"The three kings of Cardinals football were spotted at the Super Bowl.

Kurt Warner now is a shining face on television. Larry Fitzgerald has one year left on his contract and one hand on the doorknob. Ken Whisenhunt is lurking, networking, doing anything he can to keep the flame lit in Arizona.

As tourists in Texas, they all shared the same sinking feeling - the intense longing to play in the big game once again.

They felt left out in the cold, a bad place to be at this Super Bowl.

"This is the only time I miss playing," Warner said.

"It hurts to be here," Whisenhunt said. "It's like throwing salt on an open wound."

"I don't want to waste another year," Fitzgerald said.

For the most part, Whisenhunt remains calm and confident, and his words sound reassuring. But the lesson of Super Bowl XLV is clear for anyone who cares to look:

Successful franchises such as the Steelers and Packers have figured out that trophies generally require three essential elements: a keen evaluator of talent, a strong leader of men and an elite quarterback. The Cardinals have one of those ingredients, and until they get a second, they have no shot.

They don't have a quarterback. That's obvious. And to those who spotted Whisenhunt playing golf with Peyton Manning, sorry. The Colts' star is not leaving Indianapolis the way the Colts left Baltimore.

The Cardinals don't have a strong general manager. Rod Graves is friendly, pliable, sincere and a great ambassador for Bidwill interests. He came to the desert as a $100,000 scout, hiked his annual salary to around $1.5 million, and I celebrate his good fortune. But he's not a team builder, and his ascension represents the primary flaw in the organization's design.

Consequently, Whisenhunt has been stretched thin at times, forced to get involved in areas that shift his focus from his primary obligation: leading men who have the talent to win football games.

"What I'm excited about with our football team is we have a lot of young football players who have played for us and have started to play well," Whisenhunt said. "To me, that's the greatest hope that we're going to get back to being a division champion, playoff-type team real quickly.

"We have Andre Roberts, Daryl Washington, Dan Williams, O'Brien Schofield, John Skelton, Greg Toler, Calais Campbell . . . we have some young guys ready to take that next step and not make the mistakes they made last year."

Whisenhunt also forecasts bounce-back years from his marquee players, including Fitzgerald, Adrian Wilson, Darnell Dockett and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. That seems logical."