Facing player shortages during World War II, the Boston Yanks and the Brooklyn Tigers, a team with its own tumultuous past as the Dodgers, surprisingly merged for the 1945 NFL season. This temporary union saw them simply called "the Yanks," playing a mixed schedule of home games in both Boston and New York. It was a desperate measure during extraordinary times.

This unusual alliance on April 10th, 1945, was a temporary fix. By 1946, the Brooklyn franchise's owner departed for the new All-America Football Conference, effectively dissolving their part of the merger. The Boston Yanks continued for a few more seasons before also folding, making this brief, wartime collaboration a truly unique and fleeting moment in NFL annals.