The Redskin Report

Let’s face it, the Arizona Cardinals aren’t exactly the easiest team to get fired up against. They’ve basically sucked forever and for most of their NFL lives they existed only to serve as two easy wins for the Redskins in the NFC East. If you’ve ever been to a Redskins game in Arizona, you’ll know that Skins fans usually out number the Cards fans in the stadium. They just aren’t easy to hate. But that kind of sissy talk isn’t going to get it done this Sunday, so I’ve done some heavy research and determined that the Cardinals franchise is actually a bunch of dirty lying jerks, who in a round-a-bout way actually stole a championship from the Redskins franchise.

The story takes us back to December 6, 1925. The two teams with the best record in the league were squaring off to determine the NFL Champion (back in those days there were no playoffs, the team with the best record was declared the championship). The Pottsville Maroons defeated the Chicago Cardinals by a score of 21-7 to virtually clinch the NFL title or so they thought. However, the shady Cardinals snaked their way to the title. They hastily scheduled two additional games before the year’s end against weak teams that had already finished their season. The Cardinals won their two added games against the Milwaukee Badgers (who were forced to play 4 high school players because players had gone home after the season) and the Hammond Pros (who had not played in six weeks).

To add to the theft, Pottsville’s chief rival the Frankfort Yellow Jackets got involved. The NFL had previously set-up an exhibition game between Notre Dame all-stars and the best NFL team in the East. Pottsville became the top team in the East after whipped Frankfort 49-0 in November, they were obligated to play the game. Frankfort then hastily scheduled a game for the same day as the Pottsville-Notre Dame game and protested the Maroon’s game saying it violated their territorial rights. The league suspended Pottsville and due to the Cardinals winning those two final suspect games and the suspension awarding the championship to the Cardinals. The Chicago Cardinals moved to St. Louis and then to Phoenix becoming today’s Arizona Cardinals.

Now what does this have to do with the Redskins? In a convulated way, the Maroons were the fore-runners of the Redskin franchise. The Maroons moved to Boston in 1929 and became the Boston Bulldogs. The Bulldogs lasted one year in Boston before disbanded in 1930. Two years later, George Marshall stepped into fill the void in Boston, starting a franchise which began life as the Boston Braves, then the Boston Redskins and finally the Washington Redskins. So like I said, those dirty Cardinals stole our damn title from us (well, sorta our title).

So if you need a reason to hate the Cardinals this week and cheer a little harder for the Redskins, think of those 1925 Maroons who were screwed out of a championship by the thieving Cardinals.

Sources:
Wikipedia – Pottsville Maroons
Pottsville Maroons – One of the finest NFL teams ever
NFL History – Geocities site

Note – This is pretty tongue in cheek, but there is a small movement that gets some attention every now and again that tries to get the NFL to reverse its decision and award the championship to Pottsville (or at least share it between the Cardinals and the Maroons). For more information, visit the Save the Maroons blog.