CSI: Pottsville

First thing's first: Bring on Stinkin' Phoenix!

(Note: "Stinkin' Phoenix is how the Arizona Cardinals continue to be known in Philadelphia. As in the following statement with a born-on date circa the late '80s: "They go and beat the Cowboys, then turn around and lose to Stinkin' Phoenix!" Point is: the Cardinals are so competitively irrelevant, who gives a jolly fuck what they're calling themselves?)

Now then. I'd like to bring attention to an extrafootballular storyline on which I'd like to see ESPN burn some tape this week: the 1925 NFL Championship and its theft by the Chicago Cardinals from the Pottsville Maroons.

As detailed by David Fleming in his excellent book, Breaker Boys, the Chicago Cardinals were awarded the 1925 NFL Championship based on a technicality after having been defeated by the Maroons, who had a better record, then the criterion for the championship. The then-owner of the Cardinals refused to accept a title he called "bogus," but the notoriously pin-headed Bidwill family purchased the team in 1933 and claimed the title.

Although it was the Frankford Yellow Jackets -- the predecessor of the Eagles -- who alerted the league to the technicality, the current ownership of the Eagles (and that of the Steelers as well) have publicly supported the recognition of the Maroons as at least co-champions of the NFL for 1925, as has Pennsylvania Governor (and boorish Eagles fan) Edward G. Rendell. There's even an online petition with more than 12,000 signatures.

The Bidwill family still owns the Cardinals, and even after moving the team from Chicago to St. Louis to Tempe, AZ, to Glendale, AZ, has persisted in its efforts to prevent the Maroons from being recognized as the 1925 NFL champs. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have won only one championship since '25, and haven't even come within two wins of a championship since the NFL first appointed a commission to examine the case in 1963.

This, some of the old folks in Pottsville insist, is the result of a curse passed down through the generations -- a curse that will not be lifted unless the Cardinals allow the NFL to recognize the Maroons as at least co-champions of the NFL in 1925.

.

Now, with the Cardinals reaching their first Conference Championship game since... Uh... Since the concept of a Conference Championship was introduced, none but the Philadelphia Eagles have the opportunity to score a win for Ye Olde Maroons and further the curse imposed on the Bidwills, pro football's First Family of Cheap Jerkoffs.

P.S. -- Go piss up a rope, Wes Welker!

.