The Cleveland Bulldogs were a team that played in Cleveland, Ohio in the National Football League. They were originally called the Indians in 1923, not to be confused with the Cleveland Indians NFL franchise in 1922. However, after team owner Samuel Deutsch purchased the Canton Bulldogs in 1924, he merged the Canton team with his Indians and renamed his franchise the Cleveland Bulldogs. The Canton Bulldogs remained a part of the team until 1925, when they were sold back to Canton. The Cleveland Bulldogs played in the NFL until 1928 when they were relocated to Detroit and became the Detroit Wolverines. The team was later incorporated into the New York Giants in 1929. The Cleveland Bulldogs won the 1924 NFL championship.
Sam Deutsch, a Cleveland jeweler and boxing promoter who also owned a minor-league baseball team, bought an NFL franchise in 1923 and named the team the Indians. They played only seven games in that first season, but they had a shot at the championship, with a 3–0–3 record going into their final game against the Canton Bulldogs, who were also undefeated. The Indians were defeated 46–0 and posted a 3–1–3 league record, finishing fifth in the league, which comprised twenty teams at the time.
Purchase of the Canton Bulldogs
However, in August 1924, Deutsch, bought the defending NFL champions Canton Bulldogs for $2,500. The Bulldogs were experiencing heavy financial troubles at time and were sold to Deutsch without much of a struggle. Duestch combined the Cleveland Indians with the Canton Bulldogs, creating a new team, the Cleveland Bulldogs. Only seven of the Canton players actually joined the new Bulldogs; among them was player-coachGuy Chamberlin. The team played all of its home games at Dunn Field although Deutsch returned the team to Canton for the Thanksgiving game that season.
1924 NFL champions and controversy
The Cleveland Bulldogs won the NFL championship that year with a 7–1–1 record. After winning their first six games, the Bulldogs lost to the Frankford Yellow Jackets and entered a virtual tie with the Chicago Bears for first place in the standings. The Bears played more games, but also had more ties, and their one loss had come in the season opener against the Bulldogs. The Bears attempted to have an after-season exhibition game counted toward the standings, however in 1924 this was against the NFL's rules. In July 1924, NFL owners had agreed on a proposal that the 1924 NFL season would begin on September 27 and end on November 30. Ironically, as it turned out, the proposal was made by Dutch Sternaman, co-owner of the Bears. On the official end date, Cleveland had a 7–1–1 record to Bears' 6–1–4. Ties didn't count at all in those days, so the Bulldogs were in first place with an .875 winning percentage to Chicago's .857. However, on December 7, 1924, the Bulldogs went to Chicago for a challenge match. The Bears won the game, 23–0, and claimed that they deserved the NFL championship; they cited as precedent the 1921 championship decision (which the Bears had won over the Buffalo All-Americans) that declared there was no such thing as an exhibition game. However, the issue wasn't settled until the owners' meeting in January, when the owners voted for Cleveland to take the title. The owners also decided at that meeting that the 1925 season would run through December 20.
Decline
In 1925, several Canton businessmen purchased the rights to the old Canton Bulldogs team from Deutsch for $3,000. The Bulldogs, now known as the Canton Bulldogs, played in Canton during the 1925 and 1926 seasons. However Deutsch continued to call his Cleveland franchise the Bulldogs. He also sold his Cleveland Indians half of the club to Herb Brandt in August 1925. That season the Cleveland Bulldogs fell to a dismal 5–8–1 record. The team performed poorly on the field and at the bank. By mid-November the organization was nearly bankrupt.
In 1926 Brandt received authority from the league to suspend operations for a year. The Bulldogs then returned in 1927, bolstered by players from the folded Kansas City Cowboys franchise. Deutsch returned as the principal owner of this new Cleveland Bulldogs club. He, along with fellow investors Max Rosenblum, Brandt, Harold Gould, and Clinton Winfrey, built the new Bulldogs around native Clevelander Benny Friedman, a star quarterback at the University of Michigan. The team finished fourth in the National Football League this season, with an 8–4–1 record.
