History of the Arizona Cardinals

This article details the history of the Arizona Cardinals American football club, which can be traced to the 1898 formation of the amateur Morgan Athletic Club in Chicago. The Cardinals are the oldest extant professional football club in the United States, and along with the Chicago Bears, are one of two charter members of the National Football League still in existence. The franchise relocated from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 and to Phoenix, Arizona in 1988.

Not long after the 1987 season, Bidwill agreed to move to the Phoenix area on a handshake deal with state and local officials, and the team became the Phoenix Cardinals. They planned to play at Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe on a temporary basis while a new stadium was being built. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the savings and loan crisis derailed financing for the stadium, forcing the Cardinals to play at Arizona State for 18 years. In defiance of all geographic reality, the Cardinals remained in the NFC East.

In March 1994, Bill Bidwill renamed the team the Arizona Cardinals due to fan preference (Bidwill had initially resisted the name "Arizona Cardinals" due to the NFL's tradition of team names that identified home cities, although the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots were longstanding exceptions and the Carolina Panthers were set to start play the following year.). The rest of the NFL owners quickly approved the name change.

The Cardinals had missed the playoffs by a single game in their final season in St. Louis, and for much of the 1988 season they were poised to build on that momentum. At the end of week 11, they were 7-4 and in first place in the NFC East. However, they dropped their final five games to finish 7-9. They got off to another strong start in 1989, with road victories over the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks. However, a rash of injuries decimated the roster. With five games to go in the season, Gene Stallings, who had followed the team from St. Louis, announced he was retiring at the end of the season. Instead, general manager Larry Wilson ordered Stallings to leave immediately and named running backs coach Hank Kuhlmann as interim coach for the remainder of the season. The change cut the legs out from under the team, which lost its last five games to finish 5-11--the first of four straight 11-loss seasons.

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