Team History: Cardinals’ Super Bowl appearance comes during record playoff drought

Team History: Cardinals’ Super Bowl appearance comes during record playoff drought

Fans of the Arizona Cardinals have not seen their team produce many successful seasons, especially since their move to the Grand Canyon State. The club has played for the NFL championship just three times, including Super Bowl XLIII against the Steelers, as well as a trip to the NFC Championship Game in 2015 and another title when the league still used regular season record as the sole determining factor. 

Although the Cardinals and the Bears are the only two teams that have appeared in each of the NFL’s 99 seasons, the team got its start long before 10 men met to form the American Professional Football Association in 1920. 

Christopher O’Brien started the Morgan Athletic Club in Southside Chicago in 1898. O’Brien and his brother, Pat, played on the football team, which, like many others of the day, was comprised of amateurs. When the team moved a few blocks north to Normal Field, O’Brien changed the club’s name to the Normals. 

Later in the year, O’Brien bought used jerseys from the University of Chicago. The shirts had faded from the traditional city color of maroon to cardinal red, and the name was changed again to the Racine Cardinals, since Normal Field was on Racine Avenue. 

Despite the team suspending operations due to a lack of opponents from 1907-13 and World War I and the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918, the team had some success, winning a Chicago City Championship in 1917.

Three years later, representatives for teams in the Illinois, New York, and Ohio areas plus Detroit met in Canton, Ohio, to set guidelines for the new league in areas such as player poaching, determining a league champion and naming Jim Thorpe as the first president. 

Only four of the 14 members finished that first season as an active team. Behind coach and quarterback John “Paddy” Driscoll, a former star at Northwestern and player with the Chicago Cubs, the Cardinals finished 6-2-2. Driscoll stepped down as coach after an 8-3 record and a third-place showing in 1922. He continued to play quarterback for the Cardinals through 1925, which was by far the team’s best season to that point. 

Driscoll scored four touchdowns and split kicking duties with Joseph “Red” Dunn, as Chicago battled with the Pottsville Maroons. After a 21-7 loss to the Maroons in early December, the Cardinals were 9-2-1 and trailed 10-2 Pottsville in the standings.

From there, things got complicated, as both teams were involved in games that violated league rules. The Maroons played an exhibition game outside its territory and the Cardinals played two games against teams that had already folded. The Milwaukee Badgers could not muster a full roster for its game in Chicago, so they used four high school players under assumed names. 

As a result, the championship for the season was vacated. The league eventually offered the title to the Cardinals, but O’Brien refused to accept the honor. Only after the Bidwill family took control in the 1930s did the team make a claim to the championship, which is considered the first in franchise history. 

Driscoll left after the 1925 season, and the Cardinals fell out of championship contention for the next decade. Chicago was one of the few teams that employed African-American players, despite most owners following their baseball counterparts and blacklisting players of color. The most famous of these men was Frederick “Duke” Slater, an All-Pro offensive tackle who was a blocker for Ernie Nevers when he set a record with six rushing touchdowns in a 40-6 win over the Bears in 1929. 

Nevers was talked out of retirement before the season by David Jones, a physician, and part-owner of the Cubs, who bought the team from O’Brien for $12,000. However, Jones soon found out what O’Brien already knew, that the Cardinals could not contend with the Bears’ popularity, especially when they weren’t winning. 

A meeting at a party between Jones and Charles Bidwill, a lawyer, and the Bears’ vice president, eventually led to the team being sold once again. Bidwill sold his shares with the Bears and gave Jones $50,000 for ownership of the Cardinals in late 1932. 

Bidwill’s new team finished 6-4-2 in 1935, but was tied for third in the West Division. The Cardinals continued to sink lower. They lost the last six games of a 3-8 season in 1942, then went 0-10 in each of the next two years. In 1945, the club lost its first three games to push the losing streak to 29 games, a record that still stands. The Cardinals defeated the Bears, 16-7, in Week 4, but that was the lone bright spot in a 1-9 season. 

The Cardinals turned things around when coach Jimmy Conzelman returned for his second stint with the club. The longtime player and coach resigned after the 1942 season to become the director of public relations with the St. Louis Browns baseball team. He helped the team win the American League pennant in 1944 before returning to football. Meanwhile, many players were drafted into the military during World War II, forcing the Cardinals and Steelers to combine for 1944. “Card-Pitt,” or the “Carpets,” went 0-10. 

After a 6-5 mark in 1946, Bidwill’s club faced a challenge from the All-American Football Conference’s Chicago Rockets. Bidwill dipped into his fortune to assemble the “Million Dollar Backfield.” Longtime halfback Marshall Goldberg was joined by quarterback Paul Christman, a 1945 draft pick, along with 1946 signings Elmer Angsman and Pat Harder. 

Finally, Bidwill outspent the Rockets and signed All-American running back Charley Trippi to a $100,000 contract. The Cardinals beat the Bears, 30-21, in the final game of the regular season to finish 9-3, win the West and reach their first NFL title game.

Against Philadelphia, Angsman ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns, Trippi had one score on the ground and another on a punt return, and the Cardinals defeated Tommy Thompson and the Eagles, 28-21. The title was bittersweet, as Bidwill died of pneumonia in April before the season began. His wife, Violet, was given control of the team. 

