1925 NFL season
Pros
| Regular season | |
|---|---|
| Duration | September 20 – December 20, 1925 |
| A controversial ruling by the NFL suspended the Pottsville Maroons from all league privileges, including the right to play for the NFL championship. | |
| Champions | Chicago Cardinals |
The 1925 NFL season was the sixth regular season of the National Football League. Five new teams entered the league: New York Giants, Detroit Panthers, Pottsville Maroons, Providence Steam Roller, and a new Canton Bulldogs team. The Kenosha Maroons folded, with the Racine Legion and Minneapolis Marines mothballing.
Teams
Twenty teams competed in the NFL during the 1925 season.
| First season in NFL * | Last active season ^ | Last season before hiatus, rejoined league later § |
| Team jumped to the AFL † | Rejoined the NFL ** |
Background
Winter meeting
The annual winter meeting of National Football League owners was held on the weekend of January 24–25 at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland.[1] Representatives of 18 NFL teams were in attendance.[1] The owners re-elected an executive committee consisting of league president Joe F. Carr, vice president John Dunn, and secretary-treasurer Carl Storck and approved a starting date of September 20 and hard termination date of December 20 for the 1925 season.[2]
On the second day of the meeting, the owners formally awarded the 1924 pennant to the Cleveland Bulldogs, bringing an end to a protracted debate over the NFL championship for that year.[3] The arrangement of any "post-season" game between top teams of the league to determine a champion for the forthcoming 1925 season was expressly forbidden by President Carr.[3]
Applications for new franchises were received from Detroit, Cincinnati, Providence, Rhode Island, and Pottsville, Pennsylvania — with Detroit, Providence, and Pottsville eventually fielding teams for the 1925 season.[3] President Carr also used the league meeting as an opportunity to network among owners, expressing his considered opinion that the large crowds drawn by league teams in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Cleveland illuminated a path forward for the struggling league — teams located in major urban centers, with new franchises for New York City and Detroit made the top priority.[3]
New York Football Giants
League president Carr took it upon himself to recruit an owner for a New York City franchise. In fairly short order, New York friends connected the top NFL official with a sports promotor with an eye for future profit, a 37-year old professional bookmaker named Tim Mara.[4] Mara had begun in the gambling industry — legal in New York State at the time — in his teenage years, first working as a "runner" for established bookies, collecting lost bets and delivering payouts before becoming a successful bookmaker in his own right.[5]
When first introduced to Carr, Mara asked about the league fee for a franchise. Told the fee was $2,500, including what was essentially a performance bond, Mara immediately accepted, declaring: "A New York franchise in anything should be worth $2,500, including one for shining shoes. I'll take it."[6] Mara wrote a check to Carr, the two shook hands, and the deal was done — the New York Football Giants were born.[7]
Summer scheduling meeting
Twenty teams would take the field with the National Football League in 1925, an increase of two from the previous season.[8] Three teams had made 1924 their final year — the Kenosha Maroons, Racine Legion, and Minneapolis Marines — to be replaced by the Providence Steam Roller, Pottsville Maroons, and President Carr's pet projects in Detroit and New York City as well as a return to action by a reorganized Canton Bulldogs.[8]
The teams competed in a single division, with scheduling still done on an ad hoc basis, with teams booking their own dates and opponents. This lack of organized, centralized, official scheduling would come back to bite the league in December in a controversial season finalé in which Cardinals owner Chris O'Brien would hastily add games against two league patsies to edge out the expansion Pottsville Maroons for best record in the league and the championship pennant.
Scheduling was largely conducted around the league's summer meeting, held in Chicago the weekend of August 1–2.[9]
Attendance
Even the teams from major urban centers faced spotty attendance, frequently driven by vagaries of the weather — this in an era before bountiful mass media revenue streams had emerged. In Chicago, a city in which 50,000 fans regularly turned out to Stagg Field to watch the gridiron exploits of the University of Chicago on a Saturday, the Chicago Bears still struggled to get 10,000 fans through the gates on Sunday.[10] Even the Bears struggled to break even;[10] for other teams from locations with smaller fanbases selling fewer tickets, the economic situation appeared even more dire.
Season highlights
The 1925 season would be dominated by news surrounding the decision of University of Illinois superstar halfback Red Grange to enter the league in November as a member of the Chicago Bears. Making his professional debut on Thanksgiving Day against the rival Chicago Cardinals, a standing room only crowd of 36,000 would turn out to see the legendary "Galloping Ghost" stymied in a scoreless tie.[8] Three days later George Halas and the Bears were at it again, nipping the Columbus Tigers 14–13 in the Chicago snow.[8]
A tour to cash in on Grange's transcendent popularity would follow, kicked off by a game against a veritable pick-up team in St. Louis in which #77 ran for 175 yards and 4 touchdowns, stoking the media flame.[8] The Bears would play an astounding 8 games in 12 days during the tour, including a crowd of 73,000 at New York's Polo Grounds — a record attendance for a professional football game and an unexpected financial windfall that would help save the expansion New York Giants from financial catastrophe in their maiden season.[8] A dinged-up Grange was finally forced to sit ahead of a hastily scheduled rematch with the expansion Detroit Panthers[8] — a decision which lead to massive lines for ticket refunds, robbing the Panthers of a saving 11th hour payday.[11]
1925 NFL Championship controversy
Controversy surrounds who actually won the 1925 NFL Championship. Officially, the Chicago Cardinals are listed as the 1925 NFL champions because they finished with the best record; however, many Pottsville fans at the time claimed that the Maroons were the legitimate champions. The Maroons and the Cardinals were the top contenders for the title, with Pottsville winning a late-season meeting between them, 21–7. But the Maroons scheduled a game against a team of University of Notre Dame All-Stars in Philadelphia (and winning 9–7) on the same day that the Frankford Yellow Jackets were scheduled to play a game in the same city. Frankford protested, saying that it was violating their protected territory rights.
