Anti-Dynasty #2: 1985-2006 St. Louis/Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals

Peak Anti-Dynasty Points: 106
Record: 121-229-1 (.346)
Average DVOA: -19.4%
Bottom-Five DVOA: -33.9%
One last-place finish in the NFL; Five last-place finishes in the NFC; Eleven last-place finishes in the NFC East/West
Head Coaches: Jim Hanifan, Gene Stallings, Hank Kuhlman, Joe Bugel, Buddy Ryan, Vince Tobin, Dave McGinnis, Dennis Green
Key Players: QB Jake Plummer, FB Larry Centers, WR Anquan Boldin, WR Frank Sanders, W Roy Green, WR Rob Moore, T Luis Sharpe, T Lance Smith, T Tootie Robbins, T LJ Shelton, G Leonard Davis, DE Simeon Rice, DE Michael Bankston, DT Eric Swann, DT Russell Davis, LB Eric Hill, LB Freddie Joe Nunn, LB Ronald McKinnon, CB Aeneas Williams, CB Cedric Mack, S Tim McDonald, S Adrian Wilson, S Lonnie Young
Z-Score: 12.58

I'm not sure the common perception has caught up to just how bad the Cardinals were in their first decade and a half in Arizona. No, they weren't competitive, and they were essentially always in the basement of the NFC East, but I think if you were to poll people today, they'd come up with the Buccaneers and Bengals as the worst teams of the 1990s before they mentioned Phoenix. The Cardinals were only last in the league once, in 2003, and at 4-12, they shared that honor with the Giants, Raiders, and Chargers. Heck, they even made the playoffs in 1998 behind some Jake Plummer magic. Sure, they had the worst winning percentage in the league over these two decades and change, but that's just because of our particular endpoints, right? It overlaps the Bengals Super Bowl appearances and Tony Dungy's Bucs; shave it off on either end and the Cardinals can't be the worst, yeah?

Let's put things in terms of actual DVOA, which stretches back to 1977. The 1999-2004 Cardinals have the worst six-year stretch in history, averaging a -30.2% DVOA. They dodge the record for seven- or eight-year stretches because of the 2000s Rams, but pick it back up against with the worst stretch over nine years. And ten. Eleven, 12, 13…all the way up to the full 49 years of DVOA we have in our database, as they have averaged a -11.9% DVOA from 1977 to 2025. This hasn't always shown up in the win-loss column; the Browns actually have a worse winning percentage in the ever-expanding DVOA era. But Cleveland has made multiple playoff apperances in the DVOA era – eight before they moved to Baltimore, but even three in the past quarter century. They have had periods of being significantly good mixed in with the bad. The Cardinals—not just in this era, but in their entire franchise history—have never made the playoffs more than two years in a row. They have never had a winning record more than four seasons in a row, and never more than three since arriving in Arizona. Picking between these two decades and the two decades in Chicago we discussed two entries ago is difficult, and the fact that one franchise could register multiple double-decade runs of futility seems nearly impossible.

The St. Louis era was a relative period of calmness for the Cardinals. Yes, they only made the playoffs three times, but this was in an era of smaller postseasons, and they were generally a competent-ish team; their .480 win percentage was 18th in the league over their time in St. Louis. But with attendance dwindling and the promise of a new stadium flashing in the Bidwills' eyes, the Phoenix Cardinals were born in 1988. Never mind that the team has never actually played in Phoenix. And never mind that, because of financial issues, the Cardinals didn't get a new stadium for 18 years in the desert. It was going to be a fresh new start, and just what the Cardinals needed to get over the hump in the post-Jim Hart era.

The late-1980s and early-1990s Cardinals suffered from playing in an NFC East which routinely produced Super Bowl-winners; dealing with Washington and Dallas twice a year sort of puts a crimp in your potential win total. From 1985 to 1994, the Cardinals averaged 5.6 wins a season and a -11.7% DVOA, which would have gotten them on this list but dodged the top 10. They were a subpar team in a division of giants; it happens, and there was only so much Joe Bugel could do about it. Even Buddy Ryan managed a bit of success, though his 46 defense was no longer cutting-edge in 1994. They had gone 8-8, and it looked like things were going to turn around.

Well, I suppose they did, but not in the direction the Cards were hoping for. The 1995 Cardinals crumbled under the heightened expectations, as it turns out an aging Dave Krieg was not the answer at quarterback. Ryan and his staff were fired, and an era of cycling through coaches began. Vince Tobin got the Cards to the playoffs in 1998 … with a -16.0% DVOA; a colossal fluke of a team that picked up six wins in their last nine games, all over teams with 6-10 records or worse. Dave McGinnis is one of the most enthusiastic coaches in league history, but enthusiasm didn't lead to wins as the Cardinals bled talent—draft busts such as Andre Wadsworth, Wendall Bryant, and Tommy Knight weren't exactly satisfactory replacements for a defense that ranked 30th or worse between 2000 and 2003, and below average in every season from 1995 to 2008. As for Dennis Green's reign, he did bring a bit of respectability and professionalism back to the team but, at the end of the day, they were who we thought they were.

The Cardinals had a few brief highlights offensively—Jake Plummer was fun to watch, and they got a good one-off season from Boomer Esiason—but by the end of the 1990s and into realignment, you could count on the Cardinals being in the bottom 20 on both sides of the ball; they managed that six times between 1996 and 2003. They finish higher on this list than their Chicago counterparts because they didn't have someone such as Ernie Nevers, a game-changing superstar who could bring them close to competence on his own. Heck, they didn't even have a Jim Hart to pave over deficiencies elsewhere. Their high points, even with a 1998 playoff win over the Cowboys, aren't nearly high enough to make up for the nearly endless gallery of lowlights.

The Cardinals have not had an Anti-Dynasty since 2006, with Ken Whisenhunt finally breaking the streak, but the damage has been done. We mentioned that the Cardinals have the worst average DVOA in the DVOA era, but we can go beyond that. We can average actual DVOA from 1977 to 2020, estimated DVOA from 1950 to 1976, and SRS-to-DVOA conversions from 1920 to 1949. In fact, let's pretend this is a stats article and put in a table right here, showing just how all 32 franchises score in all our various types of DVOA.

The Cardinals come in second, just behind the Buccaneers. But the Cardinals have had over a century to try to put quality teams on the field; no one has failed more frequently than they have. In my mind, there's no question that the Cardinals are the worst franchise in NFL history.

But they're not No. 1 on this list.