Celebrating Cards, And a Colt

In a vicious, volatile world, it is reassuring to have a peaceful, perpetual Team of Destiny in all of our lives. And this year, for the first time ever, there is also a Player of Destiny.

Ladies and gentlemen, you already know the Super Bowl-bound Arizona Cardinals. Let me please introduce you also to the next Heisman Trophy winner, Hawaii's glorious Colt Brennan.

The Cardinals are 0-for-the-21st-century in terms of success; they weren't exactly the Ming Dynasty in the 20th century, either.

Arguably the most woebegone franchise in NFL history, here is the unrelenting rap sheet on the Cardinals:

-- Longest championship drought in the league (1947);

-- One playoff victory in the 59 years since their last title;

-- One winning season since moving to Arizona in 1988.

The owner, Bill Bidwill, is pretty much Willy Loman in a bowtie. Dennis Green didn't help, mailing in his three Team of Destiny seasons as Cardinals coach and making Couch Slouch look like Cliff Clavin.

Since their 9-7 season in 1998 -- which produced their only playoff victory since the Truman administration -- the Cardinals have gone 6-10, 3-13, 7-9, 5-11, 4-12, 6-10, 5-11 and 5-11.

If the Cardinals were an automobile, they'd be a Pinto; if they were a tree, they'd be a weeping willow; if they were a planet, they'd be Earth after gross human negligence destroyed the ozone and left our global landscape scorched, barren and uninhabitable.

They've had a really, really bad run.

Ah, but 2007 will begin the Cardinals' run -- and pass -- to glory. My Team of Destiny has Matt Leinart, Edgerrin James, Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and a retooled offensive line, all invigorated by first-year coaching-genius-in-progress Ken Whisenhunt. And it has one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play, venerable University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.