Throwback Thursday: This Day in 1948

On December 19, 1948, the Chicago Cardinals played the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFL Championship. It was a rematch of the previous year's championship game. That game was won by the Cardinals 28-21. This game was played in a snowstorm at Philadelphia's Shibe Park. It was played in such a storm that NFL commissioner Bert Bell considered postponing the game. He relented when players from both teams insisted on playing the game. A fourth quarter fumble by the Cardinals, at their end of the field, set the Eagles up for the only score of the game. Steve Van Buren's five-yard touchdown run gave the Eagles a 7-0 win and the 1948 NFL title. This championship game was significant for a couple of reasons other than it being a championship game. It was the first NFL Championship game to be televised. That's pretty significant. It was also the last time that the Cardinals had any championship game relevance for a very long time.

The Cardinals have called a few cities home. Chicago, St. Louis, and now the entire state of Arizona. The Cardinals are also the oldest team in the NFL. The Cardinals, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers are the only franchises that are older than the league in which they play. Both the Bears and Packers were founded in 1919. The Cardinals were founded in 1898. The Bears and Packers each have a bunch of titles. The Cardinals have two. Even when they were crowned the best in 1925 and 1947, they were still the "other" team in their own town. The Bears owned Chicago, always. It's really no surprise that the Cardinals could never really gain or sustain success when they barely got any notice at home. The glory days for the Cardinals were 1947 and 1948. It all came together when Paul Christman, Pat Harder, Marshall Goldberg, Elmer Angsman, and the great Charley Trippi formed the "Dream Backfield." The glory days seemed to end as suddenly as they began. This day in 1948 marked the end of the good stuff and the start of the bad. The 1950s were just sad. The Cardinals totaled more than five wins in a season only once during the decade. The team moved to St. Louis before the next decade began. The St. Louis Cardinals found a little bit of winning with head coach Don Coryell in the 1970s. They just couldn't get past dominant NFC teams like the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings. By 1988 the Cardinals packed their bags again and moved to Arizona. Sixty years after nearly winning a second straight NFL title, the Cardinals came close. With quarterback Kurt Warner throwing all over the field and receiver Larry Fitzgerald playing out of his mind, the Arizona Cardinals nearly shocked the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII. A fourth quarter score kept the Cardinals from winning a title on February 1, 2009 just like it did on December 19, 1948.