48 Fun Facts About Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals franchise dates to 1898 and a Chicago neighbourhood team called what?

Morgan Athletic Club began as a neighbourhood pick-up side on Chicago's South Side; it went on to become a charter member of the NFL in 1920 and has outlasted all but one of the league's other founders.

The Cardinals got their name in 1901 when faded second-hand jerseys from which university were dubbed 'Cardinal red'?

University of Chicago: owner Chris O'Brien bought the Maroons' used jerseys and talked up their washed-out maroon as 'Cardinal red', so the team is named for a colour, not for the bird.

Despite the Wisconsin city of the same name, the 'Racine' in the 1920 Racine Cardinals referred to what?

A street in Chicago: the club's home field stood on Racine Avenue. When a team from Racine, Wisconsin, joined the league in 1922, the Cardinals took their city's name instead to avoid confusion.

The Cardinals' first NFL title, in 1925, is still disputed by supporters of which team?

Pottsville Maroons: they had beaten the Cardinals on the field, but the league suspended them for playing an exhibition on another club's patch and gave Chicago the title; it refused to reopen the case as recently as 2003.

Which Cardinals fullback scored all 40 of his team's points in one 1929 Thanksgiving Day game?

Ernie Nevers ran in six touchdowns and kicked four extra points himself in the 40-6 win, and through the 2025 season no NFL player had scored more in a single game.

To which city did the Cardinals move in 1960?

St. Louis already had baseball's Cardinals, so for 28 seasons locals told the two teams apart by calling the newcomers the 'football Cardinals' or simply the 'Big Red'.

In 28 seasons in their second home city, every Cardinals playoff run ended at which stage?

First round: in those 28 seasons they qualified only in 1974, 1975 and 1982 and went out at once each time, a record of futility that helped persuade the owner to move the team again.

What was the team called for its first six seasons in Arizona before the 1994 name change?

Phoenix Cardinals: thin crowds and an ageing stadium had driven the franchise out of its previous home in 1988, and the new name lasted until 'Arizona' replaced it in March 1994.

Which team did the Cardinals beat 20–7 in January 1999 for their first playoff win since 1947?

Dallas Cowboys: they had beaten Arizona twice already that season, but Jake Plummer's side won in Texas to end a 51-year wait, the first playoff game the franchise had ever won away from home.

Which Cardinals safety turned down $3.6 million in 2002 to enlist in the Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004?

Pat Tillman enlisted alongside his brother eight months after the September 11 attacks; the Army first said he had died under enemy fire, and admitted only weeks later that his own side had shot him.

After blowing a 20-point lead on Monday night in 2006, which Cardinals coach raged 'they are who we thought they were'?

Dennis Green had watched his side force six turnovers and lead 23-3, only to lose 24-23 to a team that never scored an offensive touchdown; 'crown their ass!' became a meme, and he was fired after the season.

Which head coach took the Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII in his second season?

Ken Whisenhunt had been offensive coordinator of the very team he met in that Super Bowl, champions three years earlier with his play-calling, so the title game pitted him against players he used to coach.

Which quarterback, once a $5.50-an-hour grocery stocker, led the Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII?

Kurt Warner had been benched for a rookie in 2006 and looked finished; two years later, aged 37, he took a franchise with one playoff win in six decades to within 35 seconds of the title.

Super Bowl XLIII was decided by which Steelers receiver's toe-tap catch with 35 seconds left?

Santonio Holmes kept both feet in the corner of the end zone and was named the game's MVP; barely two minutes earlier Larry Fitzgerald's 64-yard touchdown had put Arizona ahead for the first time.

Which Steelers linebacker returned an interception 100 yards to end the first half of Super Bowl XLIII?

James Harrison stepped in front of a pass at his own goal line as the half ran out and rumbled the length of the field, turning a likely Arizona lead into a ten-point deficit in a game lost by four.

Larry Fitzgerald was drafted third overall in 2004 out of which college?

Pittsburgh: Fitzgerald was the Heisman runner-up there as a sophomore. Minnesota was home, where as a teenager he worked as a Vikings ball boy for the head coach who later drafted him for Arizona.