Ties to the New York Giants
At the end of the season, Elliott Fisher purchased the Bulldogs and moved the team to Detroit, renaming them the Detroit Wolverines. The 1928 Wolverines team consisted of 12 former Bulldogs players. Before the 1929 season, Tim Mara, owner of the New York Giants, purchased the entire Wolverines squad, including Benny Friedman, and absorbed the team into his New York Giants franchise. Eight former Bulldogs players ended up playing for the Giants that season.
The Frankford Yellow Jackets were a professional American football team, part of the National Football League from 1924 to 1931, although its origin dates back to as early as 1899 with the Frankford Athletic Association. The Yellow Jackets won the NFL championship in 1926. The team played its home games from 1923 in Frankford Stadium in Frankford, a section in the northeastern part of Philadelphia, noted for the Market–Frankford Line that terminates there.
Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under multiple names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL-era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from 1915 to 1917, Buffalo Niagaras in 1918, the Buffalo Prospects in 1919, Buffalo All-Americans from 1920 to 1923, Buffalo Bisons from 1924 to 1925 and in 1927 and 1929, and the Buffalo Rangers in 1926. The franchise, which was experiencing financial problems in 1928, did not participate in league play that season.
Detroit had four early teams in the National Football League before the Detroit Lions. The Heralds played in 1920, and had played as an independent as far back as 1905. The Tigers, a continuation of the Heralds, played in 1921, folding midseason and sending their players to the Buffalo All-Americans. The Panthers competed from 1925 to 1926 and the Wolverines in 1928.
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The 1924 NFL season was the fifth regular season of the National Football League. The league had 18 teams play during the season, including the new clubs Frankford Yellow Jackets, Kansas City Blues, and Kenosha Maroons. The Louisville Brecks, Oorang Indians, St. Louis All Stars and Toledo Maroons folded.
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.
The 1927 NFL season was the eighth regular season of the National Football League. Prior to the season, the league decided to eliminate the financially weaker teams. As a result, the league dropped from 22 to 12 teams. The league absorbed many players and one franchise from the defunct American Football League. Wilfrid Smith in the Chicago Tribune wrote that "the reduction formed a more compact circuit and provided better competition." Smith opined that the "outstanding feature" of the 1927 NFL season was the debut of Benny Friedman who became one of the game's "best drawing cards" and proved that professional football could support itself in Cleveland.
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The first American Football League (AFL), sometimes called AFL I, AFLG, or the Grange League, was a professional American football league that operated in 1926. It was the first major competitor to the National Football League (NFL). Founded by Charles "C.C." Pyle, (1882–1939), and General Charles X. Zimmerman, (1865–1926), as vice president and starring Hall of Fame halfback Harold Edward "Red" Grange, (1903–1991), the short-lived league with nine teams competed against the more established – then six-year-old – NFL, both for players and for fans. While Pyle's and Grange's New York Yankees team and the already established Philadelphia Quakers became reliable draws, the lack of star power and the uncertain financial conditions of the other seven teams led to the league's dissolution after one season.
The Cleveland Panthers were a professional American football team. They were an independent team founded in 1919 from the remains of the Youngstown Patricians. The Panthers played, with various degrees of success, continuously from 1919 and eventually, as fewer opponents played them each year after 1926, sputtered to a quiet folding in 1933.
Samuel H. Deutsch was a prominent sports franchise owner and jeweler. He is best known as being the owner of the National Football League (NFL)'s Cleveland Indians, formerly the Cleveland Tigers, in 1923 as well as for moving the Canton Bulldogs to Cleveland from Canton and renaming the team the Cleveland Bulldogs.
This timeline of the National Football League (NFL) tracks the history of each of the league's 32 current franchises from the early days of the league, through its merger with the American Football League (AFL). The history of franchises that began as independent teams, or as members of the Ohio League, New York Pro Football League, and other defunct leagues are shown as well.
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and the American Professional Football Association, from 1920 to 1923, and again from 1925 to 1926. The Bulldogs won the 1916, 1917, and 1919 Ohio League championships. They were the NFL champions in 1922 and 1923. In 1921–1923, the Bulldogs played 25 straight games without a defeat. This remains an NFL record.
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