That’s why I have a question. The Arizona Cardinals have hosted not one but two home playoff games this year. This means their cheerleaders had two entire games to be featured on television. Yet, I cannot recall a single shot of these ladies during either game. How can this be?

Unlike Indianapolis or New England, I have to assume some decent-looking girls can be found wandering the desert. After all, any city with a mix of ethnicities usually produces some fine looking women. Look at Pittsburgh girls. The Polish/Italian/German heritage is usually good for buxom figures and junk in the trunk.

Anyway, in my quest to solve the Cardinal Cheerleaders Conundrum, I bravely decided to visit the team website and look through dozens of dozens of cheerleader photos.  What I don’t do for you guys.

Anyway, after scrolling through the first folder, I think I figured out what their, um, shortcoming was.  Take a look:

See the problem?  No?  Well, here’s a couple more of Arizona’s finest.  See if you can spot it now:

No?  Okay, one more set from this past December.  I think it’s pretty obvious where the Cardinals Cheerleaders don’t STACK up to other squads.

Evidently, the push-up bra hasn’t reached Phoenix yet.  I’m pretty sure Kleenex has, though, so there’s really no excuse for their appearance.  I understand they have to jump, dance, and bounce around to get the apathetic Cardinal fans interested in the game but they need to put a little more jiggle in their milkshake.

Of course, it also doesn’t help their cause to have former Saturday Night Live cast member Cheri Oteri on the squad.  She’s a funny comedienne and was great in the cheerleader skits with Will Farrell but she doesn’t belong out on the field.

Since the Big Game is fast approaching, I thought I’d take a minute to help you add to your Black and Gold wardrobe.  After all, I have an entire drawer dedicated to my Pittsburgh fanaticism.   Believe me, nothing is sweeter on game day than busting out a brand new Steelers T which immediately makes you every man’s envy and every girl’s dream.  At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Speaking of sweet, the BRLTCFB M&M’S Contest went over like gangbusters.  Congratulations to the winners and your shipment is on its way.  To those of you who guessed poorly, the M&M’S people have extended you the amazing chance to order your own Steeler M&M’s for 15% off by clicking this link and entering code BIGGAME (one word).

Now on to the shirts:

Click Here To Order

Homage Clothing is a new label designed, owned, and operated by Ohio native Ryan Vesler.  They concentrate on retro designs intended to reference sports and pop culture events from decades past.  Basically, he took the idea behind the millions of people in Throwback jerseys and applied it to t-shirts.

The results are many sweet designs, including this one which harks back to the 1970′s when the Steelers were a Steel Dynasty and the Pirates were good.   Yes my young readers, there once was a time when the Pirates actually had talented players and those players and the people in charge actually tried to win championships (which they did, twice).

Click Here To Order

In honor of your swank new President comes this swank t-shirt playing off Barack Obama‘s photoshopped campaign posters.  Isn’t it nice to have a president who knows that photoshop exists?  Somebody got the bright idea to do this with Mike Tomlin and the result is one of the best t-shirts out there.  I think there’s a McCain version where Tomlin’s picture looks like a Polaroid, if that’s how you roll.  In either case, check the rest of their site for other designs.  Buy one for yourself or one for you girlfriend since Tomlin is the NFL’s Sexiest Coach.

Click Here To Order

LaMarr Woodley is my favorite player.  I don’t usually admit that but anybody who reads my recaps can probably figure it out.  Mr. Woodley is so tough, I’m convinced an asteroid didn’t wipe out the dinosaurs, they voluntarily left because they knew if they survived Woodley was coming for them right after he’s done sacking opposing quarterbacks.

Click Here To Order

These are on sale at Giant Eagle but for those of you who live outside the Golden Triangle, you can order them online.  To be honest, I’m not a fan of the “Sixburgh” slogan.  It’s a poorly thought out and clumsily executed pun.  The shirt is sweet, though, with James Harrison looking all badass.

There’s an old saying about how nothing poisons people like the spoils of success.

Members of Steeler Nation have been burdened by those spoils for over three decades.  Most inferior NFL teams are happy when they simply make the playoffs. We’re only satisified with championships. The bar has been set high but thanks to people like Dan Rooney and his well-run organization, satisfaction is ours more often than not.

Every once in awhile, one of those teams which has been a proverbial dog for a long long time manages to get the sun to shine brightly on its ass. And when that happens, their fanbase doesn’t know how to react.

Take for example the Fighting Belicheats. New Englanders barely acknowledged their football team until Bill Parcells took them to the Super Bowl in 1996.  Once they started to cheat win championships, all of a sudden a rabid fanbase emerged from the woodwork.  This phenomenon isn’t unusual. When long-suffering fanbases begin to win, they tend to go from one extreme of not caring about their team to the other extreme of being obnoxious homers.

They don’t know how to enjoy victory with the humility and class of Steeler fans.  They don’t act like they’ve been there before because they haven’t been there before.  Oakland, Denver, Indianapolis, and New England are but some examples of this.  Philly and New York fans are D-bags as well but that has nothing to do with winning or losing because they come by their douchebaggery naturally.

Which brings us to the Arizona Cardinals. The Cards have been around for 60+ years and have tortured three different cities with their sad and pitiful ways. The most recent victim has been Arizona, where the Cards have finished in the bottom third of the league on a regular basis since moving there in 1988. They’ve done nothing but maintain a position as the doormats of the league until this year.

And now their fans don’t how to react. At first, they reacted with joy. Then joy turned to denial. This denial culminated in the disgraceful display of barely selling out the stadium for their first home playoff game in forty years.  But with more winning came a stampede to jump on the bandwagon.  Which has now culminated in the story of two yahoos who decided to celebrate their biggest ever win by using diesel fuel to burn pro-Cardinal slogans in the lawn of Eagles’ QB Donovan McNabb.

At first, I simply saw the act as sympathy for their Philly brethren who couldn’t get there to do it themselves.  Then I debated whether the criminal act was classless because they lit something on fire or because they lit something of McNabb’s on fire?   After settling on the latter, I noticed one of the fine gentlemen wore his Cardinal hat in his mug shot which told me it was indeed a show of support for the team.  A show of support against a team they already beat.  Well, they are unaccustomed to winning…

And to be fair, the whole incident would have been a lot smaller except McNabb tried to throw water on the fire with a bucket but came up 2 yards short.

Thank you, I’ll be here all week.  In the meantime, stay classy Arizona.