History of the Arizona Cardinals  This article details the history of the Arizona Cardinals American football club, which can be traced to the 1898 formation of the amateur Morgan Athletic Club in Chicago. The Cardinals are the oldest extant professional football club in the United States, and along with the Chicago Bears, are one of two charter members of the National Football League still in existence. The franchise moved from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 and to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1988. On January 15, 1988, Bidwill announced his intention to move to Arizona. On March 15, 1988, the NFL team owners voted to allow Bidwill to move the Cardinals from St. Louis to Phoenix, Arizona, for the 1988 NFL season. The team became the Phoenix Cardinals. They planned to play at Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe temporarily, while a new stadium was being built. But the savings and loan crisis derailed financing for the stadium, and the Cardinals played at Arizona State for 18 years. The Cardinals had missed the playoffs by a single game in their final season in St. Louis, and for much of the 1988 season they were poised to make the playoffs. At the end of week 11, they were 7-4 and in first place in the NFC East. However, they dropped their final five games to finish 7–9. They got off to another strong start in 1989, with road victories over the Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks, then suffered a rash of injuries. With five games to go in the season, Gene Stallings, who had followed the team from St. Louis, announced his plans to retire at the end of the season. But general manager Larry Wilson ordered Stallings to leave immediately, and named running backs coach Hank Kuhlmann as interim coach. The team lost its last five games to finish 5-11—the first of four straight 11-loss seasons. Joe Bugel, the architect of the Redskins' famous "Hogs" offensive line in the 1980s, coached the Cardinals from 1990 to 1993, usually finishing last in the dominant NFC East, which produced the Super Bowl winner in each of those seasons (Giants in '90, Redskins '91, Cowboys '92-93). Bugel's first three teams finished 5–11 in 1990 and 4–12 in both 1991 and 1992 before improving to 7–9 in 1993. During the 1993 season, the Cardinals outscored their opponents by 57 points, but suffered eight losses by seven points or less, five of those setbacks coming to playoff teams. A three-game winning streak to close the season, including a 17–6 triumph over the playoff-bound Giants, was not enough to save Bugel's job.