With the first week of the NFL football season over with, it is now official:Â football is back in full swing. I don’t know about you, but my Sundays for the next four months just shifted from relaxing, study-packed days of productivity to hours of beer drinking, loud noises, and fights for the table closest to the biggest TV at the bar! The worst part? I couldn’t be happier.
So, what better way to celebrate the arrival of 2014’s NFL season with an infographic dedicated to the history of the original 14 NFL teams?! In 1920, the American Professional Football Association - the prelude and origin of what we now know as the National Football League - was founded by Jim Thorpe during a meeting at a local Canton, Ohio, car dealership. Of those original 14 teams, only 10 teams lasted longer than five years, and two of them (the Chicago Tigers and Cleveland Indians) remained in existence for only one year, before folding out on their deals. It wasn’t all for nothing, though. Two of Jim Thorpe’s original 14 teams are still in existence in today’s NFL – the Chicago Bears and Arizona Cardinals. The Cardinals were originally established in 1898 in Chicago, before changing locations to Phoenix in 1921. Coincidentally, the Bears replaced the Cardinals in Chicago, after moving from Decatur, Ohio, at the beginning of the 1921 season.
Result? Chicago is the breeding grounds of the two oldest NFL franchises active in the league today. Now I get why Chris Farley was so passionate about “da Bears, da Bears, da Bears” on SNL way back when…
[Via]