retired had he been able to lead a second franchise to a Super Bowl victory. After glory years in St Louis, this year has been a redemption for a player who absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame for what he represents as one of the great passers but also a a player who can put team before self. If he retires, it will be harder for the team to make another run at glory. Matt Leinart is the player chosen to take over but Warner is one of the best pocket passers ever to play the game.
Quarterback is not the only position where movement is likely. Tempestuous wide receiver Anquan Boldin made his diva qualities clear during the NFC Championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles. However, Boldin has been in contractual dispute with the club all year long and given his position as no longer the number one player in his position with the team it will be hard for the Cards to justify splashing big money on the guy who plays opposite Larry Fitzgerald. Arizona also has free agents elsewhere such as Linebacker Karlos Dansby and most of their Tight Ends but unlike typical Super Bowl sides, the Cardinals have the cap space to resign those who want to stay.
Despite the spare cash, Arizona faces the same problem that most other teams also have to react to – the NFL does not stand still. While the Cardinals appearance in Super Bowl XLIII makes it harder to describe their division as the NFC Worst, the historic low experienced by the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and St Louis Rams just is not going to be repeated next season. It will be much harder for this Arizona team to sweep all three teams again. Still, the Cardinals are in a good position so long as they do re-sign some of their potential leavers. However, that was also true of teams like the Seattle Seahawks and Oakland Raiders.
It is not just the Cardinals who will already be looking ahead. The Pittsburgh Steelers face an entirely different set of problems. Super Bowl winners do not tend to have the same difficulty in returning to the post-season as losers do but instead, victors have found themselves facing more of themselves in the future. The year after the Indianapolis Colts spread offense took Peyton Manning's team to the title, the New England Patriots presented an offense built exactly along the same lines. For the Steelers, their influence around the league is even more impactful.
The Steelers have just faced some of their own in the form of coaches Ken Whisenhunt and Russ Grimm and will face at least one other team that wants a bit of the Pittsburgh magic in the 2009 season. When the Steelers face the Green Bay Packers in 2009, they will be up against a whole host of Steelers as that team attempts to adopt the Pittsburgh identity. Former Steelers players and coaches including Dom Capers, Kevin Greene, and Darren Perry will all be teaching their trade in the frozen north and this is not a coincidence.
 Struggling all the way to the top of the NFL means eking out every single possible advantage. The other teams are all laden with talent and the difference between good and great is marginal. Once a team like the Steelers has reached the top, the next hurdle to overcome is that everyone else wants to be just like that team. The New England Patriots have overcome that hurdle successfully this decade as a host of coaching staff find themselves offered lucrative positions elsewhere. As with the Steelers, the Patriots have a team building itself in their image for 2009 in the form of the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Chiefs hiring of Scott Pioli as General Manager represents the biggest shake-up to this Patriots dynasty. The Chiefs are explicitly aiming to absorb some of the management brilliance that has kept the Patriots generally ahead of the chasing pack. Unlike previous attempts by teams such as the Cleveland Browns or New York Jets to replicate the success, the Chiefs are not aiming to merely pluck one part of a successful team but to recreate themselves as that team.
Everyone finds it tough in the NFL. Even those who have reached the very top face huge challenges but it is the losing Super Bowl finalists who ultimately have the greatest exposure to that difficulty. The Arizona Cardinals must overcome their own problems and do so under the spotlight of being a losing Super Bowl team. Most teams do not make the playoffs and it will take something special for the Cardinals to come anywhere close to that moment when Larry Fitzgerald outpaced the Pittsburgh safeties and must have thought the Lombardi trophy was theirs.
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