Arizona Cardinals

• 1. Introduction

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  The Arizona Cardinals are the oldest continuously run professional football franchise in the United States, a distinction they carry alongside a championship drought that, as of 2025, stretches 78 seasons - the longest active drought in all of North American sports. A team born on the South Side of Chicago in 1898, that became a charter member of the NFL in 1920, that played its last championship game in a Philadelphia snowstorm in 1948, and that has since wandered from Chicago to St. Louis to the desert of Arizona. How does a franchise with that much history end up holding that kind of record? And what does it mean to be a fan of a team that has built an identity around near-misses and hard luck? Those are the questions worth sitting with as the Cardinals' story unfolds.

• 2. Born in Chicago

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  Chris O'Brien, a Chicago painting and building contractor, acquired a neighborhood athletic club called the Morgan Athletic Club and moved it to Normal Field on Racine Avenue. The team carried the name Racine Normals until 1901, when O'Brien bought used jerseys from the University of Chicago. He described the faded maroon color as "Cardinal red", and the name stuck. When the American Professional Football Association formed in 1920, the team joined as a charter member, entering as the Racine Cardinals before changing their name to the Chicago Cardinals two years later to avoid confusion with the Horlick-Racine Legion, which had joined the league that same year. The name change solved one problem but the franchise's long story of near-misses was just beginning. The very first NFL championship the Cardinals claimed, in 1925, arrived under disputed circumstances after the Pottsville Maroons were suspended for playing a game in another team's territory - despite having beaten the Cardinals head-to-head earlier that season. Both teams had also broken rules by scheduling additional games against teams that had already disbanded, which added a separate layer of controversy. The Cardinals' second championship, won in 1947 in a game against the Philadelphia Eagles, came eight months after team owner Charles Bidwill died. They returned to defend that title the following year but lost 7-0 in a snowstorm in Philadelphia. Those two title-game appearances in 1947 and 1948 remain the last times the Cardinals played for an NFL championship.

• 3. Decades in St. Louis

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  Owner Violet Bidwill Wolfner moved the team to St. Louis in 1960, partly because the franchise was nearly bankrupt after years of losing fans to the crosstown Chicago Bears. The newly formed rival American Football League gave the NFL leverage to allow the relocation. In St. Louis the team was called the "Big Red", the "Gridbirds", or the "Football Cardinals" to sidestep confusion with baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, a name collision that followed the franchise the way hard luck tends to. In 28 years there, the team advanced to the playoffs just three times - in 1974, 1975, and 1982 - and never hosted or won a postseason game. Their most notable accomplishment of that era was winning the Playoff Bowl, a now-defunct third-place consolation game, defeating the Green Bay Packers 24-17 in 1964. A then-21-year-old stadium and persistently mediocre play caused attendance to dwindle, and by the end of the 1987 season, owner Bill Bidwill had agreed to move the team once again, this time to Phoenix, on a handshake deal with state and local officials.

• 4. The Arizona Years

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  The team became the Phoenix Cardinals in 1988 and played their first 18 seasons in Arizona at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University. They changed their name to the Arizona Cardinals on the 17th of March 1994. The franchise spent much of that stretch cycling through head coaches and losing records. Vince Tobin's hire before the 1996 season briefly changed things: in the 1998 NFL season, the Cardinals qualified for the playoffs for the first time in 16 years and defeated the Dallas Cowboys 20-7 in the wild card round - the team's first postseason win since 1947. Their run ended quickly, however, with a 41-21 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the divisional round. Years of regression followed, including a 3-13 season in 2018 under Steve Wilks that tied the franchise's worst record in a 16-game season, set in 2000. In 2019, the team used the top overall pick in the NFL draft on Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray.

• 5. Super Bowl XLIII

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  Quarterback Kurt Warner led what became the franchise's most celebrated modern run. Head coach Ken Whisenhunt, hired before the 2007 season, guided the team to 8-8 in his first year, then steered the 2008 Cardinals through one of the more unlikely postseason runs in NFL history. They defeated the Atlanta Falcons in the wild card round, the Carolina Panthers in the divisional round, and the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game - the first NFC title the franchise had won since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Warner completed 401 passes and attempted 598 passes that season, both single-season franchise records. Super Bowl XLIII ended with a 27-23 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the final seconds. The Cardinals returned to the playoffs the following year with a 10-6 record, their first season with 10 wins in Arizona, before losing 45-14 to the eventual champion New Orleans Saints in the divisional round. Their only other deep run came in the 2015 season, when the team posted a franchise-best 13-3 record. That year Carson Palmer threw for a single-season franchise record 4,671 yards and 35 touchdowns. The Cardinals defeated the Green Bay Packers 26-20 in overtime before losing to the top-seeded Carolina Panthers 49-15 in the NFC Championship Game, committing seven turnovers. As of 2025, those remain the Cardinals' only two NFC Championship Game appearances since the merger.

• 6. Cardinal Red Through the Decades

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  Cardinal red has been the team's color since O'Brien bought those faded jerseys in 1901, and the franchise's visual identity has evolved around that constant. Starting in 1947, the team adopted a logo of a Northern cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis - perched on the laces of a football. When the team arrived in Arizona in 1988, the flag of Arizona was added to the sleeves the following year. A habit of wearing white jerseys at home during Arizona's early-season heat, where temperatures frequently exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit, lasted for 18 years at Sun Devil Stadium but ended when the team moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale in 2006, where the roof allowed a controlled indoor temperature of 70 degrees and the team chose to wear red at home full time. The most significant visual overhaul in a century came before the 2023 season, when the team adopted all-red uniforms at home, all-white on the road, and all-black as an alternate - a cleaner, three-set system that replaced years of mixing and matching. Before the 2025 season, the Cardinals unveiled a "Rivalries" uniform, a primarily tan design with sand speckles and copper trim, to be worn once per season at home against each NFC West opponent over three seasons.

• 7. Records and Legacies

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  Larry Fitzgerald played for the Cardinals from 2004 through 2020 and holds the franchise career records for receptions (1,432), receiving yards (15,545), and total touchdowns (110). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2026. Jim Hart held the team's career passing records from his tenure spanning 1966-1983, finishing with 34,639 yards and 209 touchdown passes. Ottis Anderson rushed for a franchise-record 1,605 yards in 1979 and finished his Cardinals career with 7,999 rushing yards. Neil Rackers set the single-season franchise record with 40 field goals in 2005. Patrick Peterson's 99-yard punt return in 2011 stands as the longest in team history, while David Johnson's 108-yard kickoff return in 2015 is the franchise's longest in that category. The Cardinals are the only NFL team with a perfect record in home playoff games, going 5-0 across games played in 1947, the 2008-09 playoffs, the 2009-10 playoffs, and the 2015-16 playoffs. Safety Pat Tillman, who left football to serve in the military after the September 11 attacks, had his number 40 retired by the team in 2004, and the Cardinals have since maintained a sustained relationship with nearby Luke Air Force Base and Arizona's military community in his honor.