ACArizona Cardinals

Franchise history

The Cardinals are the oldest continuously operating professional football franchise in the United States, tracing their roots to 1898, when Chris O'Brien organized a neighborhood team on Chicago's South Side. O'Brien reportedly bought a batch of faded maroon jerseys from the University of Chicago and declared the color "Cardinal red," giving the club its enduring name. The team joined the American Professional Football Association (the NFL's forerunner) in 1920 as the Racine (later Chicago) Cardinals and won NFL championships in 1925 (a title still disputed by some historians due to a controversial scheduling decision) and 1947, the franchise's only outright title of the pre-merger era.

The Cardinals relocated to St. Louis in 1960, splitting the city's football audience with the baseball Cardinals for 28 years, before owner Bill Bidwill moved the team to Arizona in 1988. They played as the Phoenix Cardinals through 1993, then adopted the Arizona Cardinals name in 1994. The franchise called Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe home before moving into State Farm Stadium in Glendale in 2006.

For decades the Cardinals were synonymous with losing, compiling the longest championship drought of any major North American sports franchise. That narrative shifted in 2008, when quarterback Kurt Warner and receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin drove an improbable run to Super Bowl XLIII, narrowly losing to Pittsburgh 27-23 on a late Santonio Holmes touchdown. The Fitzgerald era (2004-2020) produced the franchise's most sustained relevance, though sustained postseason success has remained elusive.

Sources

• Pro Football Reference
• Wikipedia
• Arizona Cardinals Official Site

Runner-up finishes (1)

• Super Bowl XLIII - 2008

See the full super bowl champions list for the winner each of these years.