Rock Island Independents
The Rock Island Independents were an American football team that played in the National Football League (NFL).
Team history
Before the NFL
The Rock Island Independents were founded in 1907 as a league independent team in Rock Island , Illinois . Since no sponsor was found, the team name "Independents" was chosen. The players came from the Rock Island area. The team played at irregular intervals and won 19 of 26 games in the first five years. In 1912, the police officer Walter Flanigan joined the team and ran for the team as end and defensive end . Flanigan acquired the team in 1915 and from that year also acted as the team's coach . In 1919, the Indenpendents won nine of eleven games under coach Rube Ursella , where they suffered a loss to the Hammond Pros . Flanigan offered the Canton Bulldogs , the reigning champions of the Ohio League, a $ 5,000 entry bonus for a playoff game for the US championship. The Bulldogs around their top player and coach Jim Thorpe turned down the offer from the Rock Island team. They had already ended their season and the players were no longer available. However, Thorpe also assumed that Flanigan would not be able to pay the entry bonus. The Independents had only 1,700 spectators in their last game against the Akron Indians , which Thorpe would not have covered the expenses. However, two game days earlier, 8,000 spectators attended a game between the Independents and the Columbus Panhandles . Thorpe's rejection was therefore in a questionable light. The Independents declared themselves American football champions.
Playing time in the NFL
In 1920 the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was founded in Canton . The APFA was renamed the National Football League (NFL) two years later. Flanigan was a participant in the inaugural meeting and his team was inducted into the league. The Rock Island played the first ever APFA / NFL game against the Muncie Flyers on October 3, 1920 and won a clear 45-0 win. The team played a total of six more games in the APFA this year, but also played three times against teams that did not belong to the league. Ultimately, the team finished fifth in the table this season.
After the 1922 season Flanigan sold the team and withdrew from football. The team stayed in the NFL until 1925. The team did not succeed in winning the title. In 1926, the Independents moved to the American Football League launched by Red Grange . The league stopped playing after a year. The independents existed for another year as a semi-professional team in a lower class league and then had to stop playing.
table
| year | victory | defeat | draw | Final score | Trainer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1919 | 9 | 1 | 1 | Rube Ursella , John Roche | ||
| 1920 | 4th | 2 | 1 | 5 | Rube Ursella | |
| 1921 | 4th | 2 | 1 | 5 | Frank Coughlin , Jimmy Conzelman | |
| 1922 | 4th | 2 | 1 | 5 | Jimmy Conzelman | |
| 1923 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 12 | Herb Sies | |
| 1924 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 5 | Johnny Armstrong | |
| 1925 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 8th | Rube Ursella | |
| American Football League | ||||||
| 1926 | 2 | 6th | 1 | 7th | Johnny Armstrong | |
| Total (NFL / AFL) | 26th | 20th | 13 | |||
