NFL Games Against Strange Opponents!

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Each year, when we learn of our favorite NFL team’s schedule, we can be certain of one thing: we’ll know the opponent no matter how rarely the two clubs might meet.

But there was a time before the NFL became so formal, that a team might go anywhere, or play anybody, just to get a game on the books. In the very early years of the league, there were no playoffs in place, so teams were free to schedule just about any type of opposition in order to get in an extra game…hopefully a winning one!

While most of these teams were professional in some sense of the word, many more were semi-pros, while others were simply club or town teams anxious to take on one of the big, bad NFL members.

As such, this episode of “When Football Was Football” on the Sports History Network will focus on both strange, and forgotten, long-gone opponents of both the Chicago Bears and the Chicago Cardinals. We’ll even share the discovery of two games played by the Cardinals that have never been recognized before, even by knuckleheads such as myself who claim some weak knowledge about the Cardinals!

Most of these exhibitions were away games where the NFL participant was guaranteed a flat fee and usually received expenses as well. For example, when the Chicago Cardinals were invited to California to play the Los Angeles Bulldogs in January 1936, the Cards received $4,000 plus travel expenses.

This made the three-day rail ride from the windy city almost painless for owner Charles Bidwill—even when the Cardinals were upset by their rude hosts!

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Bears Seek Revenge and Grange Retires

Other games were arranged between two keen rivals by knowledgeable promoters eager to attract hungry fans to see the teams battle it out in some far distant place. This type of contest occurred in Los Angeles in 1935 when the Chicago Bears met the New York Giants on January 27.

This was over a decade before the NFL established a permanent franchise in California, so the league was likely testing the waters, so to speak, to determine if pro football could attract a following in the state. Some may recall that the Giants had captured the NFL title over the Bears a month earlier on December 9, 1934, in the now-famous “Sneakers” game.

In that battle, the Giants overcame a Bears 13-3 third-quarter lead by wearing gym shoes during the second half and literally out-running the Bears with a final score of 30-13, including that impressive 27-point explosion in the final stanza. The battle in Los Angeles was noteworthy for another reason since it marked the last game in the lengthy pro career of the fabled Red Grange who finally decided that he had enough of being the object of every defense’s attention!  

In fact, the Bears tried to secure one last touchdown for Grange to cap his career when he was sent wide with plenty of blocking in front of him. His teammates all did their jobs to ensure that Grange could break free for that final touchdown. Unfortunately, after displaying some of the exquisite moves that made him so very special earlier in his career, Grange was pulled down from behind by a stout defender as reported in the Chicago Tribune:

“Red took the ball on the Bears’ own 20-yard line and ran it on a 41-yard dash to New York’s 39-yard line. Buss, the Bears’ big tackle, threw his helmet in disgust and Luke Johnsos cussed in disappointment as Irvin, the Giants’ 230-pound tackle, overhauled Red to interrupt his try for a touchdown.” 

 Grange later stated: “The plan was to try and spring me loose for a touchdown. If I was lucky enough to score, I was going to lay the ball down in the end zone and walk right off the field. I almost made it, but my legs kept getting heavier and heavier as I ran. Cecil Irvin, a 230-pound tackle pulled me down from behind.

It was obvious that I had hit the end of the trail. Some of the Bears players were so mad at Irvin for catching up with me I was afraid they’d lynch him. As for myself, I didn’t feel too badly. I had more than my share of the breaks.”

Cardinals Stomp Shermans In First Game

Not many exhibition games ended with such a significant occurrence as Red Grange’s retirement. Most were played in relative obscurity and for some, the results have been lost forever. But to really understand the extent of unusual games played by both the Bears and Cardinals, let’s go back to the beginning for both teams.

The first game ever played by the Cardinals was when the team was known as the Morgan Athletic Association in 1899. On October 15 of that year, the Morgans entertained a team called the Shermans and won that first game 29-0. There were no stands and few spectators, but the clubs played on a field that was roped off to keep non-players off the playing surface.

A hat was passed at halftime for voluntary contributions which the players on both teams shared after the game was over. In the next 21 years before the organization of the American Professional Football Association (now the NFL), the team then known as the Racine Cardinals encountered mysterious opponents such as the Pullman Thorns, the Woodstock Olivers, and the East Chicago Gophers.

Meanwhile, in 1919, the Staley Manufacturing Company in Decatur, IL started its own football team with the nickname of the Staleys. This was a year before George Halas was hired by the organization to upgrade all of its athletic programs, which he did rather efficiently by recruiting key athletes to play sports, as well as work for the company. The first game ever played by the Decatur Staleys was on October 5, 1919, when the club was defeated 3-0 by the not-so-famous Peoria Tractors.

Staleys Whip Moline Tractors

A year later in 1920, with Halas on board, the Staleys opened the season with a resounding 20-0 win over the Moline Universal Tractors, followed by a 25-7 victory over the Kewanee Walworths. Then, in 1921, Halas moved the team to Chicago with the assistance of the owner of the Staley Company and adopted the Bears nickname in 1922.

