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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/dadeep on 2026-02-14 15:07:27+00:00.
This is not a shitpost. This is a real thing that happened, and if the Cardinals ever want to win again they need to reconcile with their history.
The NFL first expanded to the west coast in 1946 to compete with the new AAFC, moving the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles. In 1946, the Chicago Cardinals traveled to Los Angeles to play the Rams. But airplanes were pretty expensive and ownership didn’t want to pay for that, so they took the train from Chicago to LA.
The two routes to go from Chicago to LA in the 1940s were to go straight west to Omaha, then from there to Salt Lake City and down through Las Vegas to LA, or to go southwest to Kansas City, then through New Mexico and Arizona on the way to LA. And a Chicago Tribune article from November 12, 1946 says the Cards took the Chicago & North Western railway for their game with the Rams. The C&NW went to Omaha but not to Kansas City in 1940, which means the Cardinals took the northern route and avoided Arizona in 1946.
The next year, the Cardinals and Rams played in LA in October. They again took the train, and on the Thursday before the game the Tribune had a piece about the Cards prepping for the Rams while on the train in Salt Lake City. So they avoided Arizona this time too.
But when they arrived in LA, Jeff Burkett, the Cardinals’ star punter (he had by far the most yards/punt in ‘47) had appendicitis and needed immediate surgery. He missed the Rams game to recover, and while the rest of the team took the train back, the Cards ownership got Burkett on a plane back to Chicago a few days later. This was a direct flight from LA to Chicago, which does indeed go through Arizona.
Which means that the first Cardinals player to enter the state of Arizona as an active player was Jeff Burkett flying on United Flight 608 on October 24th, 1947. While flying over Arizona, the plane caught on fire, a wing fell off, and it exploded when it hit the ground. Witnesses described the explosion as akin to the photos they’d seen of Hiroshima two years prior. Everybody on board died.
The postscript to this is that a few weeks later a different flight of the same aircraft (a DC-6) was flying from California to Chicago, and while over Arizona this one also caught on fire. But this time the pilot managed to land the plane safely, where FAA investigators studied the DC-6 and found a design flaw. The investigation into the crash of United 608 was closed.
It’s obvious to me what happened here, and hopefully it’s obvious to you too. The state of Arizona took Jeff Burkett as a blood sacrifice, then covered up its murder of him by staging another “crash”. In exchange for Burkett’s life, the Cardinals would win the championship in 1947, but would then be indebted to Arizona.
The Cardinals did win the championship in 1947 and never won again, and now Arizona has them trapped and they never will win again. I don’t know how we can begin to solve this, but if we want to free the Cardinals from the grasp of Arizona, acknowledging the truth is a good place to start.