NFL standings for 1925 change, with Pottsville Maroons on top
League hasn’t said whether the new rankings are official
The fate of the Pottsville Maroons has been mired in uncertainty ever since the National Football League stripped the team of the league championship in 1925.
And the latest development involving the Maroons legacy appears to be no different.
There are indications that the NFL now ranks the Maroons in first place over the Chicago Cardinals for 1925, a move that would reverse a standing that has lasted for 97 years.
The NFL, which could not be reached for comment, has not announced a change in the rankings.
Yet, league standings for the 1925 season on the NFL website list the Maroons in first place with 10 wins and 2 losses and the now-Arizona Cardinals in second with 9 wins, 2 losses and a tie.
Previously, the Cardinals were listed in first place at 11-2-1 and Pottsville in second at 10-2.
Rowan Joseph, a Pottsville native, has monitored the NFL standings while doing research for his screenplay “The Pottsville Maroons.”
Joseph, who recently noticed the change, believes the NFL has nullified two games the Cardinals played with inferior teams, thus reducing their wins to nine and relegating them to second place.
Philadelphia native Ray Didinger, a Hall of Fame sportswriter who acted as a consultant on Joseph’s script, has also noticed the NFL’s apparent change in rankings.
“Something has obviously changed,” he said, “but nobody is clarifying what.”
Pro Football Reference and other online standings still list the Cardinals in first place and the Maroons in second.
Jon Kendle, vice president of archives, education and football information for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, said he has not been notified of any change in the standings for the 1925 season.
He doubts the NFL would have made such a significant change without notifying the Hall of Fame and issuing a press release.
Kendle said Tuesday he would reach out to the NFL in an attempt to clarify the matter.
That troubled championship season
In 1924, John G. “Doc” Strigel bought a Pottsville football team and fielded it in the Anthracite League, where it won the championship.
Joe Zacko, who ran a sporting
goods store in Pottsville, provided the team with 25 maroon jerseys, thus the name Maroons.
When the Anthracite League folded, Strigel secured a franchise and the Maroons competed in the NFL in 1925.
The season came down to a contest between the Maroons and the Chicago Cardinals.
At the time, there was no title game or Super Bowl, so the league championship went to the team with the best record.
Late in the season, the Maroons played the Cardinals in a game that could decide the league championship. It snowed when the teams took the field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, but the Maroons won a convincing 21-7 victory, putting the championship within reach.
Apparently in defiance of NFL Commissioner Joseph Carr, the Maroons played an exhibition game with the Notre Dame All Stars at Shibe Park in Philadelphia before the season ended.
Carr suspended the Maroons, making them ineligible to win the league championship, and the team ended the season with a 10-2 record.
The Cardinals went on to finish the season in first place with an 11-2-1 record. The team’s final two games were played against the Hammond Pros and the Milwaukee Badgers, who allegedly had four high school players on their rosters.
Joseph believes those two games were removed from the Cardinals wins column.
Even if the change of Cardinal wins is legitimate, Rowan doubts the NFL would make the Maroons the 1925 champions.
The Maroons were reinstated to the league and played three more seasons in the NFL. Doc Strigel sold the franchise to the Boston Bulldogs in 1929.
A Pottsville story
Joseph named his company, Greenwood Hill Productions, for the section of Pottsville where he lived as a child.
Joseph, whose real name is Joseph Rowan, retains a deep affection for Pottsville and the coal region.
Few coal region legends match the story of the Pottsville Maroons,
a kind of David and Goliath tale where a ragtag team from a small, relatively unknown city devours gridiron squads from Philadelphia, New York, Detroit and Chicago.
Joseph, who’s 65 and lives in California, spent much of his adult life as an actor, writer and director in Hollywood.
He’s worked with the late writer/director Garry Marshall and in productions starring Joe Mantenga, Charles Durning and Jack Klugman, according to a biography on IMDb.
Joseph pitched the idea of a story about the Maroons to the late Penny Marshall, who played Laverne in “Laverne & Shirley,” and directed the widely acclaimed movie about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, “A League of Their Own.”
“Penny was looking for a follow-up to ‘A League of Their Own,’ “Joseph said, “and she loved the idea of a male version of a similar story.”
The script, Joseph says, was put aside when Penny Marshall died in 2018. He revived it recently with co-writer Derek Heeren and Didinger serving as script consultant. The script is making its way around Hollywood, Joseph said, and has received a “recommended” rating on Bulletproof Script Coverage.
“The Pottsville Maroons” script is a retrospective on the “leather helmet” era of American football. It focuses largely, however, on Tony Latone, one of the Maroons’ standout players.
Latone’s is a classic American tale about a boy from a broken family who lied about his age to get a job in the mines and went on to become one of the great players in the fledgling National Football League.
Joseph reiterated that, even if the standings are changed, it’s unlikely the Maroons will ever be awarded the championship.
The NFL offered Pottsville the Daniel F. Reeves Pioneer Award in place of the championship in 2007, he said, but then-Mayor John D. W. Reiley rejected the overture.
“My hope is that Pottsville will accept the Reeves Award, that Tony Latone will be inducted into the Hall of Fame and the Pottsville Maroons Curse will be lifted,” Joseph said.