1921: Akron Pros Awarded APFA Title

In the early days of the NFL, there were no divisions, no playoffs, and no hugely-watched Super Bowl to determine a champion. At the very beginning, it was not even the NFL – when the league first started in 1920, it was the American Professional Football Association (APFA). Teams did not have set schedules and, at the end of that first season of play, there was no champion. At a league meeting on April 30, 1921 the Akron Pros were officially handed the crown.

As was the case with many of the new football league’s franchises, the Pros had already been in existence for several years. The team had first formed in 1908 (although there were earlier semipro clubs in Akron dating to 1904) and had been known primarily over the years as the Indians. It had been a member of the Ohio League, a direct predecessor of the NFL, and won four championships, most recently in 1914. However, the team had suffered both on the field and at the gate since then and was coming off of a 5-5 record in 1919.

Under new owners, Art Ranney and Frank Neid, Akron joined the new APFA and the franchise was renamed the Pros. Star HB Fritz Pollard, an African-American who had played collegiately at Brown and was an outstanding breakaway threat, returned from the 1919 team. Other prominent players on the roster included end Al Nesser, one of several brothers who played pro football during that period, wingback Frank McCormick, and FB Rip King, an able passer as well as runner. The Pros were coached by Elgie Tobin, who also played quarterback.

Going into the 1920 season, Akron was not considered to be on a par with several other teams that included the Canton Bulldogs, Cleveland Tigers, and Decatur Staleys (future Chicago Bears). They blew out the Wheeling Stogies (a non-league opponent) and Columbus Panhandles by a combined score of 80-0 and, after shutting the Cincinnati Celts out by a 13-0 score, faced their first big test against Cleveland at home. Taking advantage of a great defensive play by end/tackle Bob “Nasty” Nash, Akron came away with a 7-0 win (Nash was later sold to Buffalo in what was the first recorded player transaction in league history).

The Pros followed up the big win over the Tigers with a trip to Canton that produced a 10-0 win over the legendary Jim Thorpe and the highly-touted Bulldogs. Following a scheduled game against Detroit that was rained out, Akron had a rematch against the Tigers in Cleveland. While the Pros gave up their first points of the season, they managed a 7-7 tie to remain undefeated, if not unscored-upon.

Next up were the Dayton Triangles, also undefeated coming into the contest. It was a tense battle for three quarters before Akron scored twice in the final period, on a King-to-McCormick TD pass and Pollard run, to win 13-0. On Thanksgiving day, the revenge-minded Bulldogs came to town for a rematch but again lost, this time by a 7-0 decision. Three days later it was off to Dayton and a second game against the Triangles, which was a 14-0 win thanks to two Pollard touchdowns to assure that the Pros were clearly the best Ohio-based team.

While there was no postseason mechanism in place, a tournament among the APFA clubs with the best records was quickly put together with the games all to count in the standings. The Buffalo All-Americans beat the Bulldogs, thus ending any last title hopes for Canton, and the Staleys of player/coach George Halas beat the Chicago Cardinals. The Pros then took on Buffalo and played to a scoreless tie. Following that, they finished up in Chicago against the Staleys and played to another scoreless draw, although the Pros came closest to putting points on the board in a hard-fought game before 12,000 fans (the biggest crowd to attend any of their contests in 1920; Halas had moved the game to Chicago in hopes of spurring attendance).

While Buffalo and Decatur made noises about having won the championship because Akron didn’t beat them, the fact was that in the end, only the Pros went unbeaten during the season and ended up with an 8-0-3 record (and gave up just seven points in compiling it). That was enough for the team managers gathered at the league meeting, and an award, the Brunswick-Balke Collender Cup, was presented to owners Ranney and Neid signifying that Akron was the 1920 league champion. Oddly enough, the cup disappeared shortly thereafter and its whereabouts remain unknown.

One newspaper, the Rock Island Argus, selected an All-Pro team for 1920 (recognized as the first in APFA/NFL history) and it included Fritz Pollard and Rip King on the first team. Second-team choices from the Pros included Bob Nash and G Alf Cobb and G Brad Tomlin made the third team.

Akron remained in the league until 1926 but did not win another championship. The Pros placed third in ’21 with an 8-3-1 record with Pollard (pictured below) serving as co-coach with Tobin, thus becoming the first black head coach in NFL history. They posted losing records in four of their last five seasons, however, before fading into history.

1933: Bears Edge Giants in First NFL Championship Game

For the first thirteen years of its existence, the National Football League (American Professional Football Association originally) had no designated game to determine the annual champion. While season record was the determining factor, this occasionally led to controversy, especially when the teams didn’t play fixed schedules. In 1932, the clubs tied with the top winning percentage, the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans, arranged a game to determine the league champion – while this is sometimes referred to as the first NFL title game, it was not in fact a postseason contest, since the result figured in the season won-lost records (the Bears won).

