Arizona Cardinals

Arizona Cardinals
Current season
Established 1898 (1898)
Play in State Farm Stadium
Glendale, Arizona
Headquartered in Tempe, Arizona[1]
Arizona Cardinals logo
Arizona Cardinals logo
Arizona Cardinals wordmark
Arizona Cardinals wordmark
LogoWordmark
League/conference affiliations

Independent (1898–1906, 1913–1919)
National Football League (1920–present)

  • Western Division (1933–1949)
  • American Conference (1950–1952)
  • Eastern Conference (1953–1969)
    • Century Division (1967–1969)
  • National Football Conference (1970–present)
Current uniform
Team colorsCardinal red, white, black, silver[2][3][4]
       
MascotBig Red
Personnel
Owner(s)Michael Bidwill[5]
ChairmanMichael Bidwill
PresidentMichael Bidwill
General managerMonti Ossenfort
Head coachJonathan Gannon
Team history
Team nicknames
  • The Cards
  • The Redbirds
  • The Big Red
  • The Football Cardinals (during St. Louis tenure, 1960–1987)
  • The Gridbirds
  • Birdgang/Red Sea (fanbase)
Championships
League championships (2)
Conference championships (1)
Division championships (7)
Playoff appearances (11)
Home fields
Since 1920:
Temporary stadiums

1944 due to loss of players during World War II (temporary merger with Pittsburgh Steelers):

1959 before relocation to St. Louis:

The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play their home games at State Farm Stadium in Glendale,[6] a suburb northwest of Phoenix.

The team was established in Chicago in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club, and joined the NFL as a charter member on September 17, 1920.[7] The Cardinals are the oldest continuously run professional football franchise in the United States,[8][9] and, along with the Chicago Bears, are the only NFL charter member franchises still in operation.[a] In 1960, the team moved to St. Louis, where it was commonly referred to as the "Football Cardinals", the "Gridbirds", or the "Big Red" to avoid confusion with Major League Baseball's (MLB) St. Louis Cardinals. Before the 1988 season, the team moved to Tempe, Arizona, an eastern suburb of Phoenix, where it played home games for the next 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University. In 2006, the team moved to their current home field in suburban Glendale, although their executive offices and training facility remain in Tempe. From 1988 to 2012 (except 2005, when they trained in Prescott), the Cardinals conducted their annual summer training camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The Cardinals moved their training camp to State Farm Stadium (then University of Phoenix Stadium) in 2013.

The Cardinals have won two NFL championships, both while the team was in Chicago. The first, in 1925, was disputed by supporters of the runner-up Pottsville Maroons. Their second, and the first to be won in a championship game, came in 1947, nearly two decades before the first Super Bowl. They returned to the title game to defend in 1948, but lost the rematch 7–0 in a snowstorm in Philadelphia.

The team has since suffered many losing seasons, and, as of 2024, has the longest active championship drought in North American sports at 77 seasons (one more than MLB's Cleveland Guardians, who last won the World Series in 1948). The Cardinals have recorded the most losses by a franchise in NFL history with 803 regular season losses as of 2023. The team's all-time win–loss record (including regular season and playoff games) at the conclusion of the 2023 season was 596–826–41 (588–816–41 in the regular season, 7–10 in the playoffs).[10] They have been to the playoffs 11 times and have won seven playoff games, including three in the 2008–09 NFL playoffs. During that season, they won their only NFC Championship Game since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, and reached Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, losing 27–23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team has won five division titles (1974, 1975, 2008, 2009, and 2015) since their 1947–48 NFL championship game appearances. The Cardinals are the only NFL team that has never lost a playoff game at home: their 5–0 record encompasses the 1947 NFL Championship Game, two games during the 2008–09 NFL playoffs, one during the 2009–10 playoffs, and one during the 2015–16 playoffs. In their 36 seasons since moving to the Valley of the Sun in 1988, the Cardinals have a total of six playoff appearances, three division titles, and the one NFC championship.

  1. ^ "Contact Us". AZCardinals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on July 19, 2018. Retrieved November 30, 2021.
  2. ^ Urban, Darren (April 20, 2023). "New Uniforms For The Arizona Cardinals". AZCardinals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  3. ^ Gordon, Grant (April 20, 2023). "Cardinals unveil first new primary uniforms since 2005". NFL.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  4. ^ "Arizona Cardinals Team Capsule" (PDF). 2021 Official National Football League Record and Fact Book (PDF). NFL Enterprises, LLC. August 11, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 11, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  5. ^ "Michael J. Bidwill". AZCardinals.com. NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on March 1, 2022. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  6. ^ "Arizona Cardinals 2021 A-Z Guide". NFL Enterprises, LLC. Archived from the original on July 12, 2022. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  7. ^ "Arizona Cardinals Team Facts". ProFootballHOF.com. NFL Enterprises. Archived from the original on October 3, 2017. Retrieved October 2, 2017.
  8. ^ "Franchise History" (PDF). 2021 Arizona Cardinals Media Guide (PDF). NFL Enterprises, LLC. August 16, 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved September 16, 2021.
  9. ^ "Arizona Cardinals Team History". Operations.NFL.com. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021.
  10. ^ "All-Time Records of Current NFL Franchises" (PDF). Pro Football Hall of Fame. February 10, 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 16, 2018. Retrieved May 15, 2018.


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