DEADSPIN’S ‘WHY YOUR TEAM SUCKS’ IS NO WAY TO LEARN ABOUT ARIZONA

 

Arizona is a lovely place. A little warmer than most, but still worth a visit.

Deadspin’s annual take down of every team in the NFL paints a different picture.

It’s supposed to be funny and sports related, something the rest of the world finds confusing.

Football isn’t a world sport like soccer, like basketball. Score for the rest of the world.

It must be interesting to people in Brazil, Mongolia, and Kenya, to see American football and compare it to the current news they see or read about in other parts of the country.

Note to readers: Not everyone here has CTE from playing football, it just looks that way.

Back to Arizona and Deadspin:

If it weren’t for California, Arizona would never have been made a state. It’s true. James Polk forced his armies westward to go claim California, and half his soldiers thought they had crossed over to the Netherworld while marching through Arizona and New Mexico. But they finally made it to the Promised Land and kept Arizona simply because they needed the through-route. So there you have it: Arizona: It’s In The Way.

Pretty rude assessment? I thought so to until I asked someone how long they’ve lived here.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Over twenty years.”

Since he looked over twenty I asked the follow up.

“Where did you move from?”

“Texas. I was heading for California and stopped here for a break. Been here ever since.”

True boomerpdx story. What I didn’t ask was why he left Texas. My Texan Grandma gave me the stink eye when I asked her.

“You’ve been to Texas, you’ve been to Oregon. I think you know the answer.”

Good enough for me.

What has Arizona ever given America?

Tent prisons? Double-headed scorpions? Late-stage melanoma? Janet Leigh dead in a hotel shower? Senators who only pretend to be rebellious? Forty BILLION guns? Copper mines (Copper: The Fourth Place Metal)? Cacti?

People who rag on NFL teams should stick to the sport and not expand their scope to the surroundings.

I mentioned it gets warm here?

It’s a desert. Deserts get warm. Some call it hot like hell. I’ll take their word on that.

Sure some places look like a hell-scape, but only at night, like the CVS store where the clerk said her mom worked for the cartels but didn’t want to talk about it, then mentioned the guy in sunglasses shoplifting and leaving with his goods while I checked out.

That’s not an indictment of Arizona, but it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to walk out without paying. Different rules for different places.

The hit on copper is unfair. A penny is still a penny, even if there was talk about discontinuing it because it lacked real value.

Again, not an indictment of Arizona. There’s value here, and unlike Texas and SEC states, they’ve never talked about dropping out of the United part of the U.S.

People in Sedona sit on rocks at night hoping aliens will take them away. This is actually a fair way of coping with being in Arizona, but still. This state is nothing more than a gigantic drain on our water supply. We should cut them off and put Immortan Joe in charge. It is the 6-6 tie of states. The only reason to visit Arizona is because of Grand Canyon and its citizenry had nothing to do with that. I can think of nothing more appropriate to that state than being famous for a giant hole.

If you’ve actually been to the Grand Canyon then you know the National Park hires Sam Elliot look-a-likes to make fun of tourists on the Bright Angel Trail.

They see struggling hikers and remind them, “The canyon always tells you who’s boss.”

Thanks, cowboy, now light another Marlborough.

Sedona isn’t about alien abduction, or alien probe; it’s famous for the Vortex. It’s not the same thing, is it?

The red rocks around the place remind me of a Hawaiian themed pig roast where they dig a hole, line it with rocks, build a fire, and bury it for the all night cook.

Did I mention the heat in Arizona?

From John on deadspin.com:

I’m a transplant from California to Phoenix (MASSIVE shocker there). Phoenix gets a bad rap as a city in general, it really is a cool city in certain parts and the cost of living rules, but absolutely no one gives a single flying f*** about the Arizona Cardinals. I have met more Bears/Packers/Lions fans living here in Phoenix than Cardinals fans and it’s not even close. They play in the middle of the most artificial, corporate, sterilized “restaurant district” imaginable, but all of the snowbirding Midwesterners are more than happy to take the place over and outnumber the home fans 3 to 1. Save for the few toothless holdouts out in Apache Junction (meth capital of the world!), I cannot overstate how much of a nothing the Cardinals are to people here. If it weren’t for Midwestern opponents visiting, they could play in the local minor league soccer team’s stadium and have seats left over.

Arizona is winter roost for midwesterners tired of shoveling snow, driving on ice, and seeing the same people all year?

They love shoveling snow, showing off their ice-driving skills, and blending in.

No one blends in with Arizona until they die and get buried in a flat graveyard that looks more like a parking lot, or rock garden than memorial place to show respects for the dead.

If you come here to show respect for the dead, go to Scottsdale.

One thing deadspin didn’t do was explain why Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher who started with the Dallas Cowboys and finished with the Arizona Cardinals was on the Cardinal sideline during the two teams’ preseason game.

Was he on his way to California, too?