Brooklyn Lions

In this episode of the Football's early professional teams we take a gander at the short history of the Brooklyn Lions.

The Brooklyn Lions franchise was officially announced in the NFL on July 10, 1926. A Newspapers.com headline that was posted in the September 14, 1926 New York Daily News read:

PRO GRID STARS SIGNED BY BUTLER

The article talks of Brooklyn Lions President and Manager Eddie Butler signing up players to his recently founded Lions team. The team was put together there with support from the League offices so as to counter the first AFL’s deployment of their team the Brooklyn Horsemen. According to Wikipedia in the months before the regular season began, both leagues battled with each other for fan support and the right to play at Ebbets Field. The NFL emerged as the winner, as the Lions signed the lease to use the stadium on July 20. It was one of the few victories for the Lions. The inaugural 1926 season was brutal for the club. They hired Robert Norman "Punk" Berryman as the team's head coach. Punk Berryman was a former player at Penn State and was selected as an All-American Halfback in 1915. Coach Berryman's resume of leading football teams starts when he served as the head football coach at Gettysburg College in 1916 and at Lafayette College in 1917. He was subsequently an assistant football coach at the University of Iowa and Dickinson College. In the 1922-23 seasons Punk joined fellow Penn State alumnus Dick Harlow's staff at Colgate as an assistant. According to the American Football Database, Berryman coached the 1924 Frankford Yellow Jackets, who were a new franchise in the National Football League. The Jackets under Punk had a respectable third-place record of of 11–2–1 but his services were not retained. The following season, Berryman coached the Millville Football & Athletic Club.

15 Aug 1926, Sun The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) Newspapers.com

This led Coach Berryman to Eddie Butler who hired this well traveled and experienced coach to lead the Lions' sideline. The schedule was brutal to say the least but the Lions for the most part were in ball games competitively. Their first game played was against a strong Providence Steam Roller team where Brooklyn suffered a 0-13 loss on the road.

Butler though was working the public relations of his squad for the home opener of the club in the NFL's week 4 game though as he announced in the October 2, 1926 edition of the Brooklyn Times Union newspaper that a portion of the games proceeds would be donated to the Red Cross. On October 5 according to reports the Lions signed veteran guard Swede Nordstrom to help bolster their line. With much fanfare at Ebbetts field they found a 6-0 victory over the Hartford Blues. The Boston Globe on October 11 account of the game says 500 fans fought through the bitter cold air to witness the event. The article said it was a "dull and monotonous game." The poor press coverage and attendance were not good signs for the new club eventhough they had won the game.

The next few games were not positive at all as the Lions fell to the Pottsville Maroons 0-21, and then lost again in a rematch with Hartford in Connecticut 6-16. The next two games were victories for the Lions as they defeated the Columbus Tigers 20-12 and then hosted the well traveled Kansas City Cowboys. Butler again announced that gate proceeds of the Kansas City game would go to a local group at Camp Sussex, NJ. The Brooklyn owner also hosted a 30 minute indoor game where he coached one squad compromised of Lions players and Punk Berryman coached an opposing team of mixed Brooklyn players. Radio station WRNY covered the game and it was claimed that this was the first braodcasted covreage of an idoor fotball game. The Cowboys defeated the Brooklyn Lions though in a hard fought game 10-9.

On November 12, 1926, the Horsemen withdrew from the AFL of C.C. Pyle and soon after merged with the NFL's Lions franchise. The new team created by the merger was initially called the Brooklyn Lions and competed in the NFL from November 22, 1926. Newspaper reports had it that Horseman's promoter Hubert J. Fugazy got together with Butler at his office inthe Woolworth Building in Brooklyn to negotiate the merger of the Horsemen and Lions as the New York Burough was not big enough to support both of them as proven by the gate recepits of each franchise. So for the last three games of 1926, the team used the Brooklion Horsemen name to finish the season. After three consecutive losses the Lions/Horsemen disbanded their franchise. Part of the reason is that the Red Grange new York Yankees stole some of the AFL thunder from Brooklyn while others pointed to the growing popularity of the New York Giants who were starting to come in to their own as a great product to watch on the gridiron.

14 Nov 1926, Sun Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut) Newspapers.com

Brooklyn Horsemen players that rolled over to the Brooklyn Lions to make the combined Brooklion team were:

• Tailback Harry Stuhldreher
• Fullback Earl Britton
• Guard Tarzan Taylor
• Guard Red Howard
• Center Ted Plumridge
• End Ted Drews
• End Ed Harrison

The new team, also referred to as the Horse-Lions with eight members of the now-defunct AFL team, trounced the Canton Bulldogs 19-0 in front of a small crowd in Ebbets Field. In a last-ditch effort to attract paying fans, the Lions then adopted the Horsemen nickname of the old AFL team... and lost the last three games of their existence by shutout.

The picture in the banner above is from the Newspapers.com photo collection of the Public Domain of Aug 15, 1926, Sun The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York)

Special thanks to Pro-Football-Reference.com, Stathead.com, Newspapers.com,  and the American Football Database of Fandom.com.