Syracuse Pros

1921:The early years of the National Football League, known as the American Professional Football Association in its first two seasons were marked by teams coming and going. The league was wide open and to join a team just needed to pay a small franchise fee and schedule games against other APFA teams. With such chaos it’s not hard to imagine confusion among league members and non-league members especially when teams played any challenger at that time. The Syracuse Pros considered themselves a member of the APFA and opened the season with a scoreless tie against the Tonawanda Kardex. The Pros had planned to play a full slate of league games, but had games against the Buffalo All-Americans cancelled. Buffalo questioning the Syracuse Pros’ legitimacy would pressure the Akron Pros to also cancel a meeting with Syracuse. The Pros would face the Washington Senators and Rochester Jeffersons, losing both games. With a 0-2-1 record the Pros completed the season playing three league. However, the NFL does not recognize them as a league member, despite the Syracuse Pros arguing they did in fact join the league and produced a press release announcing their intent to join the APFA as proof. Researchers point to the fact they played three games in the league and had games cancelled as proof they were a league member, especially compared to teams like the New York Brickley Giants and Tonawanda who had three games combined in their only APFA season.