Pro Football Historian (PFH) is a blog page written by Flint Given. Pro Football Historian or PFH is a page to inform people on prior NFL events that people might not know about. Learning about teams from the 1920s or even the first few NFL World Championships in the 1930s fascinates me. It's these kinds of events that I want to discuss in this blog. Hopefully you are interested and will continue to check up on my blogs.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Sunday, April 17, 2016
History Of The American Football League
In 1958, the National Football League championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants drew millions of viewers on NBC and established pro football as an entertainment commodity to rival baseball as the most popular sport in the United States. The NFL suddenly had a line of businessmen waiting to purchase new franchises in new markets, but most were arrogantly turned away. This prompted Lamar Hunt, the wealthy son of an oil tycoon, to recruit seven businessmen from cities hungry for pro football to form a rival league. The resulting American Football League was publicly welcomed by NFL Commissioner Bert Bell, who said that competition would stimulate both leagues. However, the NFL did not sit idly by and wait for the AFL to gain market share. Instead, it quickly expanded into Hunt’s hometown of Dallas and into Minneapolis, another of the cities the AFL had designated for a franchise.Friday, April 1, 2016
Who Would Be In Your NFL Hall Of Fame Class?
This year there will be another Hall Of Fame class. The class of 2016 includes greats like Brett Favre, Marvin Harrison, Tony Dungy, Kevin Greene, Orlando Pace, Ken Stabler, and Dick Stanfel. All these players have something unique about. Some have waited over three decades to get in. Unfortunately Stanfel and Stabler have passed away after waiting a long time to get in. Each of these players deserve to get in.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
The First NFL Championship Game
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| 1932 NFL Championship (On Top) Super Bowl 37 (On Bottom) |
The 1932 NFL Championship Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 season's final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans, the first NFL playoff game. With the snowfall and anticipated extremely cold temperatures that weekend in Chicago, Illinois, the game was moved indoors.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Monday, March 7, 2016
What Was The All-American Football Conference?
The All-American Football Conference or the AAFC was a football league that sprouted from the return of football players from WW2. Founded in 1944 but didn't start its first season until 1946. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations to the game. However, the AAFC was ultimately unable to sustain itself in competition with the NFL. Three of its teams were admitted to the NFL: the San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts (not the same team that later played, the second Colts team would play in Baltimore in the NFL from 1953 through 1983, now the Indianapolis Colts). The AAFC had its teams play in a double round robin format in the regular season. Each team had a home game and an away game with each of its AAFC opponents.
The League had 8 teams in its first three years and 7 teams in its last season in 1949. The teams that folded in 1949 that didn't go to the NFL were Buffalo Bison/Bills, the Brooklyn Dodgers that merged with the New York Yankees (were two different teams for 46-48') for just the 1949 season only, the Miami Seahawks, the Los Angeles Dons, and the Chicago Rockets/Hornets. The Cleveland Browns dominated the league winning all 4 championships. The Browns, 49ers, and Colts (Not the current Colts) joined the league in 1950. These 3 teams were looked down upon for other NFL teams. The Browns continued their success going to the next 6 NFL Championships and 7 of the next 8 championship games. Otto Graham Hall of Fame Quarterback of the Browns and Head Coach Paul Brown lead those first 10 Browns' teams. They won 7 of 10 title games, going 3 for 3 in the NFL, no one has ever approached that level of greatness ever since or before. The league has made a huge impact on the sports because we still have the Cleveland Browns who later became the Ravens and then reemerged in 1999 and also the San Francisco 49ers. These teams have won many titles and will continue to compete for more titles.
Friday, March 4, 2016
The Impact Of WW2 On The NFL
World War 2 impacted the world in so many ways. It also had a huge impact on the NFL. Due to the war, many players left America and football to fight in the war. This caused many player shortages for teams. For example the Cleveland Rams (Now the Los Angeles Rams) suspended operations in 1943. Also interesting is the Eagles and Steelers merged teams because of player shortages. They were dubbed the Steagles and after 1943 those respective teams returned operations to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The Steagles in the record books were officially called Phil-Pitt Combine. Surprisingly this is the first winning season for the Philadelphia Eagles if you want to count it because it technically wasn't just the Eagles players and staff. The next year in 1944 Pittsburgh still had a shortage of players so they decided to merge with the Chicago Cardinals, otherwise known as Card-Pitt. This merger didn't end up as well as the 5-4-1 Steagles, Card-Pitt went 0-10. By 1945 the war ended and all NFL teams resumed normal operations.
