Cardinals-Rams rivalry

The rivalry between the Cardinals and Rams has been full of transformations throughout history. They changed divisions, conferences and relocated between the cities. Both teams played in St. Louis, but the city derby wasn’t impossible because the Cardinals left it in 1987, while the Rams played there from 1995-2015 before they moved to Los Angeles for the second time.

Their first meeting happened in 1936. It was a theatrical and competitive game where the team from Chicago scored only six points. The NFL expansion team Rams were located in Cleveland at that time. Both teams had severe personnel and championship battles against each other in the NFL Western division. Cardinals took a strong start without chances to their rivals, winning all games in 1937 and 1938. Rams responded with three consecutive wins before Chicago won their home game in 1940 after losing a week earlier. Cardinals led in the series up to 1949 before the league reform. Chicagoans won the 1947 NFL Championship. The Rams beat the 1945 championship game.

The Rams moved to Los Angeles in 1946. Their relocation has been threatened as other team owners denied Reeves, the Rams owner, to move to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Reeves promised his team would remove him from the professional business. Nobody wanted to argue with the current champion, so the sides reached a consensus. Newly-minted Los Angeles Rams won 34-10 in the home game against the Cardinals.

NFL merged with AAFC in 1950 and changed the league structure. Chicago Cardinals moved to the National Conference while Rams arrived at American Conference. That factor impacted their regular schedule. They played only one time before the next reform when the conferences changed their names to Eastern and Western ones.

Two ties and the Cardinals’ relocation to St. Louis characterize the rivalry in this period. The first 28-28 tie happened in 1949 at the Cardinals’ site. Their first game after the 1953 league restructures summarized the score as 24-24. Three Rams’ victories in the 1950s tied the series. Cardinals won their first game at the new location, St. Louis, in 1960 against their Los Angeles opponents 43-21. Rams dominated in the series until the 1980s.

The Rams became part of the NFC East, while their opponents appeared in the NFC West division after the merger of AFL and NFL. They competed every two years till 2001. Rams demonstrated their power from 1979 to 1987 when they released the streak. That streak includes the first playoff meeting in the 1975 divisional round. Dallas Cowboys stopped them on the way to Super Bowl. Their 16-10 victory was the spoon of tar in the final season of Cardinals in St. Louis. These teams changed the stadiums in that period: Anaheim, Busch, and Sun Devil stadiums hosted the rival games.

The 2000s launched a new stage of rivalry. Both teams are playing in the same division. They meet two times per season each year. Cardinals scored an 8-game winning streak from 2006 to 2010, while the Rams responded similarly from 2017 to 2021. The teams exchanged their most significant victories in 2017: Cardinals swept their rivals 44-6, Los Angeles team scored 34-0. These teams met in the 2021 NFC Wild Card round. LA won that game and the Super Bowl too.