100%CardsFan
100% embarrassed
Cardinals' constants: Bidwills and losses
By Bob Cohn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 8, 2005
First they were the Phoenix Cardinals, then the Arizona Cardinals. It doesn't matter. Much has changed -- the team name, coaches, quarterbacks -- but the story remains the same. Since the Cardinals left St. Louis for the desert in 1988, they have had just one winning season, one playoff appearance and few happy moments.
One of them occurred five years ago, and the Redskins helped it happen.
The Redskins' record was 6-3 when they traveled to Sun Devil Stadium to play the 2-6 Cardinals. Statistically, Washington outplayed the Cardinals. But Stephen Davis fumbled at the goal line, and Aeneas Williams returned it a record-tying 104 yards for a touchdown. Kris Heppner missed two makeable field goals, and the Cardinals won 16-15.
Redskins owner Dan Snyder fired coach Norv Turner three weeks later, and the Redskins missed the playoffs -- a recurring plot itself. But the implications were even bigger for the Cardinals. The Tuesday after the game, Maricopa County voters, swelled with pride after the victory, narrowly approved a referendum to build a new stadium even though the polls indicated defeat was likely.
"The Cardinals winning could have been the difference," said Ted Ferris, head of the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which owns the new stadium. "No question it helped."
The Cardinals, by the way, did not win a game the rest of the season, losing seven straight.
The as-yet-unnamed $450?million stadium rises majestically from the flat landscape west of Phoenix in suburban Glendale. After 18 years of toiling under a relentless sun in an uncomfortable, aluminum-bleachered, amenity-challenged college facility, the Cardinals finally will move into a shiny and luxurious new home next season. It will have all the trimmings, including a retractable roof and even a retractable grass field that slides in and out.
But will it be inhabited by the same old Cardinals? Will the added income it generates help transform the club? Saddled by comparatively small revenues fostered by docile fan support (only a reported 22,000 season tickets were sold this year, and the franchise ranked 31st of 32 teams in value according to Forbes Magazine in 2004), the Cardinals perennially have been the little team that can't.
Their futility is pure, unvarnished and unmatched over more than two decades. And the franchise still hasn't turned it around.
"I think somebody who's studying sports management could do a masters thesis or a doctoral thesis on the Cardinals," said Ed Cunningham, an ABC commentator who played guard for the club from 1992 through 1995. "For those of us who were part of the organization, you stop thinking about it. It's maddening in a lot of ways."
The Cardinals went 9-7 in 1998 and beat Dallas in the first round of the playoffs. The coach of that team, Vince Tobin, was fired two years later. Three years after that, their quarterback, local college hero Jake Plummer, left via free agency. Counting losing records during its last three years in St. Louis and with the team sitting at 4-8 going into Sunday's home game against the Redskins, the franchise has compiled a stunning 19 losing seasons out of 21. Before 1998, the last Cardinals playoff game was in 1982, a strike year. The last championship came in 1947.
That, however, is ancient history. The more relevant issue is whether the Cardinals ever will be good.
"In my nine years with the Cardinals, I asked myself that question time and time again," said former linebacker Eric Hill, who started 128 of 134 games with the club from 1989 through 1996. "I'd like to be able to say it's the law of averages, that at some point the thing could turn around. They had that blip on the radar in '98, but they've gone backwards since then."
Tobin was fired during the 2000 season. He was replaced by Dave McGinnis, who was let go in 2004 and succeeded by Dennis Green. No coach has lasted more than five seasons since Jim Hanifan, 1980 through 1985, when the team was still in St. Louis.
It has been a coaching parade, from the rugged, plain-talking Gene Stallings, who accompanied the Cardinals to Arizona, to the intense, animated Joe Bugel, to the blustery Buddy Ryan, to the vanilla Tobin, to the ebullient McGinnis and the forceful Green. The quarterback position also has been a carousel.
Some of the coaches, such as Stallings and Bugel, were let go when it seemed the team was on the cusp of something good. The one hiring generally regarded as awful was that of the abrasive, bellicose Ryan, who lasted just two years.
"A disaster," Cunningham said. "I think more than anything, the problem has been the constant turnover. The consistency of inconsistency is not gonna work. You can't lay a foundation."
