1945 Chicago Cardinals season

The 1945 Chicago Cardinals season was the 25th season the team was in the league; this does not count the 1944 season, in which the Cardinals merged with the Pittsburgh Steelers (the NFL considers "Card-Pitt" as a separate franchise).

1945 season
The newly-liberated Cards had little chance of success in the 1945 season; not only were they riding a sixteen-game losing streak dating back to 1942, but the schedule-makers did them no favours, either. Under pressure from their Comiskey Park landlords, the White Sox, the Cardinals played only two of their games at Comiskey: their last two, in November and December, after the baseball season was over. Their season opener, against the Detroit Lions, was officially a home game, but it was moved to Wisconsin State Fair Park in suburban Milwaukee (sometimes home of the Green Bay Packers). The Lions decked the Cards, 10-0, the first of four shutouts the club would endure in 1945.

The Cardinals were then compelled to play their next seven games on the road, which remains the longest "road trip" in NFL history. After losses in Cleveland and Philadelphia, the Cardinals actually returned to Chicago to take on their cross-city rivals, the Bears -- and got their only win of the season, a 16-7 triumph in Wrigley Field, as Leo Cantor scored twice. This would snap the Cardinals 19-game losing streak, and prove to be the highlight of the season, as they proceeded to lose games in earnest -- not to mention in Detroit, Green Bay, Washington and Pittsburgh. Finally getting to play in Comiskey on November 18, the Cards lost to the Rams, 35-21; two weeks later, the Bears (with coach George Halas back from the war) would get their revenge on the Cardinals with a 28-20 win, ending the last-place Cards' season at 1-9.

The 1945 Chicago Cardinals were inept on both sides of the ball, finishing ninth of ten NFL teams in both points scored (98, ahead of Pittsburgh) and points allowed (228, fewer than only the Bears). At the quarterback position, Paul Christman completed 89 of 219 passes for 1,147 yards, with five touchdowns and twelve interceptions. Frank Seno was the team's top rusher with 355 yards, while Leo Cantor scored five of the club's fifteen touchdowns. (The Cards' kicking game wasn't much, either: they attempted only four field goals in 1945, and missed them all.) They failed to qualify for the playoffs for the 13th consecutive season, since the creation of divisions and the NFL Championship game in 1933. Things looked bleak for the lowly Cardinals and their fans -- but just two years later, Chicago would race to an NFL title, only the second in their history -- and as of 2023, their last one to date,