The History of the 1935 NFL Season

The 1935 Season of the NFL, its 16th in all, is not remembered by many of us now, but it should be as some important items that helped the game grow were introduced.

The NFL was about to start its 16th season as an organization in 1935, and it was going to be one remembered for change, exceptional play, and legendary players.

The League fielded nine franchised teams for the 1935 season as the Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Washington Redskins each had squads in uniforms.

There were a couple of significant rule changes. One was the location change of the hash marks. Previously they sat at ten yards from each sideline, but League rules makers wanted to see offenses open up a bit more, so they revised the field layout to have hash marks be at fifteen yards inside each sideline. As they were also called, the inbounds lines did just that, becoming the ball's spot inbounds for the next down that had become dead out of bounds or between the has and the sideline on that side of the field. The intention was to give the offenses more room to work and improve scoring opportunities.

The NFL adopted a proposal that we would appreciate today. It was the idea to hold an annual draft of college players to begin in 1936, with teams selecting in inverse order of finish from the previous season. This thought was the brainchild of Philadelphia Eagles franchise owner Bert Bell. In the podcast episode above, we have some archived comments on this accomplishment from Mr. Bell's sone Upton Bell.

1934 Pro Football Code 11 Dec 1934, Tue The News-Messenger (Fremont, Ohio) Newspapers.com

The plan for the year before the season started was for each of the franchises to complete a twelve game regular season against other NFL opponents. This was a big step because up until that point they had never done that. 1935 was the first season in which all NFL teams played the same number of games. That was the plan anyway.

However this was modified due to a Redskins–Eagles game on November 17 that was canceled due to heavy rain and snow.

 Each Division of the NFL was to crown a winner and the wnnier f each would vye int eh season ending NFL Championship Game. The Eastern Division, came down to a Thanksgiving Day tilt at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, as the 5–4 Dodgers hosted the 6–3 Giants. A Brooklyn win would have tied the teams at 6–4, but New York won, 21–0, and went on to victories in their remaining two games to win the division championship comfortably at 9–3.

In the Western Division was a four team race. The Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day (who would have thought?) knocked off the Chicago Bears by the score of 14-2. Meanwhile the Chicago Cardinals defeated the Green bay Packers in a close 9-7 contest. It got even widers a mewr three days later. On December 1, Detroit dispatched Brooklyn 28–0, while the Cards and Bears  finsihed in a  7–7 tie. With this win, Detroit finished its season at 7–3–2 and eliminated the Packers and Bears from contention, while the Cardinals stood at 6–3–2 with another game against the Bears coming up on December 8. The Cardinals needed to win in order to force a playoff for the division title. However, the Bears won 13–0, and the Lions were the division champs.

The season ended with the Detroit Lions' 26–7 victory over the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game.

Here are the 1935 final standings in the NFL

Special thanks to Wikimedia COmmons for images in the public Domain. Also infoormation from the NFL.com, Profootball Hall of Fame website, Pro-Football-Reference.com, and Newspapers.com