These teams will always be remembered in football lure, during a time of pain and suffering. In 2003, the Steagles were recognized by the Steelers for the 60th Anniversary of the team. Also interesting is in Week 2 of 1943, the Steagles fumbled the ball 10 times and defeated the Giants and NFL Record which has been matched three times. In all, it was an interesting time in the NFL that might never happen again.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Who Were The Muncie Flyers?
Without any APFA wins, the Flyers could not contend for the APFA Championship. However, with wins against the Gas City Tigers and the Muncie Offers More AC, the Flyers claimed to have won the Indiana State Championship. Sportswriter Bruce Copeland compiled the All-Pro list for the 1920 season, but no player from the Flyers was on the list. Ken Huffine decided to be affiliated with the Chicago Stayles after the 1920 season, and Cooney Checkaye took over the role the following season. It did not help, and the Flyers' final year in the APFA was 1921 where they went 0-2. They didn't even score a point in there three NFL games giving up 73 points. As of 2012, no players from the 1920 Muncie Flyers have been enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and non are expected anytime soon or ever. They actually were so bad they left the NFL in 1922 and changed there brand back to the Congerville Flyers which they were called before they joined the NFL. They officially folded in 1925 with there best NFL season being an 0-1 season in 1920, which is funny to think. So no wonder why some NFL teams have folded throughout history, probably not as bad as the Muncie Flyers but winning and money was so important in the NFL in its infancy, without either a team wouldn't last long.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
About Me Page
About Me Page
Pro Football Historian is a blog page written by Flint Given. I am an avid football fan who tries their best to watch every football game and tries to know each player, even players that might never touch the ball in the NFL field during the regular season. I have been watching football avidly since I was 11 years old. I currently work at NFL Films. Football is the only sport I mainly watch, in my mind their isn't an off-season when the NFL has free agency, the draft process, OTAs, training camp, etc.
I will try my best to inform people on prior NFL events that people might not know about. I love listening and reading about former past events in the NFL. Learning about teams from the 1920s like the Canton Bulldogs or the Akron Pros fascinates me. Even the first few NFL World Championships in the 1930s have amazing stories like the "Sneakers Game" and the first championship between the Spartans and the Bears. It's these kinds of events that I want to discuss in this blog. Doesn't matter what team you love or hate I will try my best to treat all teams the same because in this age many fans only focus on Super Bowl wins and not the championships won before the 1966 season. Hopefully you are interested and will continue to check up on my blogs.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Pottsville Maroons Controversy Of 1925 And The Teams History
The National Football League was in its infancy in 1925 and so were the Pottsville Maroons. A team in Pennsylvania that joined the NFL in 1925. Playing at Minerville Park near another NFL team called the Frankford Yellow Jackets. In their first game they shut out the Buffalo Bisons. Even though they had three NFL HOFers in 1928 but their best season was in 1925 where they went 10-2, second best in the NFL. The controversy of the season is a historic event that hasn't happened since nor before to an NFL team.
However, before the season ended, the Maroons were suspended by NFL commissioner Joseph Carr, ultimately denying them the championship title. This has been the subject of controversy ever since. Controversy surrounds who actually won the 1925 NFL Championship. Officially, the Chicago Cardinals are listed as the 1925 NFL champions because they finished with the best record; however, many Pottsville fans at the time claimed that the Maroons were the legitimate champions. The Maroons and the Cardinals were the top contenders for the title, with Pottsville winning a late-season meeting between them, 21–7. But the Maroons scheduled a game against a team of University of Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia, Pottsville won 9–7 on the same day that the Frankford Yellow Jackets were scheduled to play a game in the same city. Frankford protested, saying that it was violating their protected territory rights that they had. Commissioner Carr warned Streigel several times that Pottsville's franchise would be suspended if they played in Philadelphia. Not wanting to give up on a potential financial windfall for his team, Streigel went ahead with the game. He would later claim he had received verbal permission from the NFL by telephone, though he gave inconsistent responses as to which official he had spoken to. Pottsville considered it a major win for professional football, but the match only attracted about 8,000 fans, a major financial disappointment. As threatened, Carr suspended Pottsville and removed them from the NFL, preventing them from finishing their schedule.
