Origin of League
After the collapse of the first American Football League and the paring of ten teams from the NFL after the 1926 season, professional American football was concentrated in the American Midwest and Northeast. The Memphis Tigers developed into a strong independent football team, comparable to those based in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In 1929, a Memphis team that was temporarily enhanced by the addition of Ken Strong and several other NFL players defeated the Green Bay Packers. The victory prompted Tigers owner S. A. Goodman to claim the "national pro championship." Memphis was not seriously challenged by non-NFL teams in 1930, but in 1931, promoter Bud Yates founded the St. Louis Gunners with future Hall of Fame member Jimmy Conzelman as the team’s coach. After a respectable 5-2-1 record in 1931 (playing all of its games at Public Schools Stadium in St. Louis), the Gunners changed coaches (to Bullet Baker) and played a more ambitious schedule in 1932, playing the Tigers to one win, one loss, and one tie – a November 27, 1932, game between the two teams was billed as for the "independent pro championship" ended with a 0-0 score.
The 1931 season saw the start of the Louisville Bantams, which played most of the games in its inaugural season against teams based in Ohio (including the Ironton Tanks); the following season saw the formation of the Charlotte Bantams and the Oklahoma City Chiefs. By 1933, both Charlotte and Oklahoma City were not only able to compete toe-to-toe with Memphis and the St. Louis Gunners, but both dominated the Tigers in three out of four games that year.
On November 14, 1933, Memphis Tigers owner S. A. Goodman, boasting that the Tigers have been playing "as good football as in the NFL" and that St. Louis and Oklahoma City "could win… in the NFL at any time," announced plans for a new major football league, which he named the American Football League. In the three weeks after the announcement, the Gunners defeated NFL teams in successive games and a new team in Tulsa, the Drillers, came into being and played competitively against Oklahoma City and St. Louis, losing all three of their games.
Read more about this topic: American Football League (1934)
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