Although the Bears and Cardinals were now part of the future NFL in 1920, scheduling was both wacky and disorganized. Games against league opponents were scattered in with battles against local competition.

For example, in 1922, the Cardinals opened the season on September 24 against the Maplewood Rovers. In another nod as to the differences in both pro football and player contracts between now and then, Cardinals superstar Paddy Driscoll was forbidden to play in the Maplewood game.

The reason was quite simple: his contract with a semi-pro baseball team called the Pyotts did not allow him to play football while his summer baseball contract was still in effect! The Cardinals still pecked away at the Rovers, winning easily 29-0 before a robust home crowd at Normal Park of just 1,000.

Of course, one of the biggest splurges in scheduling exhibition games occurred in early 1926 when the Chicago Bears, along with their newly acquired prize possession, Red Grange, embarked on a west coast tour following the conclusion of the 1925 season.

The Bears traveled from Florida to Seattle winning eight of nine games. Of special note was the crowd of 70,000 that witnessed the Bears 17-7 win over the Los Angeles Tigers on January 16, 1926.

Two Lost Cardinals Games Found

In an exhibition game with a bit of a twist, the Cardinals opened up the 1931 season with a resounding 25-0 win over the Chicago Mills. Nothing unusual about that except the game was played in Madison, WI, and was the first-night football game ever played in that location.

It was also in 1931, rather in the post-season of 1931, we found two games that were never included in Cardinals season results. On January 9, 1932, the Cards blasted the San Pedro Longshoremen 48-7 in California in front of just 1,073 fans. However, two weeks later the south side team from Chicago prevailed over the Carideo All-Stars 26-14 with over 40,000 in attendance.

Then in 1933, both teams opened up their respective offenses against local teams. The Bears initiated their season with a resounding 60-0 stomping of the Cicero Pros on the same day that the Cardinals bounced the Aurora Ideals 65-0. It seemed a little unfair for the Bears to unleash the intimidating Bronko Nagurski against the over-matched Cicero club as Bronko scored one TD and added three extra points.

Speaking of high-scoring games, the most points ever scored by the Cardinals in a game occurred on August 31, 1936, when the visiting Cards destroyed the South Bend Brewers 70-0. Once again, NFL teams were perfectly willing to hit the road for a nice, fat guarantee from local promoters, while also taking the opportunity to build up some confidence in battles with overwhelmed foes.

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    The Bears In Erie?

    Here’s another good one for the Bears. On October 6, 1937, the Bears agreed to visit the Warren (PA) Red Jackets. When ticket demand increased, the game was moved to Erie, PA where a larger crowd could be accommodated for this charity event.

    The Bears had just stopped the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-0 two days before in Pittsburgh with a nice crowd in attendance of 22,511. Clearly, the Warren eleven would be outclassed but this prospect did not dimmish the local enthusiasm for the game. Over 1,000 residents made the trip to Erie by car and bus in order to catch all of the activities.

    The evening began with a place-kicking exhibition by Jack Manders of the Bears and also included a 40-piece band from Erie and the girls drum and bugle corps from the Billy Simpson VFW post in Warren. While the football result was predictable (the Bears won 49-7), the related events were a hit according to the Warren Times Mirror:

    “The girls of the Billy Simpson Post drum corps put on a very pleasing exhibition between halves of the game. Many Warren people have seen these girls put on their drill before and last night they did better than on either of their appearances in town. The entire evening was a gala one for local fans, the only sad thing was that the Red jackets were unable to stop the Bears, and even that isn’t so sad when one stops to consider the difference in the caliber of the teams.”

    Small Town Exhibitions Are Long Gone

    We will certainly never again witness a team such as the Chicago Bears take on the Warren Red Jackets. Nor will the Cardinals crisscross the Midwest to take on foes such as the La Crosse Heilemans, the Freeport Lions, the Kenosha Cardinals, or even the Newark Bombers or the Greensboro Generals.

    All of these games took place back in a time “When Football Was Football” when it was possible for a major league team to stop by your small town to take on the local elite. The results were usually not favorable for the locals, but these contests did help build up both interest and a fan base for the growing NFL. By the late 1940s, most of the battles pitting NFL giants against small-town elevens had disappeared.

    The emergence of the NFL as a recognized big league was evolving, and the process of learning more intricate offenses and defenses was best addressed during training camp practices rather than in scheduling numerous exhibition games, mostly on the road, against obviously inferior opponents.

    But we can still miss the tales of these David vs. Goliath matchups that will never happen again. We hope you enjoyed this small sample of NFL teams taking on unusual adversaries back in the days ”When Football Was Football.”

    Thank you for spending some of your time with us and please join us for our next episode when we’ll look at the time when George Halas “retired” as the head coach of the Chicago Bears. He actually did it twice before taking the job back. Did the team collapse without him? Or did it prosper? We’ll find out on the next session of “When Football Was Football,” here on the Sports History Network!

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    Author and Host - Joe Ziemba

    Joe Ziemba is the host of this show, and he is an author of early football history in the city of Chicago.  Here, you can learn more about Joe and When Football Was Football, including all of the episodes of the podcast.

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