Ex-Cardinals receiver/return man/rapper Reggie Swinton, a.k.a. "Swin-town", is apparently on par with Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson. Yeah, OK. Well, at least he is here. So many things come to mind to write right now. But I’ll let it speak for itself.

A couple weeks ago, L.A. Times’ NFL writer Sam Farmer visited the Valley to do another piece on Los Angeles’ top football star — Matt Leinart, who just happens to play for the Cardinals these days. Here is the resulting story, culled from the last day of organized team activities and about an hour spent at Leinart’s new Chandler home.It is a solid piece — Farmer is good at his job — but it’s not like Leinart is revealing anything new. He has long been ticked at anyone who thought he was too "Hollywood."Then again, as Farmer points out, it’s not like there haven’t been times that Leinart’s choices kind of scream, "celebrity."

It’s really no big surprise, but the NFL has finally pulled the plug on NFL Europe — or this year, the new name of NFL Europa — after 16 years. The idea was interesting, to give players a chance to play more often and increase their chances of rising up an NFL roster. But inevitably, the players there had little to no chance. Any NFL coach who had serious designs on a player wanted that player at the team’s offseason workouts, not off in Europe with a different coach. None of the three Cardinals in NFLE this summer — tight end Alex Shor, receiver Greg Lee and cornerback Justin Wyatt — should feel comfortable with their chances to stick.The Cardinals themselves are the poster children for why NFLE never quite worked. Time after time they had players who starred in Europe, making the all-NFLE team, only to fizzle. Remember receiver Andy McCullough? Tackle Jarvis "Big Earth" Borum? Safety Deke Cooper?

Safety Adrian Wilson blew through the Cardinals’ media room earlier this week and as he walked out the door, gave me grief I hadn’t been blogging enough. I assume that means he checks this page out, although he should have known I had been on vacation.Anyway, here’s yet another post, A-Dub, concerning your underrated status. At some point, Wilson is going to be overrated as someone who is underrated, if that makes any sense.

Well, here’s another perspective — kind of a snarky, backhanded, cynical perspective, but a perspective nonetheless — of Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and his falling to Arizona in the 2006, courtesy of coldhardfootballfacts.com. Yes, it’s an old issue, but Leinart bringing the subject up again in a recent ESPN the Magazine was the genesis of this retort.By the way, Leinart, who got rid of Creative Artists Agency as a marketing representative earlier this summer, has found a new marketing group. I’m sure you are all breathing a sigh of relief.

This cracks me up: The Oakland Raiders put out a press release about the judgement of an NFL Network "list" show, complaining the league’s own TV people ignored the Raiders. The team put out a similar release earlier when the NFL Network ranked the all-time Super Bowl-winning teams.This is the link to the text, although it is much funnier to see it as a press release (which I have seen but can seem to figure out how to link it here).

Remember Cardinals quarterback Chris Greisen? He was a seventh-round pick in 1999 and actually was the third-stringer behind Jake Plummer and Dave Brown through 2001, before getting cut prior to the 2002 season, throwing just 16 passes in his NFL stint. Well, Greisen eventually moved to the Arena Football League, and enjoyed a breakout season this year and was just named the first-team all-Arena quarterback for 2007.Greisen is playing for the Georgia Force and coach Doug Plank — the former Bears safety who was a Cards’ radio analyst for a few years — and led the Force to a 14-2 regular-season record. He threw 117 touchdown passes, by far the AFL record.

So first, Detroit quarterback Jon Kitna decided to announce the Lions were going to win more than 10 games this season. Then Lions wideout Mike Furrey echoed the sentiment. All this for a team that went 3-13 last season.As a reporter, I love to hear players and coaches go out on a limb. Former Cardinals coach Dennis Green was great at that, announcing the Cards should win 10 games before his first season, and then coming up with this gem as training camp opened last year:

There has been a lot of speculation whether the Cardinals would consider restructuring the contract of backup quarterback Kurt Warner, although his agent said the Cardinals have yet to suggest such a thing. It makes sense, because unless you count Miami’s Daunte Culpepper and his $5.5 million salary (which you shouldn’t, since the Dolphins will likely release him and he isn’t in their plans even as a reserve), Warner’s $4 million salary makes him the highest-paid backup QB in the NFL.That said, Warner is worth it. When Warner first considered retirement last season, it was a bit of a wake-up call to an organization that had come to think they had a great setup: Warner mentoring Matt Leinart. That had been the thought early on, because it seemed that everyone but maybe Warner realized quickly that’s how it would play out.Warner’s knowledge and personality is perfect for the role; now that he has come to accept the idea he is even better at it. And he can still play. Warner showed that once Leinart got dinged late last season and Warner had to start the finale against the Chargers. Knowing Warner is there if Leinart goes down is a nice security blanket for coach Ken Whisenhunt. And it’s also the main reason — assuming the team can handle the salary cap hit, which the Cardinals should — Warner deserves the hefty paycheck.

The Super Bowl committee officially put up a countdown clock for Super Bowl XLII in the airport today — more specifically, Terminal 4. The clock, three feet by 7.5 feet, will be stationed down by baggage claim.Somehow, 220 days doesn’t seem like much after the years that this has been talked about. Then again, it makes the 32 days until the opening of Cardinals’ training camp seem frighteningly soon.Where did the offseason go? Oh that’s right, the NFL doesn’t really have much of an offseason anymore.