Detroit (1920s NFL teams)

• 1. Introduction

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  Detroit's place in NFL history is usually told through the Lions, but four other teams wore the city's colors first. Before the Lions ever took a snap, Detroit fielded the Heralds, the Tigers, the Panthers, and the Wolverines across a stretch of seasons in the 1920s. Each team left a distinct mark, and each met a different kind of end. What drove these early franchises? Who built them, who played on them, and why did the NFL keep leaving Detroit, only to come back again?

• 2. Roots of the Heralds

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  In 1905, a group of University of Detroit football players, led by Bill Marshall, formed a team because their university had simply stopped fielding one. They called themselves the Heralds, and they started as amateurs. When the university brought its own program back in 1906, the Heralds kept going anyway, playing on as an independent club.

  By 1911, the Heralds had dropped their amateur status and turned semi-professional. Five years later, in 1916, the roster began to turn over. Several out-of-town players came in to replace veterans, some of whom had been with the club since its founding year.

  Although Detroit sits well north of Ohio, the Heralds built much of their schedule against teams in the Ohio League. In 1917, they went 8-2, a strong showing. Their only losses that year came against two formidable opponents: the Ohio League champion Canton Bulldogs, and a military team from Battle Creek.

• 3. War, Pandemic, and Persistence

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  The 1918 season tested every professional football team in the country. World War I and an influenza pandemic caused most clubs to shut down entirely or shrink to local-only schedules. The Heralds did neither. They played a full schedule and kept traveling to other cities, finishing 6-2. Both losses that year went to the Dayton Triangles, who held the Ohio League championship.

  The 1919 season brought a different challenge. As suspended teams returned to play and travel restrictions eased, the Heralds faced a harder field. They went 1-4-2, taking losses to the Canton Bulldogs and the Massillon Tigers.

  In 1920, the American Professional Football Association formed as the forerunner to the NFL. The Heralds did not officially join the new body, yet they appear in the league standings, finishing the year with a 2-3-3 record and landing ninth in the table under Bill Marshall's guidance.

• 4. The Tigers Collapse

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  For 1921, the Heralds were reorganized and renamed the Detroit Tigers, a nod to the city's Major League Baseball club. The fresh start looked promising at first. The Tigers tied one game and won another in their first two outings.

  Then they lost five in a row. Players began complaining that they were not being paid, and several walked out mid-season rather than wait for wages that were not coming. By mid-November the franchise had folded officially. The remaining players were transferred to the Buffalo All-Americans, dispersing the roster that had traced its lineage all the way back to that 1905 amateur squad. The Tigers finished the season ranked 16th.

• 5. Jimmy Conzelman's Panthers

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  Detroit's second NFL franchise arrived in 1925 in the form of the Panthers, organized by Jimmy Conzelman, a future Hall of Famer who was inducted in 1964. Conzelman had recently played with the Decatur Staleys, the Rock Island Independents, and the Milwaukee Badgers. With the Panthers, he took on every role at once: owner, coach, and starting quarterback.

  The 1925 season opened brilliantly. The Panthers ran off eight wins in their first nine games, building to an 8-1 record. Then came Thanksgiving Day, and a 6-3 upset loss to the Rock Island Independents knocked Detroit out of first place. The Panthers finished third at 8-2-2.

  The 1926 campaign went worse from the start. Detroit opened 0-3, rallied to a 4-0-2 stretch across their next six games, then dropped their final three. Conzelman gave up the franchise and moved on to the Providence Steam Rollers as a player-coach. The Panthers were finished.

• 6. The Wolverines and Benny Friedman

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  After the 1927 season, a group of investors bought the Cleveland Bulldogs and moved the franchise to Detroit. They renamed the club the Wolverines, the name drawn from quarterback Benny Friedman's alma mater, the Michigan Wolverines. LeRoy Andrews coached the team.

  Friedman was the centerpiece, and the 1928 Wolverines reflected his talent. They finished third with a 7-2-1 record. Their only two losses went to the Providence Steam Rollers and the Frankford Yellow Jackets, the teams that finished first and second in the entire NFL that year.

  That strong finish set off a chain of events that ended the franchise. Tim Mara, the owner of the New York Giants, wanted Friedman. Rather than negotiate a trade, Mara bought the entire Wolverines franchise outright. He then immediately deactivated it, moving Friedman and several other Wolverines stars to New York. Detroit would not host an NFL team again for six years, until the Portsmouth Spartans relocated and became the Lions in 1934.

• 7. Thanksgiving in Detroit

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  The Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving Day tradition is one of the NFL's most recognized annual rituals, but the Lions were not the first Detroit franchise to play on the holiday. All four of the earlier clubs suited up on Thanksgiving at various points.

  The Heralds played the Canton Bulldogs on Thanksgiving 1917 and lost 7-0. In 1920, they traveled to face the Dayton Triangles and lost 28-0. The Tigers, having already merged with the Buffalo All-Americans by Thanksgiving 1921, played the Chicago Staleys and won 7-6. The Panthers lost their 1925 Thanksgiving game 6-3 to the Rock Island Independents, that same upset that cost them first place, and fell again in 1926, losing 9-6 to the Los Angeles Buccaneers. The Wolverines closed out the holiday record in 1928 with a 33-0 win over the Dayton Triangles. When the Lions eventually made Thanksgiving their signature occasion, they were continuing something Detroit football had practiced for over a decade.