Posts with players, coaches, and other topics from the Chicago Cardinals for The Football History Dude podcast, covering the history of the NFL.
Before the television era of professional football, which certainly changed the financial outlook of the National Football League, most players still needed to work at some other profession, often both during and after the football season. In 1941, the Chicago Tribune reported that “Twenty-seven percent of the young men under contract to teams in the National Football … Read more
Fans of football history usually find the name of Ernie Nevers to be a familiar one. Maybe not a household word in 2021, but certainly one that ripples with respect with the knowledge that Nevers was one of the all-time greats in the National Football League. And yet, his entrance into the world of pro football … Read more
As we celebrate our first anniversary of “When Football Was Football” on the Sports History Network, we can look back at a wide variety of episodes from the golden days of football in the Chicago area. While we’ve covered topics such as the first-ever indoor football games held in Chicago, the individual heroics of players … Read more
There have been very few Olympic medalists that are also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, we can think of only two: Jim Thorpe and Ollie Matson. Thorpe grabbed the gold medal in both the decathlon and the pentathlon in 1912 at the Stockholm games, while Matson won both a silver and … Read more
Cardinals’ legend Marshall Goldberg was in the news recently when newly acquired defensive standout J.J. Watt asked to wear #99 for the Cardinals this season. The only problem was that this esteemed jersey number has been “retired” by the team since before the 1951 season in honor of Mr. Goldberg’s playing career. Watt has since … Read more