The Arizona Cardinals are a professional football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Cardinals were founded in 1898, and are the oldest continuously run professional American football club in the United States.
The team was established in Chicago in 1898 and was a charter member of the NFL in 1920. 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 in 1921). The club moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1960 and played in that city through 1987 (sometimes referred to as the "football Cardinals," "Big Red," "Gridbirds," or "Cardiac Cards" to avoid confusion with the baseball St. Louis Cardinals). Before the 1988 NFL season, the team moved to Tempe, Arizona, a college town suburb of Phoenix, and played their home games for the next 18 years at Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium. In 2006, the club began playing all home games at the newly constructed University of Phoenix Stadium in the northwestern suburb of Glendale.
The franchise's lone NFL championship game victory came in 1947 while they were based in Chicago, two decades before the first Super Bowl game was ever played. The club's other NFL championship occurred in 1925, eight years before the league began holding a championship game, and is a controversial title to this day. The much contested title was believed to belong to the Pottsville Maroons but was given to the Cardinals instead in the so-called 1925 NFL Championship controversy. In the six-plus decades since winning the championship in 1947, the team suffered many losing seasons. They have been to the playoffs six times and have won six playoff games, three of which were victories during their run in the 2008-09 NFL Playoffs. During that season, they reached Super Bowl XLIII. The team has also won four division titles (1974, 1975, 2008, and 2009) since their 1947–1948 NFL championship game appearances. In addition, the club won one NFC Championship Game in 2008.
The Cardinals conduct their annual summer training camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