Several innovations were put into effect for the 1933 season, including rules changes to promote scoring such as using hashmarks, allowing forward passes to be thrown from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage (as opposed to five yards behind), and moving the goal posts up to the goal line (where they would remain until moved back in 1974). There were also structural innovations that included breaking the league up into Eastern and Western divisions and creating a designated postseason championship game to be held between the division winners.

On December 17, 1933 the first official NFL Championship game occurred between the New York Giants, champions of the Eastern Division, and their hosts, the Western Division-champion Chicago Bears.


The Bears, defending league champs, were once again coached by team owner George Halas, who had stepped away from the sideline after the 1929 season for three years in favor of Ralph Jones. They won their first six games, briefly slumped during a midseason road trip to the East with two losses and a tie, and then finished up with four more victories to easily top the Western Division with a 10-2-1 record. Chicago was strong in all facets of the game, with FB Bronko Nagurski (pictured at right) providing the power running, QB Keith Molesworth leading the league by averaging 8.7 yards per pass, and end Bill Hewitt playing well both offensively and defensively.

New York was coached by Steve Owen and had dominated the Eastern Division with an 11-3 tally. Rookie tailback Harry Newman proved to be a top passer and FB Ken Strong, obtained after the Staten Island Stapletons folded, was a good runner and placekicker. Ends Red Badgro and Ray Flaherty and wingback Dale Burnett made for a capable receiving corps. The line was anchored by center Mel Hein and the Giants had proven their defensive prowess already in a shutout win over the Bears during the season.

There were some 26,000 fans in attendance at Wrigley Field on a foggy day with some light rain during the first half. The Giants drove to the Chicago 15 yard line and came up empty. With Nagurski running effectively, the Bears responded by driving into New York territory and scored the first points of the game on a 16-yard field goal by their outstanding placekicker, Jack Manders. Early in the second quarter, Manders booted a second field goal, from 40 yards, and the hosts were ahead by 6-0.

Late in the first half, FB Kink Richards broke off a 30-yard gain for the Giants and Newman threw to Badgro for a 29-yard touchdown. Strong was successful on the extra point attempt, and New York took a narrow 7-6 lead into halftime.

Manders put the Bears back in front in the third quarter with a 28-yard field goal, but the Giants came right back behind Newman’s passing on a 73-yard drive that ended with blocking back Max Krause plowing over from a yard out for a touchdown.

With the score 14-9, it was the turn of Chicago to make a big play. Facing a third-and-long situation, the Bears were set to punt but passed instead of kicking. HB George Corbett threw to QB Carl Brumbaugh for a 67-yard gain to the New York eight yard line (Brumbaugh shown running at top during the title game). From there, Nagurski took the handoff and headed for the line but held up and tossed a jump pass into the end zone. End Bill Karr hauled it in and Chicago regained the lead at 16-14.

Moving into the fourth quarter, once more Newman moved the Giants as he completed all four of his passes. At the Chicago eight, Strong took a handoff on a reverse and, seeing no running room, he lateraled back to Newman. Running to his right and hemmed in for a possible loss of yardage, the tailback saw that Strong had kept on going uncovered into the end zone and completed a TD pass to him. In the back-and-forth rhythm that the contest had settled into, New York was once more on top by a 21-16 tally.

It seemed as though that would be enough, but with time running down a shanked punt by the Giants that traveled only eight yards gave Chicago the ball in good field position at the New York 47. Molesworth passed to Brumbaugh for nine yards and then Nagurski ran for four. The Bears once again resorted to Nagurski on a jump pass (one of their most effective plays). This time the throw was to Hewitt for 14 yards, but when Dale Burnett closed in to make the tackle, he tossed the ball to Karr who ran the rest of the way for a 33-yard touchdown.

The outcome was still in doubt right down to the final play as Newman threw to Burnett in the open field, but DHB Red Grange, once a great running halfback but now better as a defensive back, was able to hold him up (and prevent a possible lateral) and the Bears won the NFL Championship by a score of 23-21.

The first postseason title game had been exciting, containing six lead changes, and highlighted the greater emphasis on passing in the pro game as opposed to college football at the time. As the report by the Associated Press put it, “The struggle was a revelation to college coaches who advocate no changes in the rules. It was strictly an offensive battle and the professional rule of allowing passes to be thrown from any point behind the line of scrimmage was responsible for most of the thrills.”

