As its greatest success, the club has finished in third place in the northern division of the American Football Bundesliga in 1986, and reached the quarter-finals of the national championship once, in 2009.

[1] The team, instead of entering the 2nd Bundesliga, found itself now playing in the tier-four Verbandsliga NRW and, for the club, an era of lower division football was to follow.

For the next eight seasons, the Cardinals drifted between the third and fourth tier, before a Regionalliga West championship in 1998 allowed the team to return to the second level.

From 2004 to 2007, the team moved between this league and the Regionalliga as an elevator side, before another title in the 2nd Bundesliga in 2008 and promotion round victories over Cologne Falcons allowed a return to the GFL.

[1] The club made a successful comeback in the league in 2009, finishing fourth and qualifying for the play-offs for the second time in its history, where it lost to the Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns in the quarter-finals.