After several decades of futile attempts, the NFL became the first international football league to effectively establish a presence on a national level. The Decatur Staleys (at present the Chicago Bears) and the Chicago Cardinals (at present the Arizona Cardinals) are the only two founder teams that are still active in the league.
The Decatur Staleys
The 1920 season saw the Decatur Staleys’ second year of existence, the Chicago Bears’ inaugural professional campaign, their first under head coach George Halas, and their first in the newly established American Specialized Football Association.
The Team of The Decatur Staleys
The team improved on their 6–1 record from 1919 to a 10–1–2 record and earned them a second-place finish in the league standings. The Staleys needed to defeat Akron in the last conference game of the season to have a shot at the championship. Predictably, Akron played for a tie, got it, and took home the inaugural APFA championship.
Decatur Staleys Team Goes to Chicago
George Halas was greeted by Staley, who gave him an explanation of the situation and a proposition he couldn’t refuse. According to Staley, professional football requires large city crowds. As a result, it was decided that the Decatur Staleys would move to Chicago in October 1921 and play at Wrigley Field. For one season, they would go under the name Staley.
Staley agreed to pay the squad a $5000 bonus to assist with the move to Chicago and the 19 players on the roster would stay on the team’s payroll for the duration of the inaugural season. George Halas pointed out that Staley was under no moral or legal duty to support the survival of the football team. But Staley was a large man who was familiar with great dreams, and he recognized the enormous potential in the group he had assembled. Staley would later go to games up in Chicago when he could, and he referred to the now Chicago team as “the transplants”.
It was time for the Staleys to change their moniker at the conclusion of the 1921–22 football season. Given that they were sharing Wrigley Field with the Chicago Cubs, they decided to call themselves the Bears, arguing, tongue in cheek, that football players are larger than baseball players.
Chicago Cardinals
The professional American football team presently known as the Arizona Cardinals originally competed as the Chicago Cardinals in Chicago, Illinois, from 1898 to 1959. From 1960 to 1987, they were based in St. Louis, Missouri. The Morgan Sports Club, a Chicago-based amateur athletic team, was founded by Chris O’Brien in 1898. O’Brien later moved them to Chicago’s Normal Park and renamed them the Racine Normals, then adopted the maroon colour from the University of Chicago uniforms.
The Time Span in 1920
The Cardinals joined a professional Chicago league in the 1920s. The Cardinals, along with the other team Chicago Bears, were regarded as the founding members of the Football National League in the year 1920. The only two teams from that era still in existence are both. During those early years of the NFL, a rivalry also grew between the Bears and Cardinals.
The NFL reportedly began play on September 17, 1920, though it wasn’t yet known by that name, according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Canton, Ohio, site—then known as the American Professional Football Conference—remains a holy ground for football even now. Since this time, fledgling regional leagues have developed around the gridiron football sport. However, this was the first successful, national effort.
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