Total yards were almost even, with the Bears holding a slight edge of 311 to 307. Chicago gained most of its yardage on the ground (161 to 99) while the Giants went more often to the air (208 to 150). New York had the edge in first downs, 13 to 12. Notable individual performances were turned in by Bronko Nagurski, who ran for 65 yards on 14 carries, and Harry Newman (pictured below), who completed 12 of 17 passes for 201 yards and two touchdowns.

The Bears and Giants were still the best clubs in their respective divisions in 1934 and met again for the NFL title, this time at the Polo Grounds in New York and with a decidedly different result.

1939: Dodgers Defeat Eagles in First Televised NFL Game

Today, pro football on television is big business and a very big draw. Bringing the game to the viewing public had a huge effect on its growth, especially from the 1960s on. It got its start at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York on October 22, 1939 in a game between the host Brooklyn Dodgers and visiting Philadelphia Eagles. While there were 13,051 fans in attendance at the stadium, there were also two cameras and a crew of eight for the first televised pro football game (as opposed to a minimum of six cameras and a crew of some 200 for a telecast today).

Station W2XBS, forerunner of the NBC network, televised the contest with Allen “Skip” Walz handling the broadcasting. The production was largely an experiment and followed up the first college football telecast, between Fordham and Waynesburg, three weeks earlier. There were only about 1000 television sets in New York City (the telecast could also be seen on monitors at the RCA Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair) and the resolution of the small black-and-white picture was grainy. When clouds rolled in and decreased the available light, the quality suffered accordingly – to the point that the crew had to revert to a radio broadcast when it became too dark.

The matchup of teams was nothing special. The Dodgers, under Head Coach George “Potsy” Clark, were 2-2-1, including 0-2-1 in their last three games (there was a scoreless tie at Philadelphia). The Eagles, with owner Bert Bell also acting as head coach, had yet to win a contest and were 0-3-1.

In the first quarter, HB Ralph Kercheval intercepted a pass and returned it to the Philadelphia 30 yard line. The Dodgers gained two first downs thanks to the running of FB Pug Manders and tailback Ace Parker. Parker threw to end Perry Schwartz, who reached the eight. Two plays later, Manders bulled in for a touchdown.

The Eagles came back to tie the score thanks to a 44-yard drive in the second quarter. Diminutive rookie tailback Davey O’Brien (5’7”, 150), newly inserted into the lineup following the opening period, threw three completions and was helped by two penalties on the Dodgers. Rookie HB Fran Murray ran around end for a one-yard touchdown and Hank Reese converted.

In the third quarter, Kercheval put the Dodgers back in front with a 44-yard field goal. Shortly thereafter, Parker connected with Schwartz again for a 47-yard touchdown. Kercheval kicked two more field goals in short order in the fourth quarter, from 38 and 44 yards.


O’Brien provided some excitement in the final period as he threw to end Bill Hewitt (pictured at left) for a 22-yard TD to close out the scoring, but the result was a 23-14 win for Brooklyn.

Three players (Parker, end Waddy Young, and tackle Bruiser Kinard) played a full 60 minutes for the Dodgers. Brooklyn outgained the Eagles, 268 yards to 170, while each team had 10 first downs. Ralph Kercheval kicked three field goals in five attempts and added two extra points for Brooklyn. Pug Manders, moving from blocking back to fullback for the Dodgers, ran for 113 yards on 29 carries. Ace Parker was successful on 8 of his 19 throws for 116 yards and a touchdown. For the Eagles, Davey O’Brien completed 11 of 25 passes for 140 yards with a TD and one intercepted.

All of this occurred with broadcaster Walz adding his commentary (and often correctly forecasting Coach Clark’s calls) while sitting in a mezzanine seat along the railing with an iconoscope camera over his shoulder (the other camera, placed at field-level at the 50 didn’t work well and was little-used in the telecast).

“I did my own spotting, and when the play moved up and down the field on punts and kickoffs, I’d point to tell the cameraman what I’d be talking about,” said Walz later. “We also used hand signals for communication. Producer Burke Crotty was in the mobile unit truck, and he’d tell me over the headphones which camera he was using.”

For the most part, the players were unaware that they were being televised (Brooklyn FB Sam Francis said he noticed “a big trailer thing” parked outside the stadium), and the newspaper accounts didn’t mention it at all. The significance would come in retrospect, once television became a far more important medium and its role in the development of the sport more apparent.

Brooklyn went on to finish third in the Eastern Division with a 4-6-1 record. The Eagles ended up tied with Pittsburgh at the bottom at 1-9-1. And from the modest beginning broadcasting in obscurity to some 1000 people, pro football on television was watched by nearly 208 million viewers in 2010, with an average of almost 18 million per game and some 162.9 million for Super Bowl XLV.

