Can Phoenix Rise From Ashes? : Pro football: Cardinal Coach Joe Bugel has his team primed for revenge in rematch with Redskins.

Joe Bugel learned a hard lesson the last time he faced his old teacher, Joe Gibbs. Sunday night, he hopes to return it.

Bugel, hired Feb. 6 as the new head coach of the Phoenix Cardinals after nine years as a Redskins assistant under Gibbs, saw his NFL debut spoiled Sept. 9 with a 31-0 loss at Washington.

He says it will be revenge time when the Cardinals (1-2) open their home schedule against the Redskins (2-1).

“We’re 0-1 against the Redskins. We want to be 1-1. I guess you can call it the revenge factor,” Bugel said. “You got to at least split in your conference games. If you lose the first meeting, you got to win the second.

“It’s still fresh in our mind. It’s a pivotal game for us. This is almost like a championship game for us. There’s a lot of people at 1-2 right now in the NFC. There’s going to be some teams at 1-3 after this week. We don’t want to be one of them.”

Phoenix is coming off a 28-7 loss last Sunday at New Orleans, one week after a 23-21 upset win at Philadelphia.

“I know Joe Bugel will have them busting down the door ready to play. The emotions will always be there,” Gibbs said. “The Cardinals certainly got our respect for winning at Philly.

“The last time we played, everything went right for us and everything went wrong for the Cardinals. That’s the scary thing about it. We’re afraid of them. We think they’re more settled-in now.”

A crowd of about 45,000 is expected at 72,608-seat Sun Devil Stadium for the game against Washington.

“I hope we don’t have fair-weather fans,” Bugel said. “I’d like to see how many we’d have if we were 3-0 or 2-1. I realize if you’re going to pay top dollar, they want to see you win.

“One of these days, I’d like there to be 74 (thousand) fans in the stands, all dressed in red. I think that’s coming. Seventy-four’s our goal--points and people.”

Washington leads the all-time series that dates back to 1937 by a 54-31-1 margin with wins in 10 of the last 11 meetings.

The last time the Cardinals beat the Redskins was 30-21 in Tempe on Sept. 25, 1988.

Mark Rypien was making his first NFL start that day after Doug Williams underwent an emergency appendectomy earlier in the week.

This time, third-year pro Stan Humphries will make his first career start in place of Rypien, who suffered a knee injury last week.