The team has lacked a franchise quarterback since Neil Lomax got hurt during the 1988 season when the Cardinals were 7-4, ruining their playoff hopes. Plummer, who went to Denver, has blossomed only this year. There have, however, been questionable drafts and dubious free agent signings, including a used-up Emmitt Smith in 2003. Sometimes there has been a general manager, such as Larry Wilson and Bob Ferguson; other times owner Bill Bidwill has given his coach near total control.
Through it all, the one constant has been Bidwill, whose father bought the Chicago Cardinals in 1932.
A lightning rod for criticism, Bidwill publicly is viewed as an interview-shy near-recluse. He has been called cheap and also been accused of over-spending.
Those who better know "Mr. B" cite his charitable works and regard him as an affable, well-meaning, genuinely good fellow. He has had varying degrees of input into football matters but lately has ceded much of that to his son, Michael, a lawyer by trade.
"The greatest owners in sports have hired incredibly smart people and gotten ... out of the way," Cunningham said.
Bob Ackles, the Cardinals' director of college scouting for two years and then assistant general manager under Ryan (who doubled as the team's GM), said of Bidwill, "He's an awfully nice person, and he basically treats his employees well. But there's something there with coaches. ..."
Stallings was well-regarded as a coach, but it was speculated he irked Bidwill because he was so popular among fans. After three losing seasons under Bugel, the former Redskins assistant who is back in Washington as the assistant head coach-offense, the Cardinals seemed to be making progress. But Bidwill delivered a startling ultimatum: Win at least nine games or you're gone. The Cardinals started slowly during the 1993 season but came on strong. Still, they finished 7-9. Bye-bye, Buges.
"I think it probably affected the players more than it affected me," Bugel said of the ultimatum. "We had a good football team that year, and I thought the following year we would be something special. ... That was the biggest disappointment -- getting your legs cut off before you got the job done."
"I thought we had something going when Bugel was there," said Ackles, now the general manager of the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League. "I had a nice conversation with the owner, and he was happy about the direction we were going in. And then all of a sudden, he made a change."
Such is the Cardinals' way.
"There was always too much change," Hill said. "You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what was wrong."
By Bob Cohn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 8, 2005
First they were the Phoenix Cardinals, then the Arizona Cardinals. It doesn't matter. Much has changed -- the team name, coaches, quarterbacks -- but the story remains the same. Since the Cardinals left St. Louis for the desert in 1988, they have had just one winning season, one playoff appearance and few happy moments.
One of them occurred five years ago, and the Redskins helped it happen.
The Redskins' record was 6-3 when they traveled to Sun Devil Stadium to play the 2-6 Cardinals. Statistically, Washington outplayed the Cardinals. But Stephen Davis fumbled at the goal line, and Aeneas Williams returned it a record-tying 104 yards for a touchdown. Kris Heppner missed two makeable field goals, and the Cardinals won 16-15.
Redskins owner Dan Snyder fired coach Norv Turner three weeks later, and the Redskins missed the playoffs -- a recurring plot itself. But the implications were even bigger for the Cardinals. The Tuesday after the game, Maricopa County voters, swelled with pride after the victory, narrowly approved a referendum to build a new stadium even though the polls indicated defeat was likely.
"The Cardinals winning could have been the difference," said Ted Ferris, head of the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which owns the new stadium. "No question it helped."
The Cardinals, by the way, did not win a game the rest of the season, losing seven straight.
The as-yet-unnamed $450?million stadium rises majestically from the flat landscape west of Phoenix in suburban Glendale. After 18 years of toiling under a relentless sun in an uncomfortable, aluminum-bleachered, amenity-challenged college facility, the Cardinals finally will move into a shiny and luxurious new home next season. It will have all the trimmings, including a retractable roof and even a retractable grass field that slides in and out.
But will it be inhabited by the same old Cardinals? Will the added income it generates help transform the club? Saddled by comparatively small revenues fostered by docile fan support (only a reported 22,000 season tickets were sold this year, and the franchise ranked 31st of 32 teams in value according to Forbes Magazine in 2004), the Cardinals perennially have been the little team that can't.
Their futility is pure, unvarnished and unmatched over more than two decades. And the franchise still hasn't turned it around.