1929: Benny Friedman Throws First Two of 20 TD Passes for Season

On October 13, 1929 Benny Friedman, tailback for the New York Giants, threw his first two touchdown passes of the season against the Staten Island Stapletons in a 19-9 win. The Giants’ record improved to 2-0-1 as a result, but it was also the beginning of an extraordinary achievement for the player who was the first great passer in pro football history.

In an era when the football was less sleak than it is today and the rules tended to discourage passing (which most teams did only out of necessity), Friedman was a revolutionary figure. He played college football at Michigan under Head Coach Fielding Yost, who called him “one of the greatest passers [and] smartest quarterbacks in history”. His contemporary, Red Grange, called him the best field general among the opponents he played against at Illinois, and Friedman honed his talent as a passer and was also a good runner.

The 5’10”, 172-pound passing tailback entered the NFL with the Cleveland Bulldogs to great fanfare in 1927 and set a league record with 11 touchdown passes. The Bulldogs folded and Friedman moved on to the Detroit Wolverines, and once again paced the NFL with nine scoring passes (he also tied for the league lead in rushing touchdowns with six). However, the Wolverines weren’t doing well financially despite a 7-2-1 record, and were purchased by owner Tim Mara of the Giants – primarily so he could obtain Friedman for his club (six other Detroit players also started for the 1929 Giants).

The Giants played the Orange Tornadoes to a scoreless tie in their opening game and then defeated the Providence Steam Roller prior to the contest against the Stapletons. It was New York’s first home game and there were some 30,000 fans at the Polo Grounds. In the second quarter, Friedman threw to back Led Sedbrook for a 15-yard touchdown. The second was tossed to wingback Hap Moran and covered 20 yards in the fourth quarter to pace the Giants’ ten-point win.

The next week against the Frankford Yellow Jackets, again at home, Friedman threw three touchdown passes (all in the second quarter) to give him five for the season. It became six two weeks later at Chicago against the Bears. He had eight after seven games with two TD passes in a rout of the Buffalo Bisons.

Following a win in New York’s rematch with the Tornadoes, Friedman had nine scoring passes and the next week at home against the Bears he threw for a season-high four touchdowns in a game. The Giants had remained undefeated through nine contests, but lost to Green Bay in a game that would prove critical to their title hopes. While Friedman threw to FB Tony Plansky for New York’s only points, he was also intercepted twice and the Packers won by a 20-6 score.

The star passer threw two touchdown passes in each of the next two games, a second win over Staten Island and then as part of a 24-21 thriller over the Chicago Cardinals that came down to a drop kick field goal on the last play of the game. His 19th TD pass came in the 14th game, against Frankford, and in the season finale Friedman beat the Bears with his 20th, a 27-yard throw to Sedbrook.

The Giants finished with a 13-1-1 record, which put them second to the one team that defeated them along the way – the 12-0-1 Green Bay Packers. They were easily the highest-scoring team in the NFL with 312 points as the runner-up Packers scored 198. Defensively, New York gave up only 86 points as only three of their opponents reached double figures against them and eight of the games were shutouts.

Friedman’s 20 touchdown passes broke his own record by nine and lasted for 13 years – it was finally broken by Green Bay’s Cecil Isbell, who tossed 24 in 1942 and whose 15 TD passes in ’41 was the closest that anyone came to Friedman’s mark in the intervening seasons. He received consensus first-team All-Pro recognition for the third straight year, and would do so once more the next season, when he led the NFL for the fourth consecutive time with 13 TD tosses.

Friedman initially retired to take an assistant coaching position at Yale in 1931, but returned to the Giants for the second half of the season. He played two more years with Brooklyn (after his wife, not wanting to leave New York, reportedly vetoed a deal that would have sent him to the Bears), plus one last game with the Dodgers in 1934, and finished up with 66 touchdown passes. Not surprisingly, that was the career record and would last until surpassed by Sammy Baugh in 1943.

Statistics from the 1920s and early 30s are too spotty to fully measure Benny Friedman’s performance, but there is no question from the touchdown pass totals alone that he was the most effective passer of his era by far, and likely the most accurate. A student of the game who trained himself to be outstanding at throwing the ball, Friedman went into college coaching and was athletic director at Brandeis University. He also tirelessly (some might say shamelessly) promoted himself for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, an honor that he finally received in 2005 – 23 years after his death in 1982.

Friedman wasn’t particularly well-liked by his peers (he was prone to being arrogant and aloof), but he set the stage for the pass-oriented game that pro football has become and thus is one of the game’s pioneers. The record 20 touchdown passes in 1929 was the crowning achievement of his career.

