National Football League lore

The National Football League lore is a collection of information that National Football League (NFL) fans retain and share.

Since the NFL was founded in 1920 by George Halas and Bert Bell, it has grown from an informal network of teams based mostly in small towns and cities into the most popular and successful sports league in the United States. During the interval between its founding and the present, it has competed for attention with other sports and college football, fended off rival leagues, consolidated the marriage between sports and television, and established an extensive and colorful NFL lore. Largely through the efforts of NFL Films and many sportswriters, some events have become famous in the history of the sport.

Games and plays

The following is a selected list of memorable plays and events that have stood the test of time and are considered common knowledge by NFL fans:

1920s

The Cardinals' two extra games were scheduled against the Milwaukee Badgers and Hammond Pros, both of which were NFL members but had disbanded for the year. The Badgers had difficulty in fielding a team, so Art Folz, Chicago's substitute quarterback, hired a group of high school football players to play as the Milwaukee Badgers, against the Cardinals. This would ensure an inferior opponent for Chicago. Upon his discovery NFL Commissioner, Joseph Carr, fined Chicago owner Chris O'Brien $1,000 for allowing his team play a game against high schoolers, even though he claimed that he was unaware of the players' status. Milwaukee owner Ambrose McGuirk was ordered to sell his Milwaukee franchise within 90 days. Meanwhile Art Folz, for his role, was barred from football for life. O'Brien's fine and Folz's lifetime ban were rescinded months later. However McGuirk already sold his franchise to Johnny Bryan.
The NFL stripped the Maroons of their championship for supposed league violations, and suspended the franchise for the remainder of the season. They were reinstated for the next season, out of fear they would defect to a newly created rival, the AFL. The controversy remains vivid to this day. The Chicago Cardinals' owner at the time, Chris O'Brien, refused the championship, calling it "bogus". The 1925 title was not claimed until Charles Bidwill purchased the team in 1932. Some people ascribe the Cardinals' ongoing futility to a "curse" from the people of Schuylkill County.
Of the Cardinals' 2 losses, one was to the Hammond Pros, providing the Pros their only win that season.

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

Another game commonly referred to as the "Mud Bowl" occurred on December 26, 1977. The Minnesota Vikings and the Los Angeles Rams met in the first round of the 1977-78 NFL playoffs, with the Vikings winning 14-7 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a field soaked by a torrential downpour.
Since this game, two other games have also commonly been referred to as the "Snowball Game":
On December 10, 1989, in a game at Cincinnati between the Bengals and Seattle Seahawks, the Bengals fans, in protest of some bad calls by the referees, began to throw snowballs at the referees and at the Seahawks team on the field as they were lining up deep in Bengal territory. The Seahawks refused to continue the game and Bengals coach Sam Wyche took a stadium house microphone and said the following, including a jab at in-state rival Cleveland Browns fans: "Will the next person that sees ANYBODY throw anything onto this field, point 'em out...and get 'em out of here! You don't live in Cleveland, you live in Cincinnati!"
On December 23, 1995, at Giants Stadium in the final game of a losing season against the San Diego Chargers, the apparently frustrated fans behind the Charger sideline began to pelt the Charger players and others on the sideline with snow and ice that had not been cleared from their seats. At one point, the Chargers' equipment manager was knocked unconscious by a thrown piece of ice.

1990s

2000s

2010s


See also

References

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