Cardinals can’t escape their losing culture

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 11/01/2006
 

One thing I’ve learned in my 29 years as a journalist is that the world loves a winner. The will to win is important, but the will to prevail is vital. To finish first, you must first finish. Anytime you try to win everything you must be willing to lose everything. So goes the conventional wisdom.

 

If you witnessed the recent Monday Night thriller between the unbeaten 7-0 Chicago Bears and the 1-7 Arizona Cardinals, you witnessed what NFL football is all about — heartbreak. Arizona blew a 20-0 halftime lead, losing 24-23.

 

It was the team’s first 20-point lead since 2001. Hall of Famer and former Phoenix Sun/NBA great Charles Barkley lives in Arizona and joined the ESPN Monday Night Football broadcast crew, speaking about how difficult it is to turn a losing culture into a winning culture.

 

“You have to give the Bidwills [the family that owns the Cardinals] credit,” he said. “They have gone out and hired Dennis Green, they drafted Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Bolden, and this year signed Edgerrin James in unrestricted free agency. They are really trying to win, but now they just have to become more consistent.

 

“The big deal is what’s going to happen to Dennis Green if they don’t have a great season,” Barkley said. “After all, he is the face of this franchise, and it’s the first time the Cardinals have had that.” Green came to Arizona after 10 successful years in Minnesota , going 101-70 including playoffs.

 

Green took the Vikings to the playoffs in eight of his 10 years in Minnesota . Last year, the Cardinals were the only team in the NFL to have its offense and defense rank in the top 10 statistically. They are more competitive; fans now come to their games; but they just can’t break free from the culture of bad things happening at the worst times.

 

So far this year, the Cardinals have lost three games to St. Louis , Kansas City and Chicago by a combined six points. The NFL is the best game going: the drama, the excitement, the heartbreak. But the NFL is all about the haves and the have nots. The Cardinals have not broken free.

 

 Matt Leinart, the team’s new starting quarterback and former Heisman Trophy winner, was a three-time All-American and won two national titles at USC. He has already lost more games in four weeks than he lost in college going 37-2.

 

The Arizona Cardinals are one of the NFL’s charter franchises, one of the league’s oldest teams, founded back in 1920. They used to be called the Normals, the Cardinals’ previous name in tribute to their home stadium, Normal Field, which was owned by the team’s first owner, Chris O’Brien. O’Brien was a painting and decorating contractor; back in 1901, he purchased used jerseys from the University of Chicago .

 

The Cardinals started in Chicago and stayed there until 1960, when they moved to St. Louis and stayed there for 28 years, relocating to Arizona where the team has been since 1988. Which means they lost two of America ’s great sports towns, Chicago to the Bears and George Hallas, and then St. Louis to the baseball Cardinals and Augie Busch.

 

Fans back in the day referred to the faded color on the used jerseys purchased in 1901 as maroon, but O’Brien disagreed, saying, “That’s not maroon, it’s cardinal red!” In that moment the club’s permanent name was born. There is an old saying in sports: You are what you eat. In a similar spirit of “You are what you wear,” last year the organization changed their uniforms, which they viewed as a sign of a new era in team history. “The new uniforms are an example of how we’re trying to change the perspective of what the Cardinals are all about,” says Kurt Warner.

 

The Cardinals won the NFL Championship in 1947. They have qualified for the playoffs only seven times since joining the NFL 87 years ago and have made the playoffs only once since 1983. They have had only one winning season since 1985, and that was 1998 when the team finished 9-7.

 

The Cardinals won a playoff game that year 20-7 over the Dallas Cowboys, ending a 15-year playoff drought. It was the Cardinals’ first playoff win since 1947; the team has missed the playoffs 22 of the last 23 years. Currently, the Cardinals have the league’s longest consecutive season losing streak of seven games.

 

The Cardinals harbor a culture of losing; the team is currently on its seven-game losing streak after losing at Green Bay 31-14 Sunday. After playing all their home games at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University since 1988, on September 10, 2006, the Cardinals opened their new state-of-the-art retractable roof and field stadium called University of Phoenix Stadium .

 

For the first time since moving to the desert, they have sold out every home game. The 1995 season marked another milestone for the Cardinals when the team hosted Super Bowl XXX on January 28, 1996. 

 

The team in 2006 is nearly $11 million under the annual $102 million per team salary cap. I do not know why. The franchise is valued at nearly $800 million with the new best-in-the-NFL stadium. Two or three more players could have made the difference, especially with Pro Bowl 2005 NFL-leading receiver Fitzgerald having missed three and a half games this year with a hamstring injury.

 

Bad habits and bad decisions go hand in hand. Sometimes you think you know, but do you really know or think you know what’s best?

 

An NFL coach recently told me that he tells his players all the time that the difference between a 12-4 team and a 4-12 team in this league is as close as a blink of and eye. It’s the little things that add up. And over time, the little things have added up for the Cardinals

 

The Cardinals’ 53 players and coaches park their cars outside of the security-guarded team headquarters facility fence. The owners and office staff, sales, marketing and trainers get to park their vehicles inside the secured area. In Minnesota , the Vikings’ players park their cars in a secured area while the coaches and staff park outside of it.

 

When the Cardinals team plays on the road, they obviously stay as a team in a secured hotel, usually downtown, keeping the players from fans and family the night before, just hours before the big game. At home the Cardinals’ players, after a late team meeting with coaches, are told to go home. All other 31 NFL teams, including the Minnesota Vikings, get their team together at a local downtown hotel and make sure that the players are in their rooms by the 11 pm curfew.

 

When players go home, they become victims of their own personal human nature and discipline flaws. Issues with wives, girlfriends, family members and other distractions about tickets, parking or women occupy them at a critical time of mental and physical privacy when focusing on the big game 13 hours later is vital. And, each player’s individual attention to the smallest details of the game plan at high noon on Sunday is tested.

 

When the Cardinals were in Chicago , they were twice winners of NFL championships. Then they lost the city to George Hallas and the Bears. Off to St. Louis they went; after 18 years there, they lost out to the baseball Cardinals.

 

Then off to Arizona they went, and with them the Cardinals carried a culture of losing. After reviewing these numbers, tell me if you can call it anything else.