1936: First NFL Draft Held

The NFL’s annual draft of college talent has become a big and highly-anticipated offseason event. The brainchild of Eagles owner Bert Bell (who would go on to become league commissioner; pictured at right), the first one was held at Philadelphia’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on February 8, 1936.

Bell’s Eagles had come into being in 1933 and were a struggling club. With teams free to sign any player coming out of college that they wanted, strong clubs had an advantage in the bidding for talent and Bell recognized that this was bad for the overall competitive balance of the league. His suggestion that the NFL organize an annual draft, in which the weaker teams would get first choice of the best talent coming out of the college ranks, was adopted by the owners on May 19, 1935. While the format of the draft has changed over the years, the basic element in which the teams draft in inverse order of their finish during the previous regular season has remained the same.

The first draft consisted of nine rounds, with the Eagles, owner of the NFL’s worst record at 2-9 in 1935, going first and the Giants, who had gone 9-3, choosing last (Detroit had won the Championship game over New York, but had a lesser regular season record at 7-3-2. Currently, the NFL champion drafts last in each round, regardless of regular season record).


With the first overall pick, Philadelphia chose the Heisman Trophy-winning back from the University of Chicago, Jay Berwanger (pictured at left). Berwanger had no interest in playing pro football, and the Eagles ended up trading his rights to the Bears, who also had no luck in signing him.

The second choice, HB Riley Smith from Alabama, did play two seasons for the club that drafted him, the Redskins, but his career was cut short by injury. The first five picks were all backs (Bill Shakespeare of Notre Dame by Pittsburgh, Iowa’s Dick Crayne by Brooklyn, and Jim Lawrence of TCU by the Cardinals). The first lineman chosen was tackle Joe Stydahar by the Bears, with the sixth overall selection, and he went on to a Hall of Fame career.


Including Stydahar (pictured at right), four of the players chosen in the 1936 draft ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The others were FB Tuffy Leemans of George Washington, taken in the second round (18th overall) by the Giants; end Wayne Millner of Notre Dame, picked by the Boston Redskins with the 65th overall choice in the eighth round; and Colgate G Dan Fortmann, another selectee of the Bears, taken in the ninth (and final) round as the 78th overall choice.

End Paul “Bear” Bryant of Alabama was selected by the Dodgers in the fourth round, but he passed up pro football for the more secure opportunity of becoming an assistant coach at the college level (he was offered $175 per game to play for Brooklyn). Of course, he would go on to have a long and outstanding career as a college head coach.

The last player chosen, G Phil Flanagan from Holy Cross, was taken by the Giants but played instead with the Boston Shamrocks of the rival AFL (second version). In total, 81 players were selected by the nine teams.

While the introduction of the draft didn’t have an immediate effect on the league’s competitive balance – the Eagles, for instance, again had the league’s worst record during the 1936 season – over time teams like Philadelphia and the Chicago Cardinals were able to contend for and win championships in the late 1940s, helped significantly by players obtained through the draft. It would become a pattern that other clubs would emulate in the decades that followed.

1926: First AFL Begins Play With Three Games

On September 26, 1926 the first organization to be known as the American Football League (AFL) commenced play with three games. The AFL came into being through the efforts of star halfback Red Grange’s agent, C.C. “Cash & Carry” Pyle. Pyle and Grange (pictured above) had created a sensation when the player known as The Galloping Ghost signed to play for the NFL’s Chicago Bears in 1925 following the conclusion of his last college season at Illinois.

The Bears had made the most of two barnstorming tours following the regular season that featured Grange. However, once the tours were over the contract was concluded. Pyle and Grange informed George Halas and Dutch Sternaman, co-owners of the Bears, that the star halfback would agree to come back for another year for a five-figure contract and part ownership in the franchise. Halas and Sternaman refused, and Pyle responded by leasing Yankee Stadium for five years with the idea of placing a team in the nation’s biggest market that would be built around Grange.

Pyle first sought to join the NFL with his new club, but when the owners finally rallied around New York Giants’ owner Tim Mara (who had purchased exclusive rights to the New York City area for his club that played at the Polo Grounds) and turned down Pyle’s request. Not to be deterred, Pyle proceeded to set up a rival league.

Eight franchises joined the AFL, in addition to Pyle’s New York Yankees. Bill Edwards, a politician and former star athlete at Princeton University, was hired as the new league’s president (at reportedly ten times the salary of his NFL counterpart, Joe Carr). In addition to the Yankees, other teams were located in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, Philadelphia, and Rock Island. There was also a club called the Los Angeles Wildcats that was actually a traveling road team based in Chicago (hence they aren’t credited with being the first Los Angeles-based pro football team).


