The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations to the game. However, the AAFC was ultimately unable to sustain itself in competition with the NFL. After its folding, three of its teams were admitted to the NFL: the San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns and the original Baltimore Colts.
The Akron Pros were a professional football team that played in Akron, Ohio, from 1908 to 1926. The team originated in 1908 as a semi-pro team named the Akron Indians, but later became Akron Pros in 1920 as the team set out to become a charter member of the American Professional Football Association. Fritz Pollard, the first black head coach in the NFL, co-coached the Akron Pros in 1921. Paul Robeson played for the team in 1921 as well. He was among the earliest stars of professional football, before football became segregated from 1934 to 1946. In 1926, the name was changed back to the Akron Indians, after the earlier semi-pro team. Due to financial problems, the team suspended operations in 1927 and surrendered its franchise the following year.
Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under multiple names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL-era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from 1915 to 1917, Buffalo Niagaras in 1918, the Buffalo Prospects in 1919, Buffalo All-Americans from 1920 to 1923, Buffalo Bisons from 1924 to 1925 and in 1927 and 1929, and the Buffalo Rangers in 1926. The franchise, which was experiencing financial problems in 1928, did not participate in league play that season.
Washington Senators, also referred to as the Washington Pros or Washington Presidents, was a professional football club from Washington, D.C.. The team played in the American Professional Football Association during the 1921 season, and continued to operate as a football club until 1941. The Senators played and practiced at American League Park.
Below is a list of professional football championship games in the United States, involving:
Joseph Francis Carr was an American sports executive in American football, baseball, and basketball. He is best known as the president of the National Football League from 1921 until 1939. He was also one of the founders and president of the American Basketball League (ABL) from 1925 to 1927. He was also the promotional director for Minor League Baseball's governing body from 1933 to 1939, leading an expansion of the minor leagues from 12 to 40 leagues operating in 279 cities with 4,200 players and attendance totaling 15,500,000.
The 1922 NFL season was the third regular season of what was now called the National Football League (NFL); the league changed their name from American Professional Football Association (APFA) on June 24. The NFL fielded 18 teams during the season, including new league teams such as the Milwaukee Badgers, the Oorang Indians, the Racine Legion, and the Toledo Maroons. Meanwhile, the Chicago Staleys changed their name to the Chicago Bears, and the Racine Cardinals changed their name to the Chicago Cardinals. The Muncie Flyers, Cleveland Indians, Brickley's New York Giants, Cincinnati Celts, Tonawanda Kardex, Washington Senators, and Detroit Tigers dropped out of the league. A 19th team, the Youngstown Patricians, was scheduled to join the league, and had its schedule laid out, but folded before playing in the league. A 20th, the Philadelphia Union Quakers, also was set to join, but did not, due partly to the fact that the Quakers were merely a front for the existing Buffalo All-Americans to play extra games on Saturday. After a four-year hiatus, the Quakers instead joined the American Football League (1926).
The Cleveland Panthers were a professional American football team. They were an independent team founded in 1919 from the remains of the Youngstown Patricians. The Panthers played, with various degrees of success, continuously from 1919 and eventually, as fewer opponents played them each year after 1926, sputtered to a quiet folding in 1933.
The National Football League (NFL) was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) with ten teams from four states, all of whom existed in some form as participants of regional leagues in their respective territories; it took on its current name in 1922. The NFL was the first professional football league to successfully establish a nationwide presence, after several decades of failed attempts. Only two teams currently in the NFL, the Decatur Staleys and the Chicago Cardinals, are founding members. The Green Bay Acme Packers, founded in 1919 are the oldest NFL franchise within continuous operation in the same location.
The first National Football League (NFL) was the first attempt at forming a national professional American football league in 1902. This league has no ties with the modern National Football League. In fact the league was only composed of teams from Pennsylvania, which meant it was actually regional, despite having locations in the two largest cities in Pennsylvania. Two of the teams were based in Philadelphia, while the third was based in Pittsburgh. This NFL was a curious mixture of football players and baseball players who adapted to playing football. Future Baseball Hall of Famer Rube Waddell was with the Philadelphia Athletics, and pitcher Christy Mathewson a fullback for Pittsburgh. Two of the three teams were owned by the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Athletics, with the third team suspected of being owned by the Pittsburgh Pirates. The league folded after the 1902 season.
The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct predecessor to the modern National Football League (NFL).
The Massillon Tigers were an early professional football team from Massillon, Ohio. Playing in the "Ohio League", the team was a rival to the pre-National Football League version of the Canton Bulldogs. The Tigers won Ohio League championships in 1903, 1904, 1905, and 1906, then merged to become "All-Massillons" to win another title in 1907. The team returned as the Tigers in 1915 but, with the reemergence of the Bulldogs, only won one more Ohio League title. Pro football was popularized in Ohio when the amateur Massillon Tigers, hired four Pittsburgh pros to play in the season-ending game against Akron. At the same time, pro football declined in the Pittsburgh area, and the emphasis on the pro game moved west from Pennsylvania to Ohio.
The New York Pro Football League (NYPFL) was a professional American football league, active in the 1910s, and based in upstate New York, primarily Western New York. Between 1920 and 1921, the league's best teams were absorbed into the National Football League, though none survive in that league today. It was one of the biggest challengers to the Ohio League in professional football in the 1910s.
The Pitcairn Quakers were a professional American football team from Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, United States. The team played as an independent from 1904 until 1920 and featured the best players in the community as well as some famous college-level players. A few of the players were college All-Americans. At one time, the team was loaded with Native Americans from nearby Carlisle Indian School. The team played many of the Midwestern teams that would later become future members of the National Football League.
The Boston Brawlers were a professional American football team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The team was based at Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts as the Boston Brawlers, and were a charter member of the Fall Experimental Football League (FXFL), which is trying to become the developmental league for the National Football League. Their primary colors were red, midnight blue and white, similar to Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox, and its logo featured a mustachioed, bare-fisted boxer.
The professional American football team now known as the Los Angeles Rams was established in Cleveland as the Cleveland Rams, and played there from 1936 to 1945. The Rams competed in the second American Football League (AFL) for the 1936 season and the National Football League (NFL) from 1937–1945, winning the NFL championship in 1945, before moving to Los Angeles in 1946 to become the only NFL champion ever to play the following season in another city. The move of the team to Los Angeles helped to jump-start the reintegration of pro football by African-American players and opened up the West Coast to professional sports. After being based in Los Angeles for 49 years, the Rams franchise moved again after the 1994 NFL season to St. Louis. In 2016, the team moved back to Los Angeles after 21 seasons in St. Louis.
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and the American Professional Football Association, from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs would go on to win the 1916, 1917 and 1919 Ohio League championships. They were the NFL champions in 1922 and 1923. In 1921–1923, the Bulldogs played 25 straight games without a defeat, which as of 2018 remains an NFL record. As a result of the Bulldogs' early success along with the league being founded in the city, the Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton. Jim Thorpe, the Olympian and renowned all-around athlete, was Canton's most-recognized player in the pre-NFL era.
