Part of being a true fan of a team involves a stubborn refusal to understand that the other team has fans of its own who care about their team as much as you care about yours. Impossible! The other team is nothing more than Opponent. When you are watching on Sunday afternoon, all you want to know is: How do we kill these guys? Whom do we boo? Die, humans wearing different colors than the colors for which I have grown accustomed to cheering!
We are here to help. With a slight nod to Drew Magary’s Why Your Team Sucks series, we want to give you three people to scream at on the television every Sunday, peppering Cheetos flecks in every direction. The Giants play the Arizona Cardinals at Giants Stadium at 8:20 p.m. on Sunday. Here’s whom to boo on the Cardinals.
Matt Leinart. Coming out of USC, Leinart had everything: two national titles, a Heisman, and a winning smile. He inspired headlines such as “Paris Hilton & Matt Leinart: Cozy in Vegas,” and was selected tenth overall by the Cardinals in the 2006 draft. Today, Leinart earns a living holding the clipboard for senior citizen Kurt Warner. On the bright side, he appeared in the 2008 film The House Bunny, and no one can ever take that away from him.
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. The talented 22-year-old cornerback hasn’t impressed thus far this season; even his coach has admitted that what was confidence in the preseason has become complacency in the regular season. (One Cardinals fan in particular finds him to be quite frustrating.) Peyton Manning made him look silly in week three, and little brother Eli has been known to throw the ball deep on occasion, so hopefully they compare notes. Actually, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll love Rodgers-Cromartie, each and every time he blows his coverage.
Bill Bidwell. Think of this as Evil People Who Are Attempting to Take What Is Rightfully Ours: Throwback Edition. Because, honestly, these days Bidwell is pretty harmless. He’s ceded day-to-day operations to his competent sons, and he did build a state-of-the-art stadium and see his team reach the Super Bowl last season. In fact, the Bidwells are just like fellow longtime owners such as the Maras and the Rooneys … except for the tradition of winning and the staying put in one city. This article from last year suggests that the Cardinals’ Super Bowl run last season changed his legacy (though not everybody agrees), but all that means is, prior to last year, his legacy was as a decent human being who was way too cheap to win. Which is a nice enough way to be remembered, unless you’re a professional football owner. To be honest, how much you like/hate Bidwell these days probably depends on your feelings toward bow ties.