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Top 50 Arizona Cardinals

The most tenured team in the National Football League, the Arizona Cardinals have taken a long road, traversed multiple cities, and seen more hard times than good.

Formed in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club, they would be renamed the Racine Normals for two years before becoming the Racing Cardinals.  Twenty years later, they were charter members of the National Football League as the Chicago Cardinals.

In the Windy City, the franchise won two titles, the first in 1925, disputed by the Pottsville Maroons, but there was no NFL Championship Game back then.  The second title is undisputed, as with their "Million Dollar Backfield," they won the Championship Game in 1947, the last title they have won.

Taking a backseat to the Bears in Chicago, the Cardinals relocated to St. Louis in 1961.  They only made the playoffs thrice in St. Louis and relocated again in 1987, becoming the Phoenix Cardinals.  That name would change again to the Arizona Cardinals, and with Kurt Warner as their Quarterback, they made it to their first Super Bowl in the 2008 Season.  They did not win but appear to have a permanent home in the desert.

Note: Football lists are based on an amalgamation of tenure, traditional statistics, advanced statistics, playoff statistics, and post-season accolades.

This list is up to the end of the 2024 Season.

Long before positional versatility became a headlining trend, a fifth-round draft choice out of Texas A&M quietly became the ultimate utility knife for the Cardinals franchise. Drafted by the New York Giants in 1958 and traded to Chicago before ever playing a snap, Bobby Joe Conrad arrived without a set home on the depth chart. What followed was an 11-year…
Acquired in a 1959 trade with the Philadelphia Eagles after an earlier stint in Baltimore, Bill Koman entered the Cardinals organization with little fanfare. What the franchise received in return was the physical heartbeat of their defense for nearly a decade. Sliding in at outside linebacker, the University of North Carolina product spent nine seasons with the Big Red (1959–1967),…
As good as Pat Fischer was at Nebraska, he stood at only 5' 9" and fell all the way to the 17th Round (232nd Overall) in the 1961 Draft.  Fischer was barely expected to make the team, let alone win a starting job, but once he did, he would become one of the most seasoned Cornerbacks in NFL history.  Fischer…
When Carson Palmer arrived in Arizona via a trade with Oakland in 2013, the Heisman Trophy winner and former No. 1 overall pick was widely regarded as a player in the twilight of his career. Yet, under the tutelage of head coach Bruce Arians, Palmer orchestrated one of the most remarkable late-career revivals in modern NFL history, elevating the Cardinals…
With the Fifth Overall Pick in the 1981 Draft, the St. Louis Cardinals selected E.J. Junior, who was the second Linebacker taken behind someone you may have heard of; Lawrence Taylor.  Junior did not have Taylor’s career (who could?) but the Cardinals got a lot of good football from the eventual College Football Hall of Fame inductee. Junior won the…

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Although high-profile deep threats like Mel Gray and Roy Green grabbed national attention, the St. Louis Cardinals discovered their key possession receiver in the 1976 NFL Draft's fourth round. Drafted 114th overall from Louisiana Tech, Pat Tilley entered the Big Red offense discreetly, but his route precision, fearless catches over the middle, and durability made him a dependable target for…
When Bear Bryant famously remarked that if voters didn't award John David Crow the 1957 Heisman Trophy, "they ought to do away with the thing," the college football landscape took notice. The Chicago Cardinals certainly did, selecting the Texas A&M star second overall in the 1958 NFL Draft. After a knee injury limited his rookie campaign to seven games, Crow…
Before ever taking his first NFL snap, Charley Johnson had already etched his name into college football history. A tenth-round draft choice in 1960 out of New Mexico State, Johnson remains the only player to win back-to-back Sun Bowl MVP awards (1959, 1960) and became the first athlete in NMSU history to have his jersey number retired. After serving as…
Freddie Joe Nunn was selected 18th overall from Ole Miss in the 1985 NFL Draft, bringing exceptional speed and athletic flexibility to St. Louis. During his nine seasons with the Cardinals, he was frequently moved between a traditional 4-3 defensive end and a stand-up outside linebacker. This constant position switching, along with playing for struggling teams in St. Louis and…
Selected in the fifth round of the 1972 NFL Draft out of Wyoming, Conrad Dobler entered the league as a defensive lineman before transitioning to right guard. Lined up alongside future Hall of Fame tackle Dan Dierdorf, Dobler weaponized mind games, brutal hand placement, and pure physical punishment to become the undisputed psychological villain of 1970s professional football. Standing 6…
Selected first overall in the 2019 NFL Draft out of Oklahoma after capturing the 2018 Heisman Trophy, Kyler Murray arrived in the desert as the ultimate franchise reset button. Armed with explosive track speed and a lightning-quick release, the dual-threat phenom spent seven years in Arizona defining the outer limits of modern backfield dynamism—a thrilling yet erratic era that ultimately…
Irv Goode was a beast at the University of Kentucky, which led to his high selection by the St. Louis Cardinals, who nabbed him 12th Overall in 1961.  Goode accomplished a rare feat as a rookie, earning Rookie of the Year votes (4th), and though St. Louis was not impressive in the 1960s, the versatile lineman (he played at Left…