Several NFL veterans jumped to the new league, including QB Joey Sternaman (pictured at right), brother of Dutch Sternaman, who left the Bears for the Chicago Bulls, where he was also owner and coach; Giants’ tackle Century Milstead, who joined his coach, Bob Folwell, with the Philadelphia Quakers; and lineman Al Nesser, former mainstay of the Akron Pros who went to the Cleveland Panthers. Significant rookie signings included backs Harry Stuhldreher, of Notre Dame’s “Four Horsemen”, by the Brooklyn Horsemen (no doubt influencing the choice of team nickname; he would eventually be joined by another member of that fabled backfield, FB Elmer Layden); Georgia Tech’s Doug Wycoff by the Newark Bears; and Penn’s Al Kreuz by the Quakers.

Not surprisingly, the largest crowd (22,000) of the first week turned out at Cleveland’s Luna Bowl where the Panthers faced Grange and the Yankees. If they came to root for the home team, they went home happy for the Panthers dominated the New York club and won 10-0; if they came to see Grange, they were largely disappointed. Other than a 21-yard punt return in the second quarter, The Galloping Ghost didn’t accomplish much. Most of Cleveland’s players had been with the NFL’s Cleveland Bulldogs in 1925, giving them an advantage. Tailback Al Michaels threw a touchdown pass to wingback Dave Noble in the second quarter and Doc Elliott contributed an extra point and 32-yard field goal for the Panthers. The best drive of the day for the Yankees came in the third quarter (with Grange on the bench) as they made it down to the Cleveland three yard line but came up empty.

There were far fewer fans on hand (2500) at Browning Field in Moline, Illinois where the Rock Island Independents (a charter NFL franchise that jumped to the AFL) hosted the league’s traveling club, the Wildcats. The Wildcats were so named because they featured George “Wildcat” Wilson (pictured below left), a star rookie tailback out of Washington, and he had a solid outing against the Independents. So did blocking back Jim Bradshaw. But untimely penalties and a dropped pass on the goal line kept the Wildcats from scoring any touchdowns; their only points came on an 18-yard field goal by Jim Lawson in the first quarter.


While Rock Island had difficulty moving the ball on the ground, they had success through the air in the second quarter as blocking back Johnny Armstrong threw a pass to tailback Wes Bradshaw that gave the Independents a first down on the Wildcat five yard line. Three plays later Armstrong ran around end for a touchdown, and that was all that was needed as Rock Island won, 7-3.

At Davids’ Stadium in Newark, NJ before 2000 fans, the host Bears took on Joey Sternaman’s highly favored Chicago Bulls. The Bulls started off quickly as Sternaman ran for 40 yards on the second play of the game and then followed up with a pass to end Eddie Anderson to the Newark five yard line. FB Buck White ran for a touchdown from there and, with the successful extra point, the Bulls had the early 7-0 lead. The Bears defense stiffened from that point on, however, and while the Bulls continued to move the ball, they were unable to score again.

The star rookie tailback Wycoff keyed a late third quarter drive in which he compiled 60 yards on the ground. The ball was inside the Chicago one yard line as the period came to an end, and Wycoff plunged over for the touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter. Wycoff kicked the extra point to tie the game, and that ended up being the final score, 7-7.

For the Newark Bears, the opening tie was the high point of the season. They went 0-3-2 and never scored another point the rest of the way to finish at the bottom of the league. The Bulls went 5-6-3 to come in fifth. Rock Island won only once more as they put together a 2-6-1 tally to end up tied for seventh with Brooklyn. The Los Angeles Wildcats were 6-6-2, good enough for fourth place. The Cleveland Panthers failed to last the season, going 3-2 to finish third. Grange’s New York Yankees ended up at 10-5 and second to the league-champion Philadelphia Quakers (who opened their season on October 2).

In fact, only four of the original nine teams managed to play the full season. Fan and financial support wasn’t strong enough outside of New York City as the franchises dropped away. Afterward, the champion Quakers took on the NFL’s Giants (who had finished seventh) in a challenge game and were badly beaten, 31-0. The league folded, with the Yankees being taken into the NFL where they lasted two seasons and never finished ahead of the Giants.

Red Grange eventually made his way back to the Bears, as did Joey Sternaman. “Wildcat” Wilson played three years with the NFL’s Providence Steam Roller. Doug Wycoff toiled for six seasons with the New York Giants, Staten Island Stapletons, and Boston Redskins.