The Chicago teams split a pair of games in 1948, but the Cardinals took another division crown with a 24-21 win in the season finale to improve to 11-1 while the Bears finished 10-2. A snowstorm in Philadelphia made visibility difficult in the title game. A five-yard run 1:05 into the fourth quarter by the league’s leading rusher, Steve Van Buren, gave the Eagles a 7-0 victory in the first televised NFL Championship Game. 

Violet Bidwill married St. Louis businessman Walter Wolfner in 1949, and the Cardinals began to struggle again after two straight title game appearances. The club only had two winning seasons over the next decade, and the Wolfner’s decided that trying to share Chicago with the Bears was too daunting of a task. The team moved to St. Louis in 1960. 

When Violet Bidwill Wolfner died two years later, the team was controlled by her adopted sons, Charles Jr. and Bill. The pair split control for 10 years before Bill bought out his brother in 1972. The Cardinals showed improvement with five winning seasons in the 1960s, but never made the playoffs. They went 9-3-2 in 1964, but were edged by the 10-3-1 Browns. Four years later, Cleveland beat out St. Louis by a half-game once again. 

The Cardinals finally made it back to the postseason in the mid-1970s under Don Coryell, the coach at San Diego State who instituted a high-powered offense. The team started 7-0 in 1974 en route to a 10-4 mark. The division title and playoff appearance were the team’s first in 26 years, but St. Louis fell to Minnesota, 30-14, in the Division round. 

In 1975, the team won its fourth division title and had several Pro Bowlers on the roster, including quarterback Jim Hart, offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf and cornerback Roger Wehrli. The team was called the “Cardiac Cards” due to their penchant for winning games late. St. Louis tied the franchise record with 11 wins, but the “Air Coryell” offense was not enough in a 35-23 loss to the Rams. 

St. Louis missed the playoffs despite a 10-4 record in 1976 and Coryell left after a 7-7 mark the following season. The Cardinals had three winning seasons in the early 1980s, but only made the playoffs with a 5-4 record in the strike-shortened 1982 campaign, which ended with a 42-16 loss to the Packers. 

Despite strong play from quarterback Neil Lomax and running back Ottis Anderson, Bidwill, citing poor play and an old stadium, moved the team to Arizona. They would become the Phoenix Cardinals, but play their home games in Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. 

The team started using the Arizona Cardinals name in 1994, but the losing continued. Arizona finally went to the postseason in 1998 under former Bears and Colts defensive coordinator Vince Tobin. A 9-7 record brought the team to the playoffs for just the fourth time in 50 years. The Cardinals defeated the Cowboys in the Wild Card round before falling to the Vikings the following week. 

Arizona went another 10 years before reaching the postseason again, this time with former Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt at the helm. In addition to the coaching change, Bill Bidwill named his son, Michael, team President in 2007.

The next year, the team was led by quarterback Kurt Warner, a former Super Bowl MVP with the Rams, as well as running back Edgerrin James and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. The Cardinals went 9-7, won the West and defeated the Falcons and Panthers to reach their first NFC Championship Game.

Arizona went up 24-6 over Philadelphia at halftime, but Donovan McNabb threw three touchdown passes to put the Eagles ahead, 25-24, early in the fourth. With 2:53 left, Warner found Tim Hightower with an eight-yard scoring pass, his fourth of the game. The Cardinals shut down McNabb on the final drive for a 32-25 win. 

Two weeks later, Arizona appeared in its first Super Bowl, and the franchise was playing in a league championship game for the first time in 60 years. The Steelers had a 20-7 lead heading into the fourth quarter, but a Pittsburgh holding penalty in the end zone for a safety sandwiched two Warner-to-Fitzgerald touchdown passes, the latter giving the Cardinals a 23-20 lead with 2:37 left. 

Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers on an eight-play, 80-yard drive, culminating in a six-yard scoring pass to game MVP Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left. Warner brought his team back into enemy territory, but he fumbled on a sack by LaMarr Woodley, and Pittsburgh held on for a 27-23 victory in Super Bowl XLIII.

The Cardinals have gone back to the playoffs three times since the loss. In 2009, Arizona went 10-6 and outlasted the Packers, 51-45, in overtime in the Wild Card round before falling to the Saints. Under Bruce Arians, another former Steelers offensive coordinator, the team had three straight double-digit win seasons. They missed the playoffs despite going 10-6 in 2013 and lost in the Wild Card round after an 11-5 record the next year. 

In 2015, the club went 13-3 to set a franchise-best for wins. Quarterback Carson Palmer threw for team records with 4,671 yards and 35 touchdowns. He added three more in the Division round, with his third giving the Cardinals a 26-20 overtime win over the Packers. Arizona got mauled by the Panthers, 49-15, in the NFC Championship Game. 

The Cardinals have played in the NFL for 99 seasons and had a winning record just 28 times. Arizona made the playoffs in 10 seasons, winning seven division titles and two league championships, and making one Super Bowl appearance. 

Two new faces have the burden of changing the culture in the desert. Kliff Kingsbury was hired in the hope that he can transform Arizona’s passing game the way he did at Texas Tech. Joining longtime star running back David Johnson will be this year’s top pick, Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray, who was not only chosen first overall in the NFL Draft but eighth overall by the Athletics in last year’s baseball draft.

-By: Kevin Rakas