PACardsFan
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Since I started rooting for this team(1975), this team has had 12 winning season. 12. To put that into perspective, the Patriots currently have 18 consecutive winning seasons(and 6 Super Bowl championships) while we had at one time 23 consecutive non-winning seasons(2 seasons at .500) and it took us 33 years to have a double digit win season. Some of us have been fans that entire time and more so, yeah, to question our fandom on any level no matter how critical we are of the team is ridiculously stupid.
I started following them in 1963. They were actually pretty good. If there were wild card spots, the Cardinals would have made the playoffs a few times in the 60's:
1963 9-5 (Exceptional draft bolsters a solid season. Charley Johnson sets 4 team passing marks. Those records stood until Lomax breaks them in 1984. Not even Jim Hart under Coryell had a season like this one. WR Bobby Joe Conrad sets club records for passes caught (73), and total yards (967). Has 10 receiving touchdowns too!
1964 9-3-2 (Many may not know this, but before the season started, the Cardinals turned down an offer from the city of Atlanta to move the franchise there. Another blunder by Bill Bidwill for not taking them up on that. Due to the World Series, the Cardinals forego a home game in October & forced to play a very good Baltimore Colts team on the road instead. We lost that game. A win there & we're 10-2-2 & in the playoffs.
1965 5-9 (Namath spurns us for the Jets. Injuries to Charley Johnson, Larry Wilson, Larry Stovall, and both our RB's pretty much ruins the season.
1966 8-5-1 (Started 7-1-1, but star QB breaks his leg & the offense is non existent the rest of the way. They also lose WR Sonny Randle, CB Pat Fischer, and 3 starting O-linemen Bob DeMarco, Ken Gray, Irv Goode to injuries. This was a very good team that could have gone very deep into the playoffs)
1967 6-7-1 (Charley Johnson, starting QB & Larry Stallings, best LB, both inducted into the Army two days before their 1st preseason game. Wow, just wow!
1968 9-4-1 (After a 1-3 start, the Cardinals finish 8-1-1. Yet they still miss out on the playoffs. 9 Cardinals make the Pro Bowl, including 4/5 of their starting offensive linemen. Cardinals score 22 rushing touchdowns!! No team had ever or has ever had that many Pro Bowl players & NOT made the playoffs!! By season's end, this may have been the best team in the NFL.
1969 4-9-1 (11 starters lost due to injury)
So you younger fans now understand that injuries have pretty much always been a part of the Cardinals fortunes. The franchise was doomed in St. Louis, as the football team was always the red-headed stepchild to the baseball franchise. Bidwill screwed the pooch when he chose AZ over Baltimore without a guaranteed domed stadium in place. Until the new stadium was built, this franchise was forced to play 3-4 road games in September every year. No franchise could have won under those conditions. If they had moved to Baltimore they could have avoided almost 2 decades of futility in the desert.