Pro football in the 1920s didn't look much like the GAME modern
1 FROM CHAOS TO CHAMPIONSHIPS THE MAKING OF THE BIG GAME Representatives of 11 pro football teams gathered at an automobile showroom on a hot humid day in 1920 It hardly seemed like the start of something big The loosely organized meeting in Canton Ohio didn’t even have enough chairs for all the people present Some had to sit on the showroom s cars Football as a professional sport was in its infancy College football was developing a loyal following but the pro game remained largely an afterthought with fans Teams were scattered throughout the nation mainly in the Midwest They had no central organization They didn’t even share a common set of official rules The part time players went to the highest bidder bouncing from team to team and even the teams with winning records including the Canton Bulldogs the reigning champions were losing money Pro football was on the brink of collapse If it was to survive something had to change And Ralph Hay the owner of the Bulldogs had a plan He had already
approached three fellow team owners about banding together to start the American Professional Football Conference APFC It was time to see if other owners were ready to buy into the idea Hay made his case before the men gathered in the showroom In the new league he envisioned teams would share a common rule book they would not raid one another's rosters and the size of contracts would be limited For two hours the men hammered out an outline for the league Hay's vision became reality The APFC still disjointed disorganized and largely dysfunctional changed its name to the American Professional Football Association APFA and began its first season just a few weeks later Despite its shortcomings the APFA marked the jumping off point for organized professional football Less than two years later the league changed its name to the National Football League THE DAWN OF THE NFL CHAMPIONSHIP For more than a decade the NFL remained a very loosely organized league Franchises came and went Teams picked which teams they wanted to play including non NFL teams and scheduled games however they wanted to They didn't even play the same number of games The NFL had no playoffs so champions were determined by the regular season winning percentages Chaos was the way of the young league and that was never truer than in the 1932 season The Green Bay Packers led the NFL with 10 victories Yet at the time the league discarded all ties when calculating winning percentages And based on winning percentages the Packers 10 3 1 mark left them behind both the Chicago Bears 6 1 6 and the Portsmouth Spartans 6 1 4 After throwing out the tie games the Bears and Spartans were both left with 6 1 records 8 THE SUPER BOWL
CHARTER MEMBERS Only two of the original APFA teams remain in the NFL today The Decatur Staleys moved to Chicago in 1921 and won the APFA title that year In 1922 the team changed its name to the Chicago Bears below in 1925 The other APFA charter member was also Chicago based The Chicago Cardinals remained in the Windy City until 1960 when the team moved to St Louis The Cardinals were on the move again in 1988 becoming the Phoenix Cardinals In 1994 they changed their name to the Arizona Cardinals Both teams thrived in the early NFL winning multiple titles But they haven't had as much success in the modern era The Bears have won one Super Bowl and the Cardinals haven't won any FROM CHAOS TO CHAMPIONSHIPS THE MAKING OF THE BIG GAME 9
