Big Red breakthrough: The day the football Cardinals became champions (2024)

On Dec. 15, 1974, the St. Louis Cardinals claimed their first NFL division champions. As was typical for the franchise, things didn't come easy. Here was our original report from the game.

When the Cardinals were pointed in the direction of the locker room yesterday after their worst first half of this National Football League season, they were trailing the New York Giants, 14-0.

Quarterback Jim Hart was their leading ground gainer, with eight yards. Halfback Terry Metcalf was their leading receiver, with four drops. Their defense had spent 30 minutes hugging thin air. And the fans were booing. It was like the good old days. Evoking memories of 4-9-1 seasons gone by, the Cardinals trudged off the field at Busch Stadium, seemingly in greater danger from their coaching staff than from the Giants.

In keeping with their first-half performance, it wouldn't have been unusual if coach Don Coryell had thrown a blackboard and his players had dropped it. But Coryell didn't throw a thing. Not even a fit. What did go on?

"Absolutely nothing," Coryell said. "The backs and receivers went in here. The offensive line went over there. The defense was in its little group. We did exactly the same things we've always done. Everyone talked about only one thing: Let's get it together."

Then the Cardinals went out and let actions speak louder than words. They got it together, shutting out the Giants in the second half and blitzing NewYork with four touchdowns to score a remarkable 26-14 victory and win the National Football Conference's Eastern Division title on the final day of the regular season.

"Did you ever see a second half like that?" asked safety Jason Duren. "In college, maybe. But in the pros?"

In winning their first title in 26 years, the Cardinals wound up with a 10-4 record their best ever in St. Louis, and they will meet the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday at Bloomington in the first round of the NFL playoffs.

Although Washington also finished at 10-4, the Big Red were declared division winners by virtue of their two victories over the Redskins this season. The Redskins have qualified as the NFC's wild-card team and will play the Rams in Los Angeles on Sunday. Washington coach George Allen had been predicting a Big Red collapse, and must have been as surprised as the Giants by the Cardinals' comeback yesterday. The Giants are 2-12, but in the first half they looked like a playoff-bound team while the Cardinals resembled also-rans.

Scoring on short runs by Ron Johnson and Joe Dawkins, the Giants literally tore the Big Red defense apart, seldom needing to resort to the pass. The New York defense baffled the Cardinals with run-blitzes, holding them to 19 yards rushing, and Hart had nearly as many passes dropped as caught.

So what did the backs and receivers talk about at halftime? "Going into the locker room," said Hart, "I was really wondering if we'd ever get it turned around. But everyone was encouraging me. They said I was throwing well. I just felt that things would begin to happen for us. I knew things couldn't get worse.' I just had to be concerned about not pressing, just throwing."

Metcalf probably felt more miserable than anyone else, The Big Red's most valuable player couldn't catch anything and he couldn't get past the line of scrimmage on runs. At halftime, his teammates did their best to revive high spirits.

"They told me not to hold my head down," he said. "They told me to go out and play my game. They said, 'You know what you can do.' I guess I went out and did it with a lot of help from my friends."

Metcalf's friends, of course, are the offensive linemen. In the second half, they simply tore up the Giants. Instead of pulling guards and trying to be fancy, they got down to the basics, made a few adjustments and started pushing people around.

"We changed a few blocking assignments," said offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf. "But nothing dramatic or exciting went on in the locker room. No one had to throw a blackboard to let us know it was now or never."

The defense knew it, too. After losses the last two games to Kansas City and New Orleans, the Cardinals were in the position of stumbling into the playoffs as the wild-card team. Had they lost to the Giants, it would have been the Redskins going to Minnesota as division champs.

Some of the veterans, including linebacker Larry Stallings, thought back to other years and failures that could have been successes.

"You play on so many teams with so many good players back there in the 1960s," Stallings said, "and you know you've never won a title and you're thinking at halftime that you're about to blow it."

It might have been the defense that put the spark into the Cardinals. The Giants had third-and-two on their first series after the second-half kickoff, and Mark Arneson smacked Dawkins down for no gain with a vicious tackle.

"When that happened," Metcalf said, "the offense felt it could do something, too. Everyone had that feeling."

Roger Wehrli set up the Big Red with a 32-yard punt return, and Hart capped a 40-yard drive with a four-yard touchdown pass to fullback Ken Willard. Just 50 seconds later, cornerback Norm Thompson deflected a Craig Morton pass, Jim Tolbert intercepted it arjd then Hart threw a 28-yard scoring strike to tight end Jackie Smith.

"We were all waiting for the bigplay," Thompson said, "and Jim's interception was it."

But that wasn't the end, either. The Cardinals picked off passes on New York's next two series, and Metcalf scored both times once on a one-yard run and then on a 16-yard gallop.

"We were three feet off the ground in the second half," said fullback Jim Otis. "From Jim Hart on down, we played with tremendous enthusiasm. We'd get in the huddle and say, 'Let's score in three minutes,' and we'd score in two minutes."

Even the defensive players, standing on the sideline, could sense the change that had come over the offense. "It was almost unreal," said defensive tackle Bob Rowe. "Like someone threw water over us and woke everyone up. In the second half we played like the Cardinals of the first eight weeks." '

But whatever happened in the first half? "We wanted to win so much we were tight," said Smith, getting nods of agreement from his teammates.

Metcalf knew why he was jittery. "I was so tense I just had to calm down," he said. "I was trying too hard. I had to relax and play my type of game. St. Louis had never had a champion, and I wanted to bring them one so much. Right now it's one of the greatest feelings I've ever had."

As the locker room celebration swirled around Coryell, he dressed slowly, pausing for interviews. "I don't know when I've ever been so proud of a team," he said.

Someone asked him if he were going to start preparing for Minnesota that night. He smiled and said, "Tonight, I think I'm going to relax."

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