Give me your tired, your weak, your huddled underdogs. . . .
Well, at least the 8-8 San Diego Mediocres are no longer playing for a trip to the Super Bowl. That would have been too much, a team that was Denver's proxy -- oh, pick any little thing that would have put the Broncos in the Chargers' place.
Still, looking at the Final Four for the NFL, things seem entirely out of whack.
No one would have figured that whole thing has a chance of being the Battle of Pennsylvania. Or maybe Cactus and Crabs.
However the Super Bowl shakes out, it is going to be The Flukes against The Fortunates. And not a Manning in sight.
The argument that the Arizona Cardinals were the worst team to ever make the NFL playoffs was not made as much as agreed to by unanimous consent, and yet they get the home game to go to the Super Bowl. This is like the pickpocket getting to choose his own jury.
But there they are, as if they belonged, having passed through more American cities than Route 40.
Not to overstress a point, but one cannot help but bring to mind the parallel fortunes of those highly regarded quarterbacks that came out of the same draft -- Matt Leinart to the Cardinals, Vince Young to the Titans and Jay Cutler to the Broncos.
Two of those teams were in the playoffs and the Broncos not, the obvious difference being that the Cardinals benched young Leinart for old pro Kurt Warner, the Titans replaced young Young with creaky Kerry Collins and Cutler was given the keys to the Bronco(s) and expected to drive without mishap.
For the choice Mike Shanahan made, to not provide Cutler with any job competition once he named him the starter, the result is a Broncos team beginning again at almost every position, including coach.
If the Cardinals were to get to the Super Bowl, it would be the most surprising entry since . . . well, probably the Atlanta Falcons, patsies for the Broncos' second title 10 years ago. Warner would clearly be the most famous Cardinal, having won with the Rams in one of the Cardinals' former cities.
The identity of anybody else would be formed from an anagram of the coach's name, which will come to me in a moment. Ken Whisenhunt.
If not the Cardinals, then the Eagles, more accomplished and famed, but yet a surprise survivor of maybe the best division in football. No Giants. No Cowboys. No Redskins.
The Eagles were all but declared dead, or at least declared terminally stupid after Donovan McNabb expressed surprise NFL games could end in a tie. A good thing, too, because that's how the Eagles edged into the playoffs instead of Dallas, the Bears or the Bucs.
This tie was not a case of kissing anyone's sister but more like stealing the silverware.
As the last seed in NFC, the Eagles must travel while the Cardinals get to remind the locals that a game in the great American desert this late in January involves the local team and that the stadium is being used for a home game and not as its usual rental.
And speaking of larceny, we have the Baltimore Ravens, a team without any other explanation for winning.
The Ravens couldn't make a first down if they had a paper pattern and a pair of sharp scissors, but that was also true the year they won the Super Bowl.
Here they are again doing things as usual, knocking people down and giving Ray Lewis credit for it. Otherwise there is no way to explain why they are where they are, since otherwise credit would have to go to a first-year coach, John Harbaugh, and a rookie quarterback, Joe Flacco, who has yet to complete half his passes in the playoffs, and only one of those for a touchdown.
Never has a rookie coach and a so raw quarterback gone so far together, remarkable since both are still using training wheels. Harbaugh is from a football family, coach's son, quarterback's brother, and Flacco is a former Delaware Fightin' Blue Hen, a fact generally hidden on most football resumes.
The Steelers and Ravens share the same division, assuring no surprises. Pittsburgh brings pedigree (five Lombardi trophies) and actual skill to the final mix, the best season record of all the teams, the only chalk among the bunch.
Had the Steelers somehow lost in the snow and cold to San Diego, a team that can't tackle any better than the Broncos, all faith in football would have been lost.
As it is, trust has at least been mislaid.
(Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)
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