Meanwhile, Chicago Cardinals owner Chris O'Brien hastily scheduled two games against the Hammond Pros and the Milwaukee Badgers, both of whom had already disbanded for the season. Obviously playing the games to increase their record and it appears to secure the championship by improving their record. The game against the Badgers spurred a scandal of its own, when the Badgers filled out their roster with four high school players, which is against NFL rules. Both teams were sanctioned by the league. Regardless, with Pottsville out of the league, the Cardinals had the best record (11-2-1), and were awarded the championship by the league. For his part, O'Brien refused to accept the title, and afterward the league never officially awarded it at all. Later both the franchise and the NFL would claim the Cardinals as the 1925 champions. The Cardinals did not attempt to publicly take credit for the title until 1933, when it was acquired by Charles Bidwill whose descendants still own the modern-day franchise now Arizona. The Cardinals have won only one further NFL title, in 1947, leading to discussion that the franchise might be cursed as a result of this controversy. The NFL reinstated the Maroons the very next season. The league feared that the Maroons would jump to the threatening American Football League, sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League. Pottsville still feeling they were the rightful champions created their own trophy made out of coal. The Maroons coal trophy would later go on display at the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton. The City of Pottsville still celebrates the Pottsville Maroons stolen championship, while a request to re-examine the 1925 championship was declined in 1967 on a 12-2 vote with then St. Louis Cardinals leading the opposition. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell lobbied the NFL in 2003 to reverse the decision, with President George W. Bush even writing in favor of the Maroons, but the title remained with the Chicago Cardinals. Still to this day the Chicago Cardinals are the 1925 NFL World Champions.
The NFL reinstated the Maroons the very next season. The league feared that the Maroons would jump to the threatening American Football League. In 1926 Red Grange and his manager C. C. Pyle wanted an NFL franchise in New York City. However, that move would have infringed on the territorial rights of the New York Giants. Pyle and Grange were turned down, so they decided to start their own league, the AFL. To keep independent teams from joining Grange's league, the NFL hastily expanded to 22 franchises. The Maroons were one of the teams added, or in this case reinstated.[8] That year the Maroons were once again in the thick of title contention until late in the season. Pottsville's shutout victories over the Buffalo Rangers and Akron Indians led to the team finishing with a 10–2–1 record and third place in the final standings. 1926 also saw the signing of George Kenneally, a rookie out of St. Bonaventure University, who earned all-pro status and was named team captain in just his second season, and would later become part owner of the club.
However, towards the end of the season, the Maroons management struggled to meet its financial obligations, and there were published reports of a strike among the team's players.
The 1927 season saw a decline in the team's on-field performance. Pottsville lost several of its stars, and others were growing older, and finished the season with a disappointing 5–8–0 record. Doc Striegel relinquished operational control of the team for the 1928 season by "loaning" it to a group of three players: Herb Stein, Pete Henry and Duke Osborn. Henry took over the coaching reins but the downward spiral continued. The Maroons ended what turned out to be their final season in Pottsville with a dismal 2–8–0 record. At the end of the season the players were given a small football made of anthracite coal, a memento of the last season played in Pottsville.
Striegel sold the club during the offseason to a New England-based partnership that included Maroons' standout, George Kenneally. The new owners relocated the franchise to Boston prior to the 1929 season, where it was renamed the Bulldogs. The Bulldogs would be the first of a string of unsuccessful attempts at establishing an NFL team in Massachusetts and would be followed by the Boston Redskins in the 1930s and the Boston Yanks in the 1940s. Not until the American Football League's Patriots (established in 1960) joined the NFL in 1970 would the league be able to establish a permanent presence in New England's most populous market (and even that team required a hostile takeover to prevent being relocated in the 1990s).
Six veteran Maroons players made the move with the team. Dick Rauch also returned to the fold, resuming his position as head coach. Based at Boston's Braves Field, the Bulldogs nonetheless had a two-game swan song in their old stomping grounds, defeating both the Buffalo Bison on October 27 at Minersville Park and the Orange Tornadoes on October 29 at Mitchell Field.[9] The team folded at season's end with a 4–4–0 record.
Because the Washington Football Team began in 1932 as the Boston Braves, some Pottsville backers, with help from a few writers, have suggested that the team descended from the Maroons by way of the Boston Bulldogs. The 1932 Boston franchise, however, had no relationship to the 1929 Bulldogs (that team instead descended from the Tornadoes, by way of the 1931 Cleveland Indians).
A dedicated website of the Pottsville Maroons.
http://www.pottsvillemaroons1925.com/
Video on the story of the 1925 Pottsville Maroons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBHu8id_tm0
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