Insider: Rising Cardinals about to bury losers image

The lousy karma always seems to be there, a constant reminder of bad times and bad teams, often making the Arizona Cardinals a punch line among league jokes.

How, then, does one get it to go away?

Denny Green believes he has a team to transform a franchise. (Getty Images)

Cardinals coach Dennis Green, who knows a thing or two about winning from his days coaching the Minnesota Vikings, has an idea how to make it disappear, and it has a lot more to do with attitude than just blocking and tackling.

"We have to destroy the whole mentality," Green said. "We have to make it disappear. For so many years, we've been hearing that Arizona can't win. It's up to the coaching staff and the players to make that go away. It's up to us. Our players have a chance to change the way people view this franchise."

Here's a prediction: Green and his players will do just that in 2005. The Arizona Cardinals will be contenders in the NFC West this season.

That's almost blasphemous to write considering this franchise's thirst for success remains as unquenched as a jogger's throat on a 105-degree Phoenix day. But Green and general manager Rod Graves are changing things in the Valley of the Sun.

The Cardinals will wear new uniforms this year (although I thought the old ones were among the game's best). Cleanse the stink away.

They will also play in a new state-of-the-art stadium in 2006, one that includes a retractable roof to help offset the searing September temperatures in Arizona and ultimately help bring in crowds that haven't been around at Sun Devil Stadium. When one of your 2005 home games is moved to Mexico City, which is the case for the Cardinals, you know there are crowd issues.

But more important than having a new style or a new stadium is that this Cardinals team has good players. How good? Green believes they can win the NFC West, a proclamation most coaches would not make in May.

"Absolutely," Green said this week when asked if his team can take the division. "We were in a lot of games last year and this team will be better on offense and a lot better on defense."

In 2004, Green's first season as Cardinals coach, Arizona went 6-10 and lost four games by a field goal. Turn those four around, and the Cards are in the playoffs.

OK, so it's not that easy. But this was a team that made strides in Green's first season.

Expect more in 2005.