A new NFL season is upon us.
The league marks its 105th anniversary this campaign, dating back to its forerunner — then known as the APFA (American Professional Football Association) — in 1920 when 14 previously independent play-for-pay gridiron clubs decided to band together to bang heads against each other on a regular basis to help determine a true United States national champion at the conclusion of a regular season schedule. Interestingly, of those 14 original APFA teams, only four were located in cities that would go on to become fixtures in the modern NFL: Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit.
Other towns — Canton, Columbus, Muncie, Racine, Rochester and Akron among them — would eventually fall by the wayside. Canton, former home to the APFA’s charter member Bulldogs, would later reappear as the permanent site of the NFL Hall of Fame.
Rosters were extremely limited and players stayed on the field for the full 60 minutes, switching from offence to defence when the ball changed hands. Players wore primitive protective equipment. Helmets, stitched together from leather, would not become mandatory until the 1940s.
(Trivia Note: Dick Plasman, a 10-year veteran receiver, kicker and linebacker for the Chicago Bears, was the last man in the NFL to play sans headgear.)
The APFA didn’t officially become the NFL until 1922 and by then had expanded to 18 teams, including three that are still with us: the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers and Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals. Buffalo, first known as the All-Americans and later as the Bisons, would stick around until 1928 when the NFL had pared itself down to 10 squads, including the New York Giants and the Frankford (PA) Yellow Jackets, who later became the Philadelphia Eagles.
The NFL didn’t hold a championship game until 1933, after franchise owners decided to split into two divisions — East and West — which, at that time, featured five teams each. At season’s end, the hometown and West Division champion Chicago Bears claimed the distinction of capturing the NFL’s inaugural title tilt, trimming the East Division-winning New York Giants 23-21 in a Wrigley Field barnburner witnessed by an enthusiastic throng of more than 20,000 spectators.
According to media reports at the time, Bears players each received a championship share of about 200 bucks for beating the Giants. In today’s dollars, that’s about $5,000.
Another major first for the NFL occurred three years later when the league held its inaugural draft. What has since become one of the major off-season highlights of the NFL with massive media coverage was originally run quietly out of a cigar smoke-filled hotel suite in Philadelphia where franchise owners gathered privately to select top graduating players from the college ranks.
NFL scouting was in its infancy and was conducted in an utterly rudimentary fashion compared to today. In fact, most NFL talent scouts relied almost entirely on firsthand information gleaned from newspaper reporters who covered their local college team. Most players were drafted, sight unseen.
The first-ever NFL draft pick was the unforgettably named Jay Berwanger, a halfback from the University of Chicago. Berwanger wasn’t even aware he’d been drafted and opted instead to join the business world coming out of college rather than risk life and limb for far fewer dollars in the fledgling NFL with his selectors, the Philadelphia Eagles.
The third overall selection in that 1936 introductory NFL cattle call was a halfback from Notre Dame with another unforgettable name — Bill Shakespeare. Like Berwanger, Shakespeare also decided not to report to his drafting team, the Pittsburgh Pirates (later Steelers), and instead accepted a tidy buttoned-down job offer from a highly reputable rubber company in Cincinnati where he would make much more money than he would toiling on muddy fields in the NFL of the Dirty Thirties.
Chosen in between Berwanger and Shakespeare at No. 2 overall was Alabama quarterback Riley Smith. He reported to his new NFL club, the Boston (later Washington) Redskins and played two seasons before being forced to retire due to injury. He later coached in the pros.
(Trivia note: Smith was the first-ever quarterback to play in an NFL championship game for the Redskins (now Commanders) when he lined up behind centre in the 1936 final, a 21-6 Green Bay Packer victory.)
Years later, the NFL survived two significant attempts by competitors to form rival major professional football leagues in the U.S., absorbing the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts from the AAFC (All-American Football Conference) in 1949 after a four-year run by the upstart circuit. The AFL — including today’s Buffalo Bills — came along in 1960, eventually leading to a merger with the NFL 10 years later and the creation of what we now know as the Super Bowl.
That first Super Bowl was a modest affair compared to the glitzy and glamorous and completely over-the-top production it has since become. It was played in 1967 in the cavernous confines of the Los Angeles Coliseum where the Green Bay Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi, systematically dismantled the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.
Packers players each received a winners’ share of $15,000. Today, that’s worth about 145-grand.
(Trivia Note: Canadian football finalists competed for the Grey Cup for the first time in 1909, or 58 years before the first Super Bowl.)
By the way, in 1967 you could wander in off the street and watch the first Super Bowl in L.A. for about 12 bucks. Today, the Super Bowl’s cheapest seats go for more than $6,000.
Yes, the NFL has come a long way in 105 years. A very long way indeed.
(PAUL SVOBODA)
