Football History Rewind Part 59

The journey through football history one year at a time has brought us to the professional level of the gridiron in 1926. This was a pretty eventful season as competition to the young NFL had emerged, and it was from an internal threat!

The 1926 for professional football was really quite interesting. With College Football at its height, the now seven year old National Football League was starting to find some footing on the gridiron landscape.

The NFL had blossomed to grow to 22 franchise teams, a figure that would not be even close to that in professional football until 1961. New franchises had been awarded by League officials including the Brooklyn Lions, the Hartford Blues, the Los Angeles Buccaneers, and the Louisville Colonels. They also reconnected with a former team, the Racine Tornadoes, as that group re-entered the fold. There were some losses to the roster of NFL teams from the previous season though as the Cleveland Bulldogs decided to sit out the season. Meanwhile the Rochester Jeffersons suspended operations for the final time as they eventually folded in early 1928. There were a few name changes too for the year as the Akron Pros reemerged as the Akron Indians, the Duluth Kelleys as the Duluth Eskimos and the Buffalo Bison as the Buffalo Rangers.

An old standby franchise, the Rock Island Independents jumped ship to join the upstart American Football League. Ah yes the original AFL, the group that was the first major competitor to the NFL. (Check out this post Red Grange and the 1st AFL with Chris Willis ) This AFL conjured up by Red Grange and one of his innovative promoters, CC Pyle, along with General Charles X. Zimmerman was purposely conceived to compete with the NFL. The year prior Grange had given the NFL a jump start into profits and relevance when Pyle had talked Chicago Bears owner, and employer of the Wheaton Iceman in 1925, to go on an exhibition barnstorming tour. Pyle had negotiated and tried to get himself and the Galloping Ghost, their own NFL franchise in New York City playing in Yankee Stadium but with Tim Mara leading NFL acceptance to competing with his Giants Football Club, Pyle had to go to plan B. C.C. Pyle (some still say it stood for "Cash" and "Carry"), saw what they thought of as a lucrative opportunity for he and his client Red, so they embarked on creation of a new professional league, since Halas did not want to pay the asking price for Grange to stay as a Bear. Another reason the new AFL contigent hinged their bet on was the controversial ending of the National Football League's 1925 season where the Pottsville Maroons, at first declared League champions by many were stripped of their title by NFL Commissioner Joe Carr after violating his mandate on playing home games out of a team's assigned area.

Besides the Rock Island eleven Pyle created a central team to house its star player Grange on, The New York Yankees football club. They were joined by the already established Philadelphia Quakers franchise. The Boston Bulldogs, Brooklyn Horsemen, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Panthers, Los Angeles Wildcats, and Newark Bears joined the fray to form the charter members of what was being dubbed as the "Grange League."

The Quakers and the Yankees were the best two clubs in the AFL and were by far the top attendance draws as well. The rest of the teams struggled to compete on the field and financially right out of the gate. This upstart league was not devoid of talent though as besides Red Grange there was Harry Stuhldreher (Brooklyn), George Wildcat Wilson (LA), Joey Sternaman (Chicago), Al Kreuz (Philadelphia), Eddie Tryon (New York), George Tully (Philadelphia), Bull Behman (Philadelphia), and Century Milstead (Philadelphia) among other as players.

The NFL was now not only having to compete with baseball and college football but this new threat as well. They developed a strategy based on covering as much area as they could in counter measures. The Buccaneers, Eskimos, Colonels and Buffalo Rangers were "showcase teams," the first efforts for the league to reach beyond the northeast and mid-west and counter the move by Pyle to the far West with the Wildcats addition. Well the expirament with showcasing, didn't fly very well in public attendance. LA, Loisville, and Duluth barely had a home game to speak of as they were basically road warriors. Three of the four teams only lasted a single season as the Buccaneers and Colonels both folded while the Rangers reverted to their previous team mascot, the Bison, and only the Eskimos returned for 1927 and that was mainly due to thir famous star and gate draw, running back Ernie Nevers.

The AFL completed their season with the Philadelphia Quakers emerging as the top team, finishing with a American Football League best, 8-2 record. Oddly enough in the NFL, another team from the Philly area, the Frankford Yellow Jackets were named the NFL champions after finishing the season with the best record. Check out the Jackets story here Yellow Jackets

Pyle knew that his AFL was in deep trouble as most of the franchises would not make it to another season. There was one last hope... maybe if shown as worthy advesaries of the NFL competition his league could survive or possibly merge with the older pro league.

The Quakers though successful on the field were desperate for revenue and had challenged their local NFL rivals, the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Frankford as the NFL's champions, had they played the AFL title holding Quakers, would have been an early version of the Super Bowl. Frankford never answered the challenge, but the Quakers did get to play an NFL squad at season's end. The New York Giants, who had finished seventh in the 1926 season in the NFL standings with an 8-4-1 record accepted the challenge. On December 12, 1926, the Quakers played an exhibition game in a heavy snowstorm against the football Giants in front of 5000 weather beaten fans, and got creamed 31-0. 

That loss was the death knell and spelled the end for the Quakers. With most of the teams in bad financial condition like Chicago and the traveling Wildcats, the Quakers were folded after this crushing NFL domination, along with the league at the end of the year, the league folded. However, the Yankees were taken into the NFL out of respect for Grange, and at the begging of C.C. Pyle and lasted for another two years before going under.

It had started as a year of uncertainty and excitement for professional football and the landscape of the paid level of the sport had changed drastically over the course of a couple of months. Yes 1926 was interesting and somewhat pivotal as the NFL proved it could overcome the challenge of an upstart rival league.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: fs64Sports Blog Spot

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of A cropped version of manager Charles C. Pyle (1882-1939) in 1926, from Agence de presse Meurisse, taken by an unknown.