Each year the NFL starts off and hopes are high. Why? Because each year every team has a chance to win the Super Bowl. (Okay almost every team. Hey - don't say a word about my cardinals.)
What I love about the NFL is it's vision. As an organization it has helped preserve the very nature and character of the league. Never before have so many people been able to see the game. It is global, on several different networks, regionalized, and now has it's very own network. Their vision has allowed them to create a structure where every team can rebuild through the draft. Every team has the freedom to manage their staff to the same expectations and guidelines within a salary cap. Each team, though tough imagine another dynasty, has the ability to orchestrate it's future to be defined by it's owners, coaches, players, and fans.
The game itself is pure and blameless. It players, especially those of a striped cat from Ohio, are not however. Yet every week they live out their hopes and dream of the Vince Lombardy Trophy gracing their mantle.
So this year, people tell me their is a "buzz" in Arizona. I hope so. No team has been more scrutinized, harassed, and humiliated as the Cardinals since Kijana Carter was a bust for those Bengals.
But this year is different. Their hope is not in a system (religion) but in a savior (Edgerin James). First there was Moses, David, John the Baptist, and now Jesus. All of them were to prepare us for the way of the King. (Adrian Murrel, Marcel Shipp, Emitt Smith, and now there is The Edge). His father (Mr. Bidwell) has prepared for us a home with many rooms (luxury suites and bathrooms). Their battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness in the name of Seahawks, Rams, and 49ers. And yea - though we walk through the Valley of the Sun , we fear no evil. For the losses, they pile to the heavens, and yet we sit at the table of the NFL. We do not play aimlessly, no we beat our bodies as to claim the prize.
And so each year, every team has a chance at the trophy. And why not the Arizona Cardinals? In a year that will mark a new home, new church family, and new direction I will choose to have a new vision.
May the God of Peace embrace your visions and may your vision compel you to play harder for the King than you ever did before.
