NFL: The Arizona Cardinals Are The Oldest Professional Football Team In United States History

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 club of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team was founded as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898, and is the oldest continuously run professional football team in the United States.[1] The Cardinals play their home games at State Farm Stadium, which opened in 2006 and is located in the northwestern suburb of Glendale.

The team was established in Chicago in 1898 as an amateur football team and joined the NFL as a charter member on September 17, 1920.[4] Along with the Chicago Bears, the club is one of two NFL charter member franchises still in operation since the league’s founding (the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL a year after its creation in 1921). The club then moved to St. Louis in 1960 and played in that city through 1987 (sometimes referred to locally in St. Louis as the “Football Cardinals”, the “Gridbirds” or the “Big Red” to avoid confusion with the Major League Baseball team of the same name). Before the 1988 season, the team moved west to Tempe, Arizona, a college suburb east of Phoenix, and played their home games for the next 18 seasons at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University. In 2006, the club moved to their current home field in Glendale, although the team’s executive offices and training facility remain in Tempe.

The franchise has won two NFL championships, both while it was based in Chicago. The first occurred in 1925, but is the subject of controversy, with supporters of the Pottsville Maroons believing that Pottsville should have won the title. Their second title, 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.

Since winning the championship in 1947, the team suffered many losing seasons, and currently holds the longest active championship drought of North American sports at 72 consecutive seasons. In 2012 the Cardinals became the first NFL franchise to lose 700 games since its inception. The franchise’s all-time win-loss record (including regular season and playoff games) at the conclusion of the 2020 season is 573–780–41 (566–771–41 in the regular season, 7–9 in the playoffs).[5] They have been to the playoffs ten times and have won seven playoff games, three of which were victories during their run 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 (losing 27–23 to the Pittsburgh Steelers). The team has also won five division titles (1974197520082009 and 2015) since their 1947–48 NFL championship game appearances. The Cardinals are the only NFL team who have never lost a playoff game at home, with a 5–0 record: the 1947 NFL Championship Game, two postseason victories during the aforementioned 2008–09 NFL playoffs, one during the 2009–10 playoffs, and one during the 2015–16 playoffs.

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 known as University of Phoenix Stadium) in 2013. The stadium was the site of the 2015 Pro Bowl, unlike in past years, where it was held at Aloha Stadium in HonoluluHawaii. The stadium also played host to Super Bowls XLII and XLIX, and will host Super Bowl LVII in 2023.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Cardinals

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