Chicago Tigers - Winner-take-all Legend

Winner-take-all Legend

In 1920 the Tigers and Chicago Racine Cardinals were playing for the same Chicago fan dollar. Legend has it, that the Cardinals' owner Chris O’Brien offered to play for the right to represent the city of Chicago in the APFA. The winner would remain as the city’s only professional team, the loser would fold operations. The Tigers’ owner Guil Falcon agreed to the terms. The game resulted in a 6-3 Cardinals win. Paddy Driscoll scored the game’s only touchdown on a 40-yard run. As promised, the Tigers finished the season with a 2-5-1 record, dropped out of competition, becoming the first NFL/APFA team to fold. However there are two problems with the story. First, the Tigers played two more league games after losing to the Cardinals. Second, O'Brien was willing to let the Decatur Staleys play in Chicago the following season.

More plausible is a theory that George Halas wanted to move the Decatur Staleys to Chicago but because they already had the Tigers and the Cardinals, he would have had a very difficult time moving into a city with two teams in the league. Thus, he challenged Guil Falcon to the same winner-take-all duel, which would take place on Thanksgiving, to determine who would share the league franchise rights to the city with the Cardinals. The Staleys won, 6-0; the Tigers dropped out of the league right afterward and, after playing one game against the independent Thorn Tornadoes, folded, with the Staleys moving to Chicago (later to become the Chicago Bears) one week into the 1921 season. While seemingly more plausible, there's no evidence to support the theory.

According to the NFL, the Chicago Tigers folded between the 1920 and 1921 seasons.