Red Grange to the rescue. Harold Edward Grange, "the Galloping Ghost" out of the University of Illinois, the most famous (or, at least, the most-hyped) player in the history of college football, comes in with his new teammates, the Chicago Bears.
A crowd of 68,000 people pays to get into the Polo Grounds, more than the Giants' last 3 home games combined. It's believed that another 8,000 crashed the gate, making the 74,000 crowd the biggest in the NFL's 6-season history to that point.
The Ghost lives up to the hype: He scores a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return, runs for 53 yards on 11 carries, catches a 23-yard pass, and completes 2 of 3 passes for 32 yards. And he is part of a defense that recorded a shutout. He could do everything except kick.
The Bears win, 19-0, but that's beside the point: The gate receipts from all the people coming out to see Grange mean that the Giants will be able to play the 1926 season. In 1927, they finish 1st, taking the 1st of what is now 8 NFL Championships, including 4 Super Bowls.
The Bears? They were a good team throughout the 1st decade of NFL play, winning the title in 1921, but won't win another title until 1932. By that point, Grange will be joined by Bronislau "Bronko" Nagurski, and they will win the title in 1933 as well.
Grange was the template for every speedy scatback who followed him: Steve Van Buren, Doak Walker, Frank Gifford, Lenny Moore, Paul Hornung, Gale Sayers, O.J. Simpson, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen, Walter Payton, Terrell Davis, Marshall Faulk, Chris Johnson, Joe Mixon.
Nagurski is the model for every big bruising fullback to come: Clarke Hinkle, Marion Motley, Tank Younger, Jim Taylor, Jim Brown, Larry Csonka, Franco Harris, John Riggins, Roger Craig, Emmitt Smith, Terrell Davis, Jerome Bettis, Adrian Peterson.
This -- not the 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Giants lost to the Baltimore Colts at Yankee Stadium -- is not only the biggest football game ever played in New York City; it is the most important game in the history of American professional football. If Grange had, for whatever reason, been unable to play in it, the Giants would have folded, and the NFL would probably have gone down the tubes during the Great Depression.
This might have opened the door for soccer, with its working-class roots and its ethnic appeal (most U.S. soccer teams at that point were ethnically based), to become America's Fall and Winter sport, possibly also hurting basketball and hockey. If you want to know why "football" made it in America, and "futbol" didn't until the 1970s, this, as much as America's natural distrust for "foreign" things, is the moment.
A crowd of 68,000 people pays to get into the Polo Grounds, more than the Giants' last 3 home games combined. It's believed that another 8,000 crashed the gate, making the 74,000 crowd the biggest in the NFL's 6-season history to that point.
The Ghost lives up to the hype: He scores a touchdown on a 35-yard interception return, runs for 53 yards on 11 carries, catches a 23-yard pass, and completes 2 of 3 passes for 32 yards. And he is part of a defense that recorded a shutout. He could do everything except kick.
The Bears win, 19-0, but that's beside the point: The gate receipts from all the people coming out to see Grange mean that the Giants will be able to play the 1926 season. In 1927, they finish 1st, taking the 1st of what is now 8 NFL Championships, including 4 Super Bowls.
The Bears? They were a good team throughout the 1st decade of NFL play, winning the title in 1921, but won't win another title until 1932. By that point, Grange will be joined by Bronislau "Bronko" Nagurski, and they will win the title in 1933 as well.
Grange was the template for every speedy scatback who followed him: Steve Van Buren, Doak Walker, Frank Gifford, Lenny Moore, Paul Hornung, Gale Sayers, O.J. Simpson, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen, Walter Payton, Terrell Davis, Marshall Faulk, Chris Johnson, Joe Mixon.
Nagurski is the model for every big bruising fullback to come: Clarke Hinkle, Marion Motley, Tank Younger, Jim Taylor, Jim Brown, Larry Csonka, Franco Harris, John Riggins, Roger Craig, Emmitt Smith, Terrell Davis, Jerome Bettis, Adrian Peterson.
This -- not the 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Giants lost to the Baltimore Colts at Yankee Stadium -- is not only the biggest football game ever played in New York City; it is the most important game in the history of American professional football. If Grange had, for whatever reason, been unable to play in it, the Giants would have folded, and the NFL would probably have gone down the tubes during the Great Depression.
This might have opened the door for soccer, with its working-class roots and its ethnic appeal (most U.S. soccer teams at that point were ethnically based), to become America's Fall and Winter sport, possibly also hurting basketball and hockey. If you want to know why "football" made it in America, and "futbol" didn't until the 1970s, this, as much as America's natural distrust for "foreign" things, is the moment.
Even at the time, the 1920s, "The Roaring Twenties," was called "The Golden Age of Sports." It was Babe Ruth in baseball, Howie Morenz in hockey, Jack Dempsey in boxing, Bill Tilden in tennis, Bobby Jones in golf, and Man o' War in horse racing. In football, it was the Galloping Ghost, Red Grange.
Grange played until 1934, and became a broadcaster. He lived until 1991.
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