Kurt Warner is a Cardinal.  Well … duh.

In the history of duh’s this has to be in the top ten.

Were you actually worried about Kurt Warner signing elsewhere?

Did you allow those who peddle panic and deal in fear convince you that there was actually a chance that Kurt Warner was going to leave the Cardinals and the Cardinals were going to allow him to go?

The ultimate irony of this story is that it happened exactly the same day that Manny Ramirez signed with the Dodgers.  I’ve said for a week now, that their two situations were almost exactly identical.  Neither player had any other reasonable option; neither team could run the risk of infuriating their fan base.  I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes (the best line from one of the worst movies of all time, Airplane 2).

The truth is he was never, ever, ever (ever to the nth degree) going anywhere.  And everybody knew it.   Once you removed emotion from the equation and just concentrated on common sense…there was no choice.  He had to come back and they had to have him back.

The big winner in this process is Warner, but even more so, his agent Mark Bartelstein.  Some agents (see Drew Rosenhaus) negotiate like nuclear bombs.  They come in with Uzi’s in both hands and just start firing away.

Bartelstein was like a roof top sniper.  Quiet but just as deadly.  And he used the perception of the Cardinals against them, just like I had thought he would.

Warner’s counter offer was for less than what he wanted, less than what the 49ers had offered, and even included money he would give back to Anquan Boldin.  By doing that, the national talking heads on ESPN all universally proclaimed the Cardinals would be fools – even worse than that – they’d be the  Same-Old-Cardinals if they didn’t  accept this deal.

Slaves to their own reputation, the Cardinals had no choice and finished the deal late last night.

Focus now turns to Matt Leinart.  Seems unlikely he’ll just sit around and be a backup for another year.  Brian St. Pierre is telling his hometown newspaper he’s going to have a chance to compete with Leinart for the number two spot.  Between that and the Warner extension, it’s not exactly happy birthday for People magazines favorite benchwarmer.

And of course, Boldin.  Will Warner’s plea force the Cardinals to alter whatever their plan is with Q?

Wish I was as sure about that one as I was about Warner.