CARDINALS STIFF FORMER COACHES OUT OF SUPER BOWL BONUSES

Lest anyone think that our position regarding free-agent quarterback Kurt Warner arises from some sort of homerish tendencies toward the team with a red parakeet on its helmet, think again. We’ve been saying for weeks that the Cardinals’ blind-squirrel-on-acorn trip to the Super Bowl doesn’t make a bad organization into a good one. And, yeah, the Cardinals are still a bad organization. Multiple league sources tell us that assistant coaches who left the team after the season ended have been stiffed out of Super Bowl bonuses. Though we’re not sure whether the individual employment contracts call for the payments or whether these are amounts that teams pay as a matter of policy or practice, the point is that these men didn’t get paid money arising from the Super Bowl appearance that was paid to guys who are still employed. Frugality is not a new dynamic in the desert. As former Cardinals safety Robert Griffith told Michael Silver, then of SI.com, in 2007, “They’re all show. They’re a facade. They say, ‘We’ve got the nicest stadium in North America’ -- and they do. But everything else is to the penny.” Griffith provided two examples to Silver. “When we’re not there on Tuesdays,” Griffith said, “they put a lock on the Gatorade fridge in the locker room.” The other example came from what was in Griffith’s signing bonus check. Or, more accurately, what wasn’t in it. “The Fed Ex [to send him the contract] cost $14.11 or something, and when I got my check, they’d deducted it -- the check was for like $499,985.89, or whatever. That’s how they do sh-t in Arizona. That’s how they run their business!” Our advice to Cardinals fans? Enjoy the climate-controlled temperature of the stadium and the video screens and the sound system and whatever food they sell there, because if you show up on Sundays suddenly expecting to see a winning team, you’re going to be disappointed. Unless you’re rooting for the visitors.