"I think somebody who's studying sports management could do a masters thesis or a doctoral thesis on the Cardinals," said Ed Cunningham, an ABC commentator who played guard for the club from 1992 through 1995. "For those of us who were part of the organization, you stop thinking about it. It's maddening in a lot of ways."
The Cardinals went 9-7 in 1998 and beat Dallas in the first round of the playoffs. The coach of that team, Vince Tobin, was fired two years later. Three years after that, their quarterback, local college hero Jake Plummer, left via free agency. Counting losing records during its last three years in St. Louis and with the team sitting at 4-8 going into Sunday's home game against the Redskins, the franchise has compiled a stunning 19 losing seasons out of 21. Before 1998, the last Cardinals playoff game was in 1982, a strike year. The last championship came in 1947.
That, however, is ancient history. The more relevant issue is whether the Cardinals ever will be good.
"In my nine years with the Cardinals, I asked myself that question time and time again," said former linebacker Eric Hill, who started 128 of 134 games with the club from 1989 through 1996. "I'd like to be able to say it's the law of averages, that at some point the thing could turn around. They had that blip on the radar in '98, but they've gone backwards since then."
Tobin was fired during the 2000 season. He was replaced by Dave McGinnis, who was let go in 2004 and succeeded by Dennis Green. No coach has lasted more than five seasons since Jim Hanifan, 1980 through 1985, when the team was still in St. Louis.
It has been a coaching parade, from the rugged, plain-talking Gene Stallings, who accompanied the Cardinals to Arizona, to the intense, animated Joe Bugel, to the blustery Buddy Ryan, to the vanilla Tobin, to the ebullient McGinnis and the forceful Green. The quarterback position also has been a carousel.
Some of the coaches, such as Stallings and Bugel, were let go when it seemed the team was on the cusp of something good. The one hiring generally regarded as awful was that of the abrasive, bellicose Ryan, who lasted just two years.
"A disaster," Cunningham said. "I think more than anything, the problem has been the constant turnover. The consistency of inconsistency is not gonna work. You can't lay a foundation."
The team has lacked a franchise quarterback since Neil Lomax got hurt during the 1988 season when the Cardinals were 7-4, ruining their playoff hopes. Plummer, who went to Denver, has blossomed only this year. There have, however, been questionable drafts and dubious free agent signings, including a used-up Emmitt Smith in 2003. Sometimes there has been a general manager, such as Larry Wilson and Bob Ferguson; other times owner Bill Bidwill has given his coach near total control.
Through it all, the one constant has been Bidwill, whose father bought the Chicago Cardinals in 1932.
A lightning rod for criticism, Bidwill publicly is viewed as an interview-shy near-recluse. He has been called cheap and also been accused of over-spending.
Those who better know "Mr. B" cite his charitable works and regard him as an affable, well-meaning, genuinely good fellow. He has had varying degrees of input into football matters but lately has ceded much of that to his son, Michael, a lawyer by trade.
"The greatest owners in sports have hired incredibly smart people and gotten ... out of the way," Cunningham said.
Bob Ackles, the Cardinals' director of college scouting for two years and then assistant general manager under Ryan (who doubled as the team's GM), said of Bidwill, "He's an awfully nice person, and he basically treats his employees well. But there's something there with coaches. ..."
Stallings was well-regarded as a coach, but it was speculated he irked Bidwill because he was so popular among fans. After three losing seasons under Bugel, the former Redskins assistant who is back in Washington as the assistant head coach-offense, the Cardinals seemed to be making progress. But Bidwill delivered a startling ultimatum: Win at least nine games or you're gone. The Cardinals started slowly during the 1993 season but came on strong. Still, they finished 7-9. Bye-bye, Buges.
"I think it probably affected the players more than it affected me," Bugel said of the ultimatum. "We had a good football team that year, and I thought the following year we would be something special. ... That was the biggest disappointment -- getting your legs cut off before you got the job done."
"I thought we had something going when Bugel was there," said Ackles, now the general manager of the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League. "I had a nice conversation with the owner, and he was happy about the direction we were going in. And then all of a sudden, he made a change."
Such is the Cardinals' way.
"There was always too much change," Hill said. "You didn't have to be a genius to figure out what was wrong."
