Arizona Cardinals: Pregame ritual featured in ad campaign

The Arizona Cardinals have been using the “Big Red Siren” since 2013, but pregame rituals have existed for years in the NFL

NFL franchises are superstitious by nature, and the Arizona Cardinals are no different. Teams around the league have come up with various ways to bring their players good luck before home games. The Cardinals’ very own pregame ritual, the “Big Red Siren” is now hitting the big time.

Tostitos, the Official Chip of the NFL, has come up with a new ad campaign, and Arizona is one of 19 clubs being featured. Each organization’s logo appears on a series of limited edition “Lucky Bags”, which are currently available for purchase. Along with the bags, each team is also featured in their own unique videos, which is where the Cards’ “Siren” makes it’s appearance (which can be viewed by visiting the Tostitos YouTube page).

The “Siren” has been in use at University of Phoenix Stadium since 2013. It’s bellowing, grinding sound accompanies the squad out of the locker room before every home game. The Cardinals’ have used a number of well-known personalities to “work the ‘Siren'”, if you will. (Country singer Blake Shelton, former Card Roger Wehrli and even “Big Red “, the team mascot, are among those who’ve had the honor).

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Besides the team’s pregame ritual, individual players had also warded off bad luck in their own personal ways throughout the years. Some of which are quite interesting.

Cornerback Patrick Peterson has made a habit of showering before every game. “I have to take a shower before I put my pads on and take the field”, the six-time Pro Bowler once told an interviewer. “I need to be superclean and fresh when I take the field”.

Former Arizona defensive end Calais Campbell, now a Jacksonville Jaguar, has a couple of pregame traditions. “I put all the parts of my uniform on the same way-left leg, right leg, knee pads”, Campbell once acknowledged. “And I always run down to our corner of the end zone and say a prayer before the game”.

Back in 2009, Cardinals’ Deuce Lutui started a pregame ritual by chance. Hours before he and his teammates defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game, the starting right guard ate a Wetzel’s pretzel for breakfast. After the victory, the mammoth lineman quipped to reporters, “I might start doing that before all our games”.

Whether you’re superstitious or not, facts are that Arizona has done quite well at home since introducing it’s “Big Red Siren”. Well enough that it doesn’t appear it will be going away any time soon. If you believe that something brings you good luck, then maybe it does.

The Cardinals are certainly buying in.

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