September 12, 1976 - The Seattle Seahawks play their inaugural regular season game in a loss to St. Louis 30-24. Jack Patera was the Head Coach of the 'Hawks as they played in front of a sold out King Dome. The Seahawks played hard in close games but still started off the franchise by losing their first 5 games of their initial season. A pair of legendary rookies got some major experience in just the second game of the season as Jim Zorn was under center for Seattle and his favorite career target, Hall of Famer Steve Largent was at wide out. Jim Hart quarterbacked the Cardinals that day.
September 12, 1988 - The very first NFL game is played in Phoenix, Arizona as the newly transpanted Cardinals hosted the Dallas Cowboys. This week 2 match-up was the Monday Night Football Game that week. The Cowboys spoiled the party in the dessert in a 17-14 victory over the red birds. When you peak at the box score you have to take a second look as it shows Jay Novacek of Phoenix catching a 23 yard pass for a score from Cardinal's QB Neil Lomax for the final score of the game. One could easily forget that Novacek played 5 seasons for the Cardinals before making his mark in Big D with the 'Boys. The Cardinals have a long history and are actually the oldest franchise still playing in the NFL. The real origin of the franchise goes all the way back to 1898 when a man named Chris O'Brien formed the Morgan Athletic Club team who a few years later bought and had the team wear cast off faded uniforms from the University of Chicago Maroons. O'Brien described the uniforms as "cardinal red" and the nickname stuck with the team and helped set the team colors for years to come. That season they played their home games at 61st and Racine Street and were dubbed the Racine Street Cardinals. As far as the NFL goes they were a charter member of the league and started off in Chicago with the Cardinals name in 1920 and played in the Windy City until 1959, except for the 1944 Season when they combined with Pittsburgh, to create a team called the Card-Pitts, due to a player shortage caused by World War II. From the 1961 season through 1987 they played as the St. Louis Cardinals. A more recent move in 1988 to the dessert had them play as the Phoenix Cardinals until 1993 when they changed their location name to Arizona Cardinals for better repesentation of the area. Sports History Network's Joe Ziemba, a resident of Chicago and an expert on the Cards and Bears has some excellent books and podcasts on the early Cardinals. Here is a great one, on Ernie Nevers, to dive into on the subject even deeper.
A link to Joe's When Football was Football: The Chicago Cardinals and the Birth of the NFL book is shown below. Purchasing the book through the Amazon link below helps some proceeds go to PigskinDispatch.com to help pay for our operating costs. Your patronage is appreciated both by PigskinDispatch and Joe!
