1925 Cardinals Scandal

There were a couple of scandals that took place in the NFL in 1925. The first we want to look at is the one that the eventual Champs, the Cardinals would take part in and why they did what they did.

The infamous 1925 Chicago Cardinals scandal is one that we have mentioned before but it is so interesting we have to bring it into this scandals series. The NFL was only halfway through its first decade. League guidelines were newly established as Joe Carr was writing them down to gain continuity that lacked in the first year of two under the branding of the APFA. The NFL champion was not determined by a singel title game or even a post season, simply put the team with the best record garnered the crown via vote at the next League meetings. This made teams in the running conduct some very dubious dealings to try and pry this prestigious honor from the other competition in the League. Heck who doesn't want to be called the champs?

The Pottsville Maroons and the Chicago Cardinals were the top contenders for the title. The NFL championship came down to a head to head matchup of the these squads on December 6. It was the game of the year one would think, the Maroons were 9-2 while the Cardinals entered the fray at a 10-1-1 mark. The matchup for what one would think would be all the marbles, would be played in Chicago. This was the last game scheduled for each team at that point. Pottsville seemingly dashed the title aspirations of the Redbirds as they won the late-season meeting between them, 21–7.

Apparently the Cardinals extended their schedule at the end of the 1925 season. Our friend and Chicago football historian Joe Ziemba tells us though that the Cardinals, and any other NFL team, could schedule as many games as they wanted up until December 20, 1925 (when the season officially ended). 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. O'Brien's intention appears not to have been to secure the championship, but to improve their record so as to entice the Chicago Bears and their star Red Grange into one last game, potentially a huge payday as Grange was quite the draw. The Milwaukee Badgers who had already disbanded at this time were resurrected by some crafty Chicago football folks, in particular Art Folz that allegedly gathered some highschool players, then suited them up as the Badgers to give the Milwaukee team enough to field a team. This rag tag put togehter squad was mere fodder for the Cardinals who gave Milwaukee a 59-0 beat down. This win statistically put the Cardinals ahead of the Maroons in the win-column, and with it the championship title. Of course, there are several other underlying stories in play here, including the Pottsville team playing in a game forbidden by Joe Carr and the Cardinals refusing the 1925 NFL championship at the league meeting in February of 1926. But as historians such as Joe Horrigan and Chris Willis have pointed out, the Cardinals did indeed have the best record in 1925 and should be recognized as the NFL champs. We will get into that Maroons and their scandal again in a later episode. Joe Ziemba will give us more detail in on this story of the Cardinals versus Badgers saga in his new book that is in the works, that will be titled, Bears vs. Cardinals: The NFL’s Oldest Rivalry.  Look for it in the second Quarter of 2022! I can't wait for that one!

The picture in the banner above is from the US Library of Congress' collection and is a clip of a home movie that was contributed by Ira Gershwin circa 1939 and is titled "Rose Bowl Game." The game pitted the USC Trojans and the Duke Blue Devils against each other. Southern Cal won the game 7-3 in a thriller.