Chris Collingsworth immediately went to how the Giants lost the game last night at the conclusion. He barely wanted to give us credit for taking the win. We did outplay them for most of the game. When Alan Branch (who I admittingly wanted cut this summer. Glad we didn’t) gets to sacks and is allowed to do that retarded sack dance, then we earned the win.

is a decent analyst, but he is among a cadre of national football broadcasters/writers that believe last year’s Super Bowl run was a perfect storm: Two home playoff games, bad NFC West, the one road playoff game was against Carolina, who is falling apart this year.

These guys prefer to think of the Cardinals as the team that meekly laid down in New England last year and was destroyed by the Eagles and Jets last year. Add to that the fact that the Cards were bad for Collingsworth’s whole career.

The thing is, they won’t be convinced unless the Cards demonstrate a consistent winning persona in a tough division, which is problematic, since the NFC West is a rotten division with 4 guaranteed wins every year (St Louis and Seattle). They prefer to ascribe the close Super Bowl to the Steeler’s banged up running game, of last night’s Giants game due to McKenzie’s injury, or Coughlin’s play calling, or Manning’s hiccups.

Don’t worry, Collingsworth isn’t the only one. I think Collingsworth should be replaced by Ditka.

Everyone comparing us to the damn Pittsburgh Steelers. Sure, Whiz and Grimm came over from the Steelers and are trying to get that physical play that the Steelers have but stop calling us the Steelers of the west. We are nothing like the Steelers and would appreciate not being compared to them.

that was probably the most proud I’ve been of the Cardinals in all my years as a fan. Sure last year was great, but this is different. Last night was an ugly game. We don’t usually win those. Our team had all the excuses to quit, but they hung in there. Battled through all the injuries on defense. Q played hard all night despite being 60%. Warner wasn’t very good. Fitz had a few plays he should have made, but didn’t. Despite all that, and more I’m sure I’m forgetting, we hung in there and won the game, on the road, against a good team. It feels like we are really building something here.

Between field position and turnovers, the Giants handed us a virtual blow out. Given that, why was I twitching as the Giants made their way from their own three-yard line to midfield on that last possession? Our offense didn’t capitalize on the many opportunities that fell in their lap. How many drives started in Giants territory and didn’t end with seven points. The offense was out of rhythm; the second Q started gimping around the field he should have been sitting. Urban was a better option at that point. Warner was off and on. He wasn’t playing like bad Warner but he wasn’t Super Bowl Warner either. Given our O-line SUCKS, (Yeah I said it) SUCKS! I guess he was somewhere in between. And was it me, or did that long ball from Rolle hit Fitz in the number?

The only good thing that will say about our offensive performance is that Wells looked good last night. Not to take anything from him (because he got a lot of yards just using his natural abilities) but I thing the play designs were a big contributing factor. Good use of Tight Ends in the running plays and the run plays where used in situations that made wise use of running plays.

Regardless, by my count the score should have been 45 – 17.

The defense on the other hand was spectacular! This was one of the rare games were our Defense finished what they started. The only real stutter occurred when practically our entire secondary was out with injury. Given this detail, our backups looked like back ups but did what they had to do to allow the defensive front to keep the pressure on. The defense played with cohesion and consistency the entire game. Billy Davis had a genius night, watching Eli fumble around and second-guess his every action was priceless. I wonder if he cried in the locker room?

but insomuch as the Broncos are legitimate, so are the Cards. How about an all Mountain Time Super Bowl which the Broncos would win! In any case, the MSM believes what they want to believe. I’m just glad that unlike the R E T A R D E D BCS , all NFL fans know who the best team will be in February. It would be awesome to see the Broncos and Cards shut everybody up. I knew Arizona was a good team but watching the game against the G-Men on DVR enabled me to see just how solid the Card defense was. No, you’re better than the Steelers. You would beat them by 20 if you played them again.

Starting to Become a Force? We are the former NFC champions, we are leading our division, we just beat the Giants at the Meadowlands! We are a force to reckoned with.

The MSM doesn’t think the Cardinals are sexy. We are based in the land of cactus and retirees. Our quarterback is an aging born-again Christian with an ex-Marine wife and seven kids. Nothing sexy about that. Dallas and other media favorites are q-b’ed by young, hot, attention grabbing studs. I see Tony Romo in the Yahoo OMG gossip news more than any other football player.

As for the game last night…the Cardinals D stopped the G-men and the Cardinals O scored more. End of story. Not every game can or should be a blow win like the Patriots like to do. A win is a win. Even if it by one point, it means our offense scored more than our defense allowed. And that’s the way it should be.

But it wasn’t very hard.

I got to watch a lot of Michael Adams in the preseason, and am pretty comfortable with him in the game. Good tackler, sticks with his man — I’d rather see DRC out there (the good version of DRC) but the fact that they put Adams in over Brown should say something. I wasn’t even aware he had moved up the depth chart. Toler still scares me, but they didn’t really get to pick on him.

How about Matt Ware forcing a fumble? I’m usually down on this guy, but with Francisco out of here, he’s been doing a pretty good job. He got to the ball in coverage, too, although he just missed breaking up the pass a couple times it looked like he was doing everything he was supposed to.

It helps to have two players emerging on the D-line simultaneously ;)

Week after week it seems like our defense is better than our offense. I figured at first it was just a fluke, but it’s starting to sink in. Billy Davis is really coming along. I think it’s a bad sign for our offensive coordinator-by-committee, though.

I am freaking pleased, jumping-off-my-seat, trying-not-to-yell pleased about the way the team held up, the performance of the D, the win, almost everything this week.

I really hope not you see what has been happing around the league is these coaches are not getting enough xp there are a few exceptions but poor haley jumped the gun and he is getting quit on