Although NFL president Joe Carr warned the Maroons in writing that they faced suspension if they played in Philadelphia, the Maroons claimed that Carr had previously approved the game during a telephone call, and played anyway. In response, Carr fined the club, suspended it from all league rights and privileges (including the right to play for the NFL championship), and returned its franchise to the league.
In 2003, the NFL decided to again examine the case regarding the 1925 championship. In October of that year, the NFL voted 30–2 not to reopen the case, with only Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the league's two Pennsylvania-based teams, voting in favor. Thus, the Cardinals are still listed as the 1925 NFL champions.[12]
Had the current (post-1972) system of counting ties as half a win and half a loss been in place in 1925, the Maroons would have won the championship with a win percentage of .833, while the Cardinals would have finished runner-up at .821.
Standings
| NFL standings | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | T | PCT | PF | PA | STK | |||
| Chicago Cardinals * | 11 | 2 | 1 | .846 | 229 | 65 | W2 | ||
| Pottsville Maroons * | 10 | 2 | 0 | .833 | 270 | 45 | W5 | ||
| Detroit Panthers | 8 | 2 | 2 | .800 | 129 | 39 | W1 | ||
| New York Giants | 8 | 4 | 0 | .667 | 122 | 67 | W1 | ||
| Akron Pros | 4 | 2 | 2 | .667 | 65 | 51 | L2 | ||
| Frankford Yellow Jackets | 13 | 7 | 0 | .650 | 190 | 169 | W2 | ||
| Chicago Bears | 9 | 5 | 3 | .643 | 158 | 96 | W3 | ||
| Rock Island Independents | 5 | 3 | 3 | .625 | 99 | 58 | L1 | ||
| Green Bay Packers | 8 | 5 | 0 | .615 | 151 | 110 | W1 | ||
| Providence Steam Roller | 6 | 5 | 1 | .545 | 111 | 101 | L1 | ||
| Canton Bulldogs | 4 | 4 | 0 | .500 | 50 | 73 | L1 | ||
| Cleveland Bulldogs | 5 | 8 | 1 | .385 | 75 | 135 | L1 | ||
| Kansas City Cowboys | 2 | 5 | 1 | .286 | 65 | 97 | W1 | ||
| Hammond Pros | 1 | 4 | 0 | .200 | 23 | 87 | L3 | ||
| Buffalo Bisons | 1 | 6 | 2 | .143 | 33 | 113 | L4 | ||
| Rochester Jeffersons | 0 | 6 | 1 | .000 | 26 | 111 | L5 | ||
| Dayton Triangles | 0 | 7 | 1 | .000 | 3 | 84 | L7 | ||
| Duluth Kelleys | 0 | 3 | 0 | .000 | 6 | 25 | L3 | ||
| Milwaukee Badgers | 0 | 6 | 0 | .000 | 7 | 191 | L6 | ||
| Columbus Tigers | 0 | 9 | 0 | .000 | 28 | 124 | L9 | ||
- Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.
* The Pottsville Maroons were suspended from the league in December,
and the Chicago Cardinals named the NFL champions.
All star team
NFL league president Joseph Carr chose an all-star team for 1925, including players from Red Grange's tour.[13]
Ends
- Lynn Bomar, New York Giants
- Paul G. Goebel, Columbus Tigers
Tackles
- Ed Healey, Chicago Bears
- Link Lyman, Cleveland Bulldogs
Guards
- Butch Spagna, Frankfort Yellow Jackets
- John Alexander, New York Giants
Center
- Herb Stein, Pottsville Maroons
Quarterback
- Joey Sternaman, Chicago Bears
Halfbacks
- Red Grange, Chicago Bears
- Red Barron, Coral Gables All-Stars
Fullback
- Jack McBride, New York Giants
References
- ^ a b Chris Willis, Joe F. Carr: The Man Who Built the National Football League. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010; p. 181.
- ^ Willis, Joe F. Carr, pp. 181–182.
- ^ a b c d Willis, Joe F. Carr, p. 182.
- ^ Willis, Joe F. Carr, pp. 184–185.
- ^ Willis, Joe F. Carr, p. 184.
- ^ Willis, Joe F. Carr, p. 185.
- ^ Willis, Joe F. Carr, p. 186.
- ^ a b c d e f g David S. Neft and Richard M. Cohen, Pro Football: The Early Years: An Encyclopedic History 1895–1959. n.c.: Sports Products Incorporated, 1978; pp. 35–36.
- ^ "Independents Open Season Here with Bears: Cardinals, Green Bay, New Teams Added to Schedule This Year," Rock Island Argus, Aug. 3, 1925, p. 15.
- ^ a b Lars Anderson, The First Star: Red Grange and the Barnstorming Tour that Launched the NFL. New York: Random House, 2009; p. 123.
- ^ Bob Curran, Pro Football's Rag Days. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969; p. 53.
- ^ "Pottsville Maroons: NFL owners refuse to reconsider 1925 ruling". Archived from the original on October 23, 2009.
- ^ Chris Willis (August 19, 2010). The Man Who Built the National Football League: Joe F. Carr. Scarecrow Press. p. 217. ISBN 9780810876705.
Further reading
- Tom Bennett, et al. (eds.), The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football. Revised and expanded edition. New York: Macmillan, 1977.
- Bob Carroll, et al. (eds.), Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
- Santo Labombarda and NFL Communications Department (eds.), 2024 NFL Record and Fact Book. New York: National Football League, 2024.
- Tod Maher and Bob Gill (eds.), The Pro Football Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Professional Football. New York: Macmillan USA, 1997.