Larry Fitzgerald ended his career second in NFL history in both catches and receiving yards, behind which player?

Jerry Rice: Fitzgerald piled up 1,432 catches and 17,492 yards, every one of them for the Cardinals, and still finished more than 5,000 yards short of Rice's total.

Which team's Hail Mary forced overtime against the 2015 Cardinals?

Green Bay Packers: Aaron Rodgers' desperation heave tied it as time expired, but Larry Fitzgerald took a pass 75 yards on the first play of overtime and scored the winner two plays later.

Which head coach retired after 2017 having led the Cardinals to their best record in Arizona?

Bruce Arians left as the winningest coach in Cardinals history, then lasted one year out of the game: he took over Tampa Bay and, with Tom Brady at quarterback, won the Super Bowl that had eluded him in Arizona.

Kyler Murray, first overall in 2019, had already been a first-round pick in which other sport?

Baseball, by the Oakland Athletics: they took him ninth overall in 2018 and signed him for a $4.66 million bonus, only to see him win the Heisman Trophy that autumn and choose the NFL instead.

Which Cardinals head coach, hired in 2019, drafted Kyler Murray and was fired after a 4–13 season in 2022?

Kliff Kingsbury had been fired by Texas Tech with a losing record only weeks before Arizona hired him; as a college coach he had said he would spend the first pick on Murray if he could, and then he did.

Which All-Pro receiver did the Cardinals acquire from Houston in 2020 in a trade for running back David Johnson?

DeAndre Hopkins caught a club-record 115 passes in his first Arizona season, among them the leaping 'Hail Murray' touchdown over three Buffalo defenders that won a game in the final seconds.

Which Ohio State receiver, son of a Colts Hall of Famer, did Arizona draft fourth overall in 2024?

Marvin Harrison Jr. passed up his father's old college, Syracuse, for Ohio State, and went 15 picks higher in the draft than his dad, whom the Colts took 19th in 1996.

The Cardinals' Glendale stadium, opened in 2006, is famous for what engineering feature?

A roll-out natural grass field: the turf lives in a giant tray that sits outside in the desert sun for most of the year and rolls into the building on steel rails only for game days.

On the frozen field of the 1947 NFL title game, the Cardinals gained an edge by wearing what?

Sneakers gave their backs footing on the ice in a 28-21 win, the first of five home playoff games the franchise has played without ever losing one, through the 2025 season.

Which team is the Cardinals' oldest rival, the only other franchise left from the NFL's 1920 founding?

Chicago Bears: in 1920 they were still the Decatur Staleys, a starch company's works team; once they moved to Chicago the two clubs shared the city for almost four decades, until the Cardinals gave up and left.

Which team is the Cardinals' oldest divisional rival, first met in 1937?

Los Angeles Rams: they were the Cleveland Rams when the two first met, and decades later the franchises took turns in the same Midwestern city, the Rams moving in a few years after the Cardinals had left.

Which retired Cardinals number was re-issued to J. J. Watt in 2021?

99 (Marshall Goldberg): Watt was ready to pick a new number out of respect for the 1947 champion until Goldberg's daughter gave her blessing, and he wore 99 for his last two NFL seasons.

Which Georgia halfback, a Hall of Famer who lived to 100, starred on the 1947 champion Cardinals?

Charley Trippi signed for a then-record $100,000 while a rival league was bidding for him, then scored twice in the 1947 title game, on a 44-yard run and a 75-yard punt return.

Which Cardinals cornerback, a 1991 pick from Southern, entered the Hall of Fame in 2014?

Aeneas Williams went to college for an accounting degree and did not play football there until he walked on as a junior; a year later he led the nation in interceptions, and he went on to eight Pro Bowls.

Where did the Cardinals play their home games from 1988 to 2005?

Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe belongs to Arizona State University, so the team spent 18 seasons as a college's tenant, wearing white at home in the early weeks so that visitors had to bake in dark jerseys.

Where did the Cardinals hold summer training camp for almost every year from 1988 to 2012?

Flagstaff sits about 7,000 feet up, so Northern Arizona University's campus let the team escape the desert's summer heat; camp moved to the air-conditioned home stadium in 2013.

