The Arizona Cardinals: The NFL's Worst Team

In honor of the Lions being right on the cusp of doing something the Cardinals will never do, I've decided to bring one more Legacy of Failure this week. Detailing the history of the oldest professional football team and their perennial and extensive failure. Enjoy.

1898-1919: Begin your history as an amateur team known as the Morgan Athletic Club. In 1901 rebrand as the Racine Normals and then the Racine Street Cardinals before suspending operations in 1906 and not resuming till 1912. Rebrand again to the Racine Cardinals in 1919 before joining this new fan-dangled "APFA" The league that will soon be called the NFL.

1920-1924: You are immediately a pretty mid team. With the only real thing of note being the rebrand as the Chicago Cardinals in 1922.

1925: Go 11-2-1 and be controversially named NFL champion because the team that probably should've been named champion is suspended and stripped of the title for bullshit reasons. This will be one of the only championships you'll ever win.

1926-1942: Settle into being the forgotten little brother of the Chicago Bears. While they rack up championships you are the embarrassing afterthought the league tries to keep out of view as you never win more than 6 games this entire span. In 1932. The source of your misery buys you. You are now property of the Bidwell family.

1943-45: Basically every athlete worth a damn is in the US Armed Forces fighting in World War 2 right now. Go a combined total of 1-29 in the meantime including a 1-year merger with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Remember that name.

1946: The war is over. The athletes are coming home and it turns out you are actually a lot better when you aren't employing people off the streets. You still don't win more than 6 games though.

1947: Thanks to a 9-3 record you are finally getting to participate in the NFL Championship game. Why you are even favored to win! and you do! Beating the Philadelphia Eagles 28-21.

1948: You are even better this time. 11-1 and facing those fucking Eagles again in the NFL Championship. Its a miserable snowy game and holds the distinction of being the first NFL Championship to be on television. You lose but surely this is a sign of things to come. A competitive team at last!

1949: Or you can regress hard and go back to struggling to win 6 games every year. That works too.

1950-1959: You are terrible. More than this Chicago simply doesn't give a fuck that you are here anymore. After one last 2-10 season enough is enough and Chicago tells you to pack your shit and get the fuck out. You are going to St. Louis.

1960-1964: Its kind of working? You even win whatever the fuck a "Playoff Bowl" is against the Packers. Apparently, its a 3rd place game not officially counted as a playoff game. This will contribute to an unfortunate record seeing as you haven't won anything since 1947.

1965-1973: Start ping-ponging between 7-9 win seasons and 4 win seasons. Not even the efforts of Jim Hart can save you. But here's this Don Coryell guy. Try not to fuck him up eh?

1974: You go 10-4 and finally made the playoffs again. Unfortunately for you, you run into the best team that won't win a Super Bowl. One of the 1970s Minnesota Vikings squads.

1975: You made the playoffs again! 11-3 this time and going against the Rams. You lose by multiple scores again.

1976: 10-4 isn't good enough for playoffs this time but at least you are good. This Don Coryell guy is doing amazing for you. Hope the owner isn't a cheap dickhead that retaliates for being called one.

1977: You go 7-7 this year but this is when the bomb drops. In an interview he believed was off the record, Coryell goes off on the Cardinals organization. They don't spend money, most of the good players are playing on options and could fuck off and WOULD if not for the coaches. He doesn't want to be here anymore because he's tired of having to do everything for less cash. Any reasonable franchise would see this as a hint to stop fucking around the greatest head coach they've ever had. The Cardinals? Coryell is promptly fired and fucks off to San Diego.

1978-1981: Oh wow. What a surprise. The coaching genius that predicted you'd be shit without him was completely right. Do not post a winning record, do not pass go, and your QB is now Neil Lomax. The definition of a hot-and-cold player.

1982: Make the playoffs due to the player strike and get nuked from orbit by the Green Bay Packers. The Lynn Dickey Packers.

1983-1987: You still suck. Nothing you do is working. St. Louis is becoming apathetic to your presence and you haven't won a playoff game in 40 years. Time to move again. This time to where all perpetual losers find themselves. Phoenix, Arizona.

1988-1993: You are now the Phoenix Cardinals and immediately settle in as the clownshow of the city. You know what will fix this? Rebranding to the Arizona Cardinals! Heres this Aeneas Williams for you to waste.

