ST. LOUIS – As the fall season quickly approaches, sports fans have already gotten a taste of it as the football season has kicked off for the professional level. With the NFL season kicking off at the start of September, St. Louis fans have been left out on the live action that has been occurring in other cities.
St. Louis has now gone nearly a decade without an NFL team in the city as the St. Louis Rams moved to Los Angeles at the end of the 2015 NFL season. In fact, there are only five remaining players left from the previous St. Louis Rams teams on an active NFL roster after Rams legend Aaron Donald retired in the offseason.
While some fans don’t mind to see the Rams go in a different direction by making the move to California, many St. Louis fans continue to carry a heavy level of resentment, which was best described by St. Louis-raised ESPN Radio personality, Michelle Smallmon.
The Rams weren’t the only NFL team that was once featured in St. Louis. The present Arizona Cardinals were once a fixture in St. Louis, sharing the same name as the staple baseball team.
In 1960, the NFL’s Cardinals made the transition to St. Louis after being overshadowed by the Chicago Bears through low attendance rates. According to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, the Cardinals were simply dubbed ‘The Big Red’ by fans and featured NFL Hall of Famers like Free Safety Larry Wilson, Cornerback Roger Wehrli, and more during their time in the city.
While the Big Red were competitive for most of the 60s and 70s, even winning the NFC Eastern Division in back-to-back years in 1974 and 1975, the team could never find success in the playoffs.
Similar to the Rams departure after the 2015 season, stadium problems drove the Big Red away from St. Louis. According to the Arizona Cardinals, in 1987, the team could not find a path to a new stadium built in the city, causing fans to become upset with the team.
After Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill got the signal from Phoenix, Arizona, to build a brand new stadium in their city, the relocation became official in 1988.
Although the Rams and Cardinals might be long gone out of the city as we know it, NFL and St. Louis fans can still get the opportunity to cheer for other teams as there are over 15 players from the St. Louis region that are on active NFL rosters, including six of them showing out on the Detroit Lions this season.
Football fans did not have to wait to long without football in the city. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ was a part of a group that initiated the return of the UFL, previously the XFL, and brought along the Battlehawks to St. Louis in 2020.
During the spring, America’s Dome is filled with fans once again as St. Louis has gained the reputation of having some of the best fans throughout that league.