The Cardinals' round-headed pre-2005 helmet logo was derisively known as what?

A parakeet: the 2005 redesign gave the bird a black outline, a sharper beak and meaner eyes, and quarterback Josh McCown joked that this one 'might pull a gun out and shoot right back at you'.

What appeared on the Cardinals' sleeves from 1989, a year after the move west?

The flag of Arizona went on the sleeves in the team's second season in the desert; in 1996 the club even swapped its black trim for blue to match the flag's main colour.

Which owner moved the team west to Arizona in 1988?

Bill Bidwill had been a ball boy on the 1947 champions his father assembled; he became sole owner in 1972 and held the club until his death in 2019, when it passed to his son Michael.

Which coach led the Cardinals to division titles in 1974 and 1975?

Don Coryell's Cardinals won so many close games that they were dubbed the 'Cardiac Cards'; he then left for San Diego, where his 'Air Coryell' attack led the league in passing year after year.

Which team did the 2008 Cardinals beat in the NFC Championship Game to reach their first Super Bowl?

Philadelphia Eagles: Arizona let an 18-point half-time lead turn into a 25-24 deficit, then drove 14 plays to score the winning touchdown with under three minutes left.

Which rookie quarterback started for the 3–13 Cardinals of 2018 and was traded a year later?

Josh Rosen lasted one season: the 3-13 record gave Arizona the first pick in the next draft, the club spent it on another quarterback, and Rosen was traded to Miami the following day.

Which team routed the Cardinals 49-15 in the 2015 NFC Championship Game?

Carolina Panthers: Arizona gave the ball away seven times, four of them on interceptions and one run back for a touchdown, yet the winners lost the Super Bowl to Denver two weeks later.

The Cardinals lost the 1948 NFL title game 7-0 to the Eagles in what conditions?

A blizzard: players from both teams had to help drag the snow-laden tarpaulin off the field, and the day's only scorer, Steve Van Buren, nearly stayed at home, sure the game would be called off.

During World War II the Cardinals merged for one winless season with which other NFL team?

Pittsburgh Steelers: short of players in 1944, the two clubs pooled their rosters as 'Card-Pitt', had two head coaches at once and lost all ten games; a year earlier the Steelers had done the same with the Eagles.

Which previously unbeaten team lost Super Bowl XLII at the Cardinals' Glendale stadium in February 2008?

New England Patriots: they arrived 18-0 and lost 17-14 to the New York Giants after David Tyree pinned a desperate pass against his own helmet; the stadium has staged two more Super Bowls since.

Which eventual Super Bowl champion routed the 2009 Cardinals 45–14 in the divisional playoffs?

New Orleans Saints: Arizona scored on a 70-yard run with its very first play and was then buried; the defeat turned out to be the last game of its veteran quarterback, who retired days later.

As of 2025, who was the Cardinals' all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns, with 34,639 and 209?

Jim Hart went unpicked in the 1966 draft and got his chance through a tryout arranged by his old college coach; he stayed 18 seasons and quarterbacked the 'Cardiac Cards' of the mid-1970s.

Whose 4,671 yards in 2015 set the Cardinals' single-season passing record?

Carson Palmer had torn a knee ligament for the second time in his career only ten months before the season began; he came back at 35 to throw 35 touchdown passes, also a club record.

As of 2025, which running back held the Cardinals' career rushing record with 7,999 yards?

Ottis Anderson was one yard short of 8,000 for the club when it traded him to the New York Giants midway through the 1986 season; there, at 34, he was named MVP of Super Bowl XXV.

As of 2025, who was the Cardinals' career sacks leader, with 71.5 between 2016 and 2021?

Chandler Jones came from New England in a 2016 trade and once had five sacks in a single game; sacks only became an official statistic in 1982, so earlier Cardinals pass rushers do not appear on the list.

Who was the Cardinals' first head coach in the NFL, in charge from 1920 to 1922?

Paddy Driscoll was also the team's star back: in 1920 he scored the only touchdown in a win over the rival Chicago Tigers, a game that club legend, though not the record, says was played for the right to stay in the city.