1925: Tim Mara Founds the New York Giants

Timothy J. Mara was a bookmaker in New York City – which was legal at the time – when he arrived at the office of Billy Gibson, manager of heavyweight boxer Gene Tunney. He had hopes of buying part of Tunney’s contract, but instead paid the $500 fee to gain a franchise for New York in the NFL.

NFL President Joe Carr was wooing Gibson as a potential franchise owner, but found a more willing taker in Mara. Mara, for his part, knew nothing about pro football but believed that a franchise for anything in New York City was surely worth $500. On August 1, 1925 he officially became owner of what would be named the New York Giants.

Dr. Harry March was hired to recruit talent for the new team and Bob Folwell to coach it. The club played at the Polo Grounds, which they shared with major league baseball’s Giants (hence the choosing of the same name). The assembled talent included FB Jack McBride, tailback Hinkey Haines, end Lynn Bomar, and G Art Carney, who were All-Pro selections after a season in which the Giants finished a respectable fourth in the 20-team NFL with an 8-4 record.

On-field success had not yielded off-field profits, however, and Mara found himself $40,000 in the red at the conclusion of the 1925 schedule. However, the Chicago Bears came to New York as part of the off-season barnstorming tour to exploit the talents of star halfback Red Grange. A crowd of some 65,000 fans showed up to see the player known as “the Galloping Ghost” in action against the Giants, enough to wipe out Mara’s debt.

Ironically, it was the same Red Grange who nearly destroyed the Giants in 1926 when he and his agent, C.C. “Cash & Carry” Pyle, started a rival pro football league (the first to be known as the American Football League) and placed a franchise in Yankee Stadium that featured Grange himself. To add insult to injury, the new league’s Philadelphia Quakers hired Coach Folwell away as well as highly-regarded tackle Century Milstead.

The Giants survived, however, while the AFL folded after a single season (they also gained some satisfaction in defeating Folwell’s league-champion Quakers in an interleague challenge game, 31-0). In 1927, they won their first NFL title with an 11-1-1 record. Setting the pattern for future successful Giants squads, this club succeeded with a solid but unspectacular offense and outstanding defense (they gave up a total of just 20 points over the course of the 13 games – 10 of the contests were shutouts).

Mara turned over co-ownership of the franchise in 1930 to his sons, Wellington and Jack, although he continued to control the team (the sons were only 14 and 22, respectively, in 1930). In 1946, actual control of the club went to the sons, with Wellington handling the football side of the operation and Jack the business side. The Giants were typically successful on the field - from 1933, when divisional play leading to a championship game was introduced, through 1958, the last season prior to Tim Mara’s death, the team participated in 10 of those title contests and won three of them (four championships overall counting 1927).

Tim Mara died in 1959 and was selected as a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. Jack Mara passed on in 1965 and his son, Tim, inherited his role in the organization and settled into a long-running feud with his uncle until he sold his half of the club to Robert Tisch in 1991. Wellington Mara remained the public face of the Giants until his own passing in 2005, and after he, like his father, was enshrined in Canton.

The Mara family continues to hold a co-ownership in the club that Tim Mara founded (his grandson, John, is the current team president). The franchise that he paid $500 for in 1925 is now valued at well over $500 million.

1968: George Halas Retires as Head Coach of Bears

By the spring of 1968, George Halas was a 73-year-old man with a bad hip that was hindering his mobility (it was a legacy of his brief major league baseball career with the Yankees back in 1919). Yet it was still something of a shock to pro football fans on May 27, 1968 when he announced that he was retiring as head coach of the Chicago Bears after a total of 40 years.

It is hard to do justice to the pro football career of “the Papa Bear” in just a few paragraphs. It has been said that Halas didn’t invent pro football, it just seemed that way. His involvement extended beyond a single franchise – he was a significant figure in the development of the entire NFL. Halas was present at the 1920 organizational meeting of what would become the National Football League, representing the Decatur Staleys. From that beginning, as a player, coach, and business manager, he became a part-owner of the team in 1921, when the Staley Starch Works decided to forego operating a company-sponsored football team, and moved the franchise to Chicago.

After a year as the Chicago Staleys (A.E. Staley provided Halas $5000 in startup money with the stipulation that the Staley name be kept for a year), Halas rechristened the team the Bears after working out a lease agreement to play at Wrigley Field, home of major league baseball’s Cubs. He retired as a player in 1929 and also gave up coaching, handing the reigns to Ralph Jones while working out business matters with co-owner Ed Sternaman. After buying out Sternaman, Halas returned to coaching the team in 1933 and left for a second time in 1942 to join the US Navy during World War II. Once discharged, he again took up coaching in 1946 and retired following the ’55 season. He came back one last time in 1958, after having effectively maintained control while longtime assistant Paddy Driscoll was head coach.