1994-1997: Theres a reason I'm largely doing this in chunks of years. This franchise is the embodiment of doing nothing and sucking while doing nothing. At least in 1997 it gets them this Jake Plummer guy. Maybe he'll do something for this team.

1998: On September 3rd, a new Cardinals fan is born. He who writes this lambasting of the team he once called his. Go 9-7 with Plummer under center and qualify for the playoffs for the first time since being run over by the Packers in 1982.

1998 Playoffs: Its been 51 years since you won a playoff game and to do it you must slay a dead dynasty. The Cowboys. To the delusional jubilation of Cardinals fans everywhere it finally happens. By a score of 20-7 you have at last broken the drought. You are then promptly ass-blasted by the Minnesota Vikings.

1999-2002: and now you are trash again. You even manage to draft Thomas Jones just to let him become a way better running back for other teams! Least you got this Anquan Boldin guy in the 2003 Draft.

2003: You sign Emmitt Smith. That should tell you how this season went. But there is one hilarious moment during all this. Week 17 against Minnesota. CAUGHT! TOUCHDOWN! NO!!!!!!! NO!!!!!!! THE CARDINALS HAVE KNOCKED THE VIKINGS OUT OF THE PLAYOFFS! shall live in agony in the psyche of Vikings fans for all time.

2004 NFL Draft: That 4-12 season was misery and you CLEARLY need a QB. How about these Phillip Rivers or Ben Roethlisberger guys? Wait what? You picked a WR named Larry Fitzgerald? God dammit Cardinals. Least you got Karlos Dansby and Darnell Dockett in this class too.

2004: What a surprise. You still suck and hiring a guy notorious for poor clock management and being carried by high-end talent in Dennis Green doesn't work.

2005: Sign the washed-up remains of Kurt Warner. Theres just one problem. He is WASHED and you go 5-11.

2006 NFL Draft: Its time to finally admit you need to draft a QB and you have the choice of Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler. Even knowing what Cutler becomes, you choose wrong and pick Leinart. A cancerous dickbag that will never do anything for you.

2006: Oh what a surprise. The asshole with an overinflated ego is actually a horrible player at the NFL level and you are NO better than last year. Dennis Green. Get the fuck out.

2007: Matt Leinart gets injured again and Kurt Warner starts showing signs of returning to Rams form. You are 8-8. Huh.

2008: Put your chips down at the Kurt Warner table one more time. What ensues is a season of highs and lows. A true Cinderella story that should be adapted by Hollywood. Sure its fueled by a piss-poor NFC West and you SUCK against every other team but a playoff berth is a playoff berth.

2008 Wild-Card: Everyone is just happy to be here. See if you can beat this young Falcons team. Despite trailing at half-time, you come back and win. Setting up a match with a team that had no issues with you in years past.

2008 Divisional Round: Holy shit you just ended Jake Delhomme's career while blowing the Panthers out.

2008 NFC Championship: You make magic happen one last time to hold off the Philadelphia Eagles to go to the Super Bowl. The entire city of Phoenix is rabid at this point. No one can believe it and even my father a long-time pessimist of the team had begun to believe.

2008 Super Bowl: The gods are cruel. This is easily the most heartbreaking loss in the history of the Cardinals. Despite dominating the Steelers, the Cardinals make just enough mistakes to leave the door open and the Steelers proceed to tear their hearts out in the dying seconds. All the highs and lows. Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald playing like gods among mortals. For nothing.

2009: Least you are still a hardy team and at 10-6 you get back to the playoffs and win an epic gun duel against the Packers. Proceed to lose to the Saints. Kurt Warner senses whats up and retires because he wants no part of it. Years later it comes out the Saints were targeting players and Warner was one of them. So on behalf of the Cardinals fanbase. Go fuck yourself New Orleans. They should've stripped that Super Bowl win. Pondscum organization.

2010-2012: Without Warner the team falls off a cliff and Anquan Boldin packs it up and leaves. Coach Ken Whisenhunt is fired after 2012.

2013: Somehow you stumbled into having Bruce Arians for a new head coach and you got Carson Palmer at QB. The combination is enough to resurrect Palmer's career and you are back to winning football.

