1923 NFL Season

The 1923 NFL season was the fourth regular season of the National Football League (NFL). It was the second year after the name of the league was changed from the original "American Professional Football Association."

For the first time, all of the clubs that were considered to be part of the NFL fielded teams. The new clubs that entered the league included the Duluth Kelleys, the St. Louis All Stars (which only lasted one season), and a new Cleveland Indians team, while the Evansville Crimson Giants dropped out of the league and folded.

The Canton Bulldogs repeated as NFL Champions after ending the season with an 11–0–1 record. No championship game took place; rather the title was decided based upon winning percentage for games played with other National League teams.

Background

Growth and trials

By 1923, the fourth season of existence of the National Football League (NFL), organizational efficiency and athletic professionalism had begun to supplant the ad hoc, semi-pro nature of the league's first years. In December 1923, the sports editors of 13 football cities could truthfully write:

"Professional football made rapid strides during the season just completed and the post-graduate game climbed rapidly in public favor.... Pro football of today is different than in the olden days.... The majority of elevens make use of 'all-time' footballers. The day of stars getting in several hours before a game and running through signals in a hotel corridor is past. With but few exceptions, all of the clubs in the pro wheel engaged in daily practices to build up machine-like play.""Fifteen Sport Writers Pick Leading Professional Football Players in the Country: All American Professional Football Selections,"
''Duluth News Tribune,'' Dec. 23, 1923, p. 27.

This is not to say things were going perfectly swimmingly. With no revenue streams from merchandise or radio and with television only a faint apparition of the distant future, all team revenue flowed through the gate — and the gate was typically inadequate to cover expenses. Even the best-heeled teams in the league's biggest city — the Bears and the Cardinals of Chicago — struggled to make ends meet. For small-market teams, the situation was worse.

In Wisconsin, losses incurred by the teams in Green Bay and Racine forced the selling $5 stock or soliciting $10 donations (respectively) in a frantic effort to maintain solvency for the forthcoming 1924 season. In Ohio, teams in Akron, Columbus, and Toledo piled up losses in the first half of the 1923 campaign and ominous game cancellations in the back end. Jim Thorpe's Oorang Indians, with their all-Native American roster, would provide a short-lived novelty as a touring circus at the gate but would deliver a painfully poor product on the field. They found themselves on Thanksgiving day playing an exhibition game in the rain with the Athletic Club of Marion, Ohio at a county fairgrounds in front of a crowd of 100 people, some of whom remained shuttered in their cars parked along the sidelines.

No team save the Chicago Bears was profitable and many franchises were doomed, yet the National Football League managed to survive.

League meeting

The NFL's annual scheduling meeting — always the most important conclave of team owners and representatives — was held in Chicago on January 20 and 21, 1923. There were representatives of 17 teams in attendance, as well as petitioners for new franchises from Cleveland, St. Louis, Davenport, St. Paul, and Duluth."Pro Football League Again Headed by Carr,"
''Chicago Tribune,'' Jan. 21, 1923, p. 23. The gathering re-elected Joe F. Carr of Columbus as league president and named John A. Dunn of Minneapolis vice-president, with Carl Storck of Dayton tapped as secretary-treasurer.

Making the appearance in an effort to a franchise for Davenport, Iowa was Jack Collins of Rock Island, former right-hand man of Independents owner Walter Flanigan.Andy Pheldown
"Pro Grid League Berth To Be Sought for Davenport at Chicago Meet Saturday,"
''Davenport Daily Times,'' Jan. 19, 1923, p. 33. While league rules assigned territorial rights prohibiting two franchises within a five mile radius, Rock Island was not expected to oppose establishment of a rival on the other side of the Mississippi, other league owners did not feel that the Iowa city passed muster, and the request for a franchise was denied.

The January meeting also established a league salary limit of $1,200 per game — about $75 per player on average — and limited team roster size to 16 players.R.C. Christiansen, ''Mill City Scrum: The History of Minnesota's First Team in the National Football League.'' Fargo, ND: Ryan Cornell Christiansen, 2023; p. 205. League owners also decided to assign official team colors for each franchise to avoid on-field confusion caused by similarity of uniform schemes.

Teams

Twenty teams competed in the NFL during the 1923 season.

Standings

Championship

With an unbeated record of 10 wins and 1 tie, the Canton Bulldogs were named the World Champions of Professional Football for 1923 by the league's owners. Despite the accolade, the year proved a financial disaster even for the league's best team, with the franchise losing $10,000 (the equivalent of about $185,000 in 2025 funds) for the year.John Hogrogian
"All Pros of 1923,"
''The Coffin Corner,'' vol. 5, no. 8 (1983). The franchise was sold and moved to Cleveland for the 1924 NFL season.

Postseason play

Six days after the December 9 end of the NFL season, league champion Canton accepted a challenge to play against the Frankford Yellow Jackets of Philadelphia, who were not an NFL team but who had billed themselves as "champions of the East" with a 9-1-2 record against teams in the "Anthracite League" and against four other NFL teams. Canton won the game in Philadelphia in the final two minutes of play on a field goal from future Hall of Famer Pete Henry.

All-American Professional Football Team

In mid-December 1923, with the season recently completed, a group of 15 sportswriters from NFL cities picked first, second, and third squads for an "All-American Professional Football Team." Participating writers came from papers in Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Duluth, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh (2), Racine (2), Rock Island, and St. Louis. No writer from Chicago, a city with two NFL franchises, participated.

This was the first time that what would eventually be known as an "All-Pro" team was systematically chosen from among the ranks of the NFL's players.

During this first era of integrated play, two African-American players were named to the 1923 team — end Jay "Ink" Williams of the Hammond Pros and tackle Fred "Duke" Slater of the Rock Island Independents."African American Pioneers,"
Pro Football Hall of Fame, www.profootballhof.com, February 11, 2004. The complete list of those tapped for this All-Pro team included:

References

Further reading

* Tom Bennett, et al. (eds.), ''The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football.'' Revised and expanded edition. New York: Macmillan, 1977.
* Bob Carroll, et al. (eds.), ''Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League.'' New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
* Santo Labombarda and NFL Communications Department (eds.)
''2024 NFL Record and Fact Book.''
New York: National Football League, 2024.
* Tod Maher and Bob Gill (eds.), ''The Pro Football Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Professional Football.'' New York: Macmillan USA, 1997.
* David S. Neft, Richard M. Cohen, and Rick Korch, ''The Football Encyclopedia: The Complete History of Professional Football from 1892 to the Present.'' New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.

{{NFL seasons

1923