
This is the first post in Kurt’s epic quest to identify the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player. For an explanation of his methodology for choosing each franchise’s ultimate franchise player, and then how you and he will choose the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player from that list, click here.
To see all the posts in this series, of which there will be one for every franchise, click here.
The roots of the Arizona Cardinals go back further than any National Football League franchise, being founded by Chicago’s Morgan Athletic Club in 1898 – having no idea that more then a century later the outfit would be playing in a retractable-roofed stadium in the middle of the Arizona desert.
The Cardinals got their handle in 1915 after being given maroon hand-me-downs from the University of Chicago that had faded significantly in color. The franchise took the Route 66 road to their eventual home over the space of several generations, starting at Chicago’s Comiskey Park from the early 1920’s through 1959 before relocating to St. Louis and eventually Arizona in 1988.
As charter members of the National Football League in 1920, there is obviously a lot of quantity to choose from for my first installment of the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player series. Unfortunately, the Cardinals franchise is perhaps one of the most perennially-losing outfits in the history of professional sports.














