Founding Fathers Of The NFL

At one time, college football was more popular than the National Football League, or NFL. The NFL has been a storied franchise for many years, but it was not always like it is now. Many people have never heard of the Canton Bulldogs, Decatur Staleys, Columbus Panhandles, and more. Those were the founding fathers of the NFL. The NFL has endured many changes since it was first created and has been America’s most watched sport for years, but does anyone ever wonder how it all started?

The NFL was created in 1920 in Canton, Ohio. When the NFL was first created, it was called the APFA, or American Professional Football Association. The name was not changed to the National Football League (NFL) until 1922. The original NFL (APFA) teams were the

A new set would come every year and a handful would leave. The NFL grew more popular each year. Many players were still in college that played in the NFL. This caused the league to sometimes have to pay for the classes of the players. In 1927, the NFL removed the weaker teams so that the better players would be more consolidated with the remaining teams. In 1929, Providence became the first team to play a game under floodlights. In 1932, the first playoff game was played inside Chicago Stadium. The NFL was also divided into two divisions that would lead to the first NFL Championship Game. In 1936, the NFL held it’s first draft. Jay Berwanger was the first player ever drafted, but he never played one down in the NFL. It was common for players to do this, because the pay was not very good and players took a beating. Contracts at this time were not very big. The average player was making less than $4,000 dollars a year. A few years later the first Pro Bowl was played, and the New York Giants beat the Pro All-Stars 13-0 at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles. The NFL had always had a President of the league ever since is started, but in 1941 that changed. Ellmer Layden became the first commissioner of the league. This was the time when World War II started. Many players from teams were leaving to go serve their country. The NFL teams were depleted. This caused some teams to have to merge with other teams for a year. An example is the Steelers and Eagles. The

They called the league the American Football League or AFL. This was the fourth league to be named the American Football League, but it would be the league with the most popularity of all of them. They planned to begin play in 1960. The original eight teams of the league were the Oakland Raiders, Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos, Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers, Los Angeles Chargers, and New York Titans. These teams planned to rival the NFL for popularity. As the AFL became more popular the NFL started to worry that it would lose popularity. Bidding between players started happening. Since both leagues had drafts, they would commonly draft the same player, and the player had the choice who he wanted to sign with. Usually the team who offered the most money won. Finally, in 1966 owners from both leagues secretly met to discuss a merger, because the spending for both leagues was beginning to be detrimental. They announced that the merger would come into effect in 1970. Before that in 1967, the best teams from each league played each other in the first World Championship game, also called Super Bowl I. After this, the NFL took