1978 St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) season

1978 St. Louis Cardinals season
Head coach Bud Wilkinson
Owner Bill Bidwill
Home field Busch Memorial Stadium
Results
Record 6–10
Division place 4th NFC East
Playoff finish did not qualify

The 1978 St. Louis Cardinals season was the team’s 59th year with the National Football League and the 19th season in St. Louis. The controversial recruitment of 62-year-old former Oklahoma Sooners coach Bud Wilkinson was a failure, as the team, already affected by becoming the first opponent team to lose visiting the expansion Buccaneers, failed to maintain the standard of the previous four seasons. The team lost its first eight games to be out of the running for the playoffs by midseason, and even a sequence of six wins in eight games failed to move the team beyond equal last in its division.

The last of the Cardinals’ initial eight consecutive losses was the final time they played the New York Jets until 1996,[1] by which time the franchise was based in Phoenix and provided a notorious Jets’ team with the win needed to avoid the first 0–16 record in NFL history. The reason for this is that before the admission of the Texans in 2002, NFL scheduling formulas for games outside a team’s division were much more influenced by table position during the previous season.[2]

Offseason

NFL Draft

Main article: 1978 NFL Draft
Round Pick Player Position School/Club Team

Personnel

Staff

1978 St. Louis Cardinals staff
Front office

Head coaches

Offensive coaches

Defensive coaches

Special teams coaches

  • Special Teams – Jerry Thompson

Regular season

Schedule

Week Date Opponent Result Attendance
1 September 3, 1978 at Chicago Bears L 10–17
52,791
2 September 10, 1978 New England Patriots L 6–16
48,233
3 September 17, 1978 Washington Redskins L 10–28
49,282
4 September 24, 1978 at Dallas Cowboys L 12–21
62,760
5 October 1, 1978 at Miami Dolphins L 10–24
43,882
6 October 8, 1978 Baltimore Colts L 17–30
47,479
7 October 15, 1978 Dallas Cowboys L 21–24
48,991
8 October 22, 1978 at New York Jets L 10–23
49,244
9 October 29, 1978 at Philadelphia Eagles W 16–10
62,989
10 November 5, 1978 New York Giants W 20–10
48,820
11 November 12, 1978 at San Francisco 49ers W 16–10
33,155
12 November 19, 1978 at Washington Redskins W 27–17
52,460
13 November 26, 1978 Philadelphia Eagles L 10–14
39,693
14 December 3, 1978 Detroit Lions W 21–14
39,200
15 December 10, 1978 at New York Giants L 0–17
52,226
16 December 17, 1978 Atlanta Falcons W 42–21
40,022

Standings

NFC East
W L T PCT DIV CONF PF PA STK
Dallas Cowboys(2) 12 4 0 .750 7–1 9–3 384 208 W6
Philadelphia Eagles(5) 9 7 0 .563 4–4 6–6 270 250 W1
Washington Redskins 8 8 0 .500 4–4 6–6 273 283 L5
St. Louis Cardinals 6 10 0 .375 3–5 6–6 248 296 W1
New York Giants 6 10 0 .375 2–6 5–9 264 298 L1

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, November 19, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.