2014: This is where someone offended a higher deity. Carson Palmer tears his ACL and then backup Drew Stanton goes down too. Resulting in a playoff game against the Panthers in which you are forced to start Ryan Lindley. You lose to a Panthers team that shouldn't have even been there.

2015: Carson Palmer is back and he is decimating fools left and right. You got a FIRST ROUND BYE? and Larry Fitzgerald expended his last bit of magic to kill the Packers off again? Whos next? The Panthers? Pffft. That arrogant overrated team needs to be humbled! Who better than you? You lost to the Panthers again? God dammit.

2016: Its okay. Just rebound and-the whole team regressed. You're fucked!

2017 Draft: This is going to be Carson Palmer's last ride almost for sure. You NEED to move up in the draft and secure a new QB or you will suffer the consequences for years to come. You stayed at Pick 13 and drafted a linebacker. Fuck off. This. Right here. Is the moment where I quit on this franchise. This one decision broke me. You know your QB won't be here next season and you do NOTHING? This kind of shit is why the Cardinals are what they are. Its why the city is fairweather dumbasses that accept 8-8 as a good season. Its why any sports fan with a brain in that city is a fan of a team that doesn't play there.

2017: Adding insult to injury, Carson Palmer gets hurt again and you find yourself sitting on pick #10 the following year. In addition to this, Bruce Arians proceeds to Don Coryell you by pulling the golden parachute of retirement and then fucking off to Tampa Bay.

2018 Draft: Instead of trying to move up, you watch 3 of the 5 top prospects go off the board and now have the choice of Josh Rosen or Lamar Jackson. Instead of drafting the most electric mobile QB threat since Michael Vick, you draft the immature ego-douche who conned NFL scouts into not seeing him as the Day 3 QB he really was. Something painfully obvious in his college tape unless you only watch the Texas A&M game.

2018: Oh wow, what a fucking surprise. Josh Rosen is a bum and a half and you are even worse. Time to fire Steve Wilks and compensate for not trying to draft Patrick Mahomes by getting Mahomes college coach Kliff Kingsbury. The most notorious 2nd half-collapse artist in recent memory

2019 Draft: The atmosphere in Phoenix during this draft only cemented my growing hatred of the Cardinals as an organization AND its fans. Sitting on the #1 pick there were throngs of small-minded asshats screaming to draft Nick Bosa over Kyler Murray. "Josh Rosen isn't THAT BAD" they would say like Rosen wasn't sitting on the sidelines like he didn't have a care in the world while being blown out and aiding the other team with shitty throw after shitty throw. Whats the problem you might ask? The Bidwell's listened. By drafting Murray they could deflect all organizational blame onto him. Regardless of how bad they fuck it up from thereon.

2019-2020: See immediate improvement but develop an issue with playing well in the 2nd half of a season. Larry Fitzgerald retires at the end of 2020 2nd only to basically Jerry Rice in virtually every receiving stat.

2021: This problem particularly rears its head here and results in you losing badly to the Rams in the Wild-Card. But Murray quit on the team! Its totally his fault that the coach is a bumbling tit that shouldn't be a head coach.

2022-2023: This is where the Cardinals throw Murray under the bus. In spite of the rich extension there is a contract stipulation involving studying game film more which has something to do with Kyler enjoying playing video games. Ignore that this stipulation has been RETRACTED, THIS is why the Cardinals struggle. Murray sucks and its the fault of Call of Duty. Doesn't help that he spends much of 2022 and 2023 hurt. Least Kingsbury and GM Steve Keim are gone. Not that Keim's replacement is any better.

2024: You are now a hard-luck underdog that largely makes all but the best teams work for it to beat you. But you fold like a lawnchair and go from winning the NFC West to comfortably missing the playoffs again...and everyone is blaming Murray for it like the defense isn't Swiss cheese and the offense is basically Murray, James Conner, Trey McBride, and Marvin Harrison Jr whenever he wants to actually catch the ball.

A roughly 125-year history. That averages 1 playoff win per decade only has 1 completely legitimate championship and holds the NFL records for all-time losses, longest playoff win drought, has the 2nd lowest franchise win%, and regularly wastes careers of legends like Fitzgerald.