While Halas had the ultimate job security of owning the team, the fact was that he was an outstanding and innovative coach, leading the Bears to a title for the first time in 1921 and the last time over forty years later, in 1963. In all, he coached the team to six championships, with at least one in each of his stints (1921, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1946, 1963). They also won championships under Jones (1932) and co-coaches Luke Johnsos and Hunk Anderson (1943), with Halas still a major presence in the running of the club.

Halas pioneered in the development of the T-formation with man-in-motion, assisted by Ralph Jones and University of Chicago coach Clark Shaughnessy. He was the first coach to hold daily practices and regularly analyze game film of opponents. He was an outstanding judge of talent, of coaches as well as players, surrounding himself at all times with able assistants (most notably Driscoll, Johnsos, Anderson, George Allen, and Jim Dooley) – and Halas also pioneered in the use of an assistant coach as an “eye-in-the-sky” during games. The results were reflected in a 318-148-31 record (.682) with a 6-3 postseason tally. The Bears had winning records in 34 of his 40 seasons on the sideline.

Off the field, Halas was a party to many rules changes and innovations that helped the league to gain appeal and improved the game (use of hashmarks, allowing passing from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, structuring of the league into divisions with a championship game concluding the season, etc.). He also recognized the value of revenue sharing among the teams for the good of the overall competitive balance of the league and the significance of radio and television as tools for popularizing pro football.

As a coach, Halas was a strong disciplinarian and an emotional leader who was notorious for storming up and down the sideline while berating referees during the course of a game. He took criticism for being tight with money and complicit in the unofficial color line that kept African-American players out of the NFL during the 1930s and 40s. However, he also was the first coach to allow a black and white player to room together on the road (Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo) and could be generous to players in need (during Piccolo’s ultimately losing battle with cancer, Halas reportedly paid all of his medical bills).

There were contradictions, but there could be no question that George Halas set high standards for later generations of coaches and showed farsightedness in moving the league forward. The influence of “the Papa Bear” is still felt decades after his death in 1983 – and some 90 years after he helped found the NFL.

1892: Pudge Heffelfinger Becomes First Documented Pro Football Player

On November 12, 1892 a crowd of approximately 3000 packed Recreation Park in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), home of the Allegheny Athletic Association (AAA), for its showdown with the archrival Pittsburgh Athletic Club (PAC). In the second half of the 19th century, athletic clubs became very popular and were used to organize teams in a variety of sports including football. Winning was a means to gaining social prestige for the club, and so games were taken quite seriously and rivalries could be very fierce. These two teams had played to a hard-fought 6-6 tie at the PAC’s home field on October 12, and there were rumors that both sides were attempting to hire ringers for the rematch.

In fact, PAC’s manager, George Barbour, had made a trip to Chicago to make an offer to William “Pudge” Heffelfinger and another player to join his team. Heffelfinger had been a three-time college All-American guard at Yale (1889-91) and was now playing for a traveling amateur team, the Chicago Athletic Association. Barbour was unsuccessful, however; for Heffelfinger had quit the team and gone to Pittsburgh where he met up with the AAA’s manager, Billy Kountz. When game day arrived, Heffelfinger and two other teammates from Chicago were playing for the Three A’s (as they were often referred to locally).

The PAC immediately protested and an argument broke out between the clubs. The substitutes for the two teams began playing, which hardly satisfied the crowd in attendance, but finally the regular players agreed to an abbreviated game (since darkness was approaching) of 30 minutes rather than the usual 45. Heffelfinger did not disappoint – he forced a fumble that he then picked up and ran 35 yards for the game’s only touchdown. The AAA won, 4-0 (touchdowns were worth less in those days).

Afterward, Heffelfinger received $500 plus $25 for expenses (his teammates from the Chicago AA, Ed Malley and Ben “Sport” Donnelly, received expense money). It was the first recorded incidence of an athlete being paid to play football.

While it is suspected that others may have been paid prior to Heffelfinger, and certainly received perks provided by the athletic clubs for their participation, the entry in the Allegheny Athletic Association’s ledger documenting the transaction is the oldest proven player payment (the documentation wasn’t uncovered until the 1960s, and is now held by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Previously, a club in Latrobe, Pennsylvania had claimed to be the first to have paid a player, in 1895).

It did not take long for professionalism to take hold, even if at a rather modest level. By 1896, there were teams that were entirely made up of paid players. The league that would become the National Football League was still 24 years in the future.

Pudge Heffelfinger went on to become a college football coach at the University of California, Lehigh University, and the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. But for one game, he made his mark in the development of pro football.