Dallas Texans (NFL)

For other teams named "Dallas Texans", see Dallas Texans (disambiguation).

Dallas Texans
Founded	1951
Folded	1952
Based in	Dallas, Texas (games 1-7) Hershey, Pennsylvania (games 8-12)
League	National Football League
Conference	National Conference
Team History	Dallas Texans (1952)
Team Colors	Royal Blue, Silver, White
Head coaches	Jim Phelan
Owner(s)	Giles Miller (games 1-7) NFL (games 8-12)
Home field(s)	Cotton Bowl (games 1-7) traveling team (games 8-12)

The Dallas Texans played in the National Football League for one season, 1952, with a record of 1–11.

History

After the 1951 NFL season, the financially troubled New York Yanks franchise were put on the market. Ted Collins had founded that franchise in 1944 as the Boston Yanks, moved it to New York City in 1949 as the Bulldogs, and renamed it the Yankees in 1950. The franchise was reported to have been "sold back" to the league by Collins, but it is more likely the NFL revoked it.

A few months later, a Dallas-based group led by Giles Miller bought the franchise and moved it to Dallas--the first-ever major league team to be based in Texas. Home games were scheduled to be played at the Cotton Bowl.

Miller thought that Texas, with its longstanding support of college football, would be a natural fit for the NFL, and NFL owners approved the move with an 11-1 vote. However, they proved to be one of the worst teams in NFL history. The first game, against the New York Giants, set the tone for the season. While the Texans managed to get the first touchdown, they missed the extra point. They never found the end zone again and lost 24-6.

Only 17,499 fans showed up at the Cotton Bowl (capacity 75,000) for that game, and attendance continued to dwindle as the losses piled up. Unable to meet payroll, Miller returned the team to the league with five games to go in the season. The NFL moved the franchise's operations to Hershey, Pennsylvania (though it kept the "Dallas Texans" name). It also made the team a traveling team as the Texans' last two home games (Chicago Nov. 30 game was moved to Akron on Nov. 27 and Detroit Dec. 14 was moved to Detroit on Dec. 13) were moved.

Program from first ever game played by Dallas Texans in 1952.

The team wound up playing one of its final two "home" games at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio, where the franchise's only win occurred — a 27-23 win over the Chicago Bears of George Halas, who was so confident that his team would win, he started his entire second string team — in front of an estimated 3,000 fans on Thanksgiving Day. The victory helped the otherwise failing franchise avoid what would have been the first winless regular season since 1944. ^[1] At the Bears vs. Texans game in 1952, head coach Jim Phelan suggested because of the small turnout — where a high school game earlier outdrew the NFL contest (a measure of how low the NFL still ranked on the sports scene at the time)— that instead of being introduced on the field, they should "go into the stands and shake hands with each fan." George Taliaferro, the team's leading rusher was selected to the Pro Bowl at the end of the season.

Following the season, the NFL awarded the remains of the Texans operation to a Baltimore-based group headed by Carroll Rosenbloom, who used it to start the Baltimore Colts. The NFL does not consider the Colts (now based in Indianapolis) to be a continuation of the Yanks/Bulldogs/Yankees/Texans franchise, or even the Dayton Triangles for that matter considering that franchise's successor, the Brooklyn Dodgers/Tigers, merged with the Yanks in 1945. As a result, the Texans remain the last NFL team to permanently cease operations and not be included in the lineage of any current team.

In 1960, the league made a second venture into Dallas and established what would become a more successful team, the Dallas Cowboys. Also in that year, the American Football League began with its own Dallas Texans; that team moved after winning the 1962 AFL Championship and became the Kansas City Chiefs. The "Texans" name has since been revived by the NFL for the current Houston Texans, which started play in 2002.

Pro Football Hall of Famers

• Art Donovan (1968 inductee)
• Gino Marchetti (1972 inductee)

Notable players

• Jack Adkisson, who would become more famous as professional wrestler Fritz Von Erich
• Brad Ecklund
• Weldon Humble
• Matthew Maguire
• Dennis Nichol
• Chuck Ortmann
• George Taliaferro
• Frank Tripucka
• Buddy Young
• Joe Campanella, Baltimore Colts General Manager in 1967^[2]

First round draft selection

• 1952 Les Richter Guard California (Pick was actually made by New York Yanks. Yanks picks given to Dallas.)

Season-by-season

Year	W	L	T	Finish	Coach
1952	1	11	0	6th National	Jim Phelan

1952 Results

Week	Day & Date	Opponent	W-L-T	Score	Site	Record
1	Sun 9/28/1952	New York Giants	L	24-6	Cotton Bowl	0-1-0
2	Sun 10/5/1952	San Francisco 49ers	L	37-14	Cotton Bowl	0-2-0
3	Sun 10/12/1952	Chicago Bears	L	38-20	Wrigley Field	0-3-0
4	Sat Night 10/18/1952	Green Bay Packers	L	24-14	Cotton Bowl	0-4-0
5	Sun 10/26/1952	San Francisco 49ers	L	48-21	Kezar Stadium	0-5-0
6	Sun 11/2/1952	Los Angeles Rams	L	42-20	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum	0-6-0
7	Sun 11/9/1952	Los Angeles Rams	L	27-6	Cotton Bowl	0-7-0
8	Sun 11/16/1952	Detroit Lions	L	43-13	Briggs Stadium	0-8-0
9	Sun 11/23/1952	Green Bay Packers	L	42-14	East Stadium	0-9-0
10	Thu 11/27/1952	Chicago Bears	W	27-23	Rubber Bowl (Akron, Ohio)	1-9-0
11	Sun 12/7/1952	Philadelphia Eagles	L	38-21	Shibe Park	1-10-0
12	Sat 12/13/1952	Detroit Lions	L	41-6	Briggs Stadium	1-11-0

References

1. ^ Both the Brooklyn Tigers and Card-Pitt — the latter being the merged (for that year) Chicago Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers — finished 0-10-0 in 1944, an unenviable feat that would later be surpassed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that lost all of its fourteen regular season games in 1976; the 2008 Detroit Lions have since surpassed both of these marks by finishing their season 0-16-0.
2. ^ "The Official Website of the Indianapolis Colts". Colts.com. http://www.colts.com/sub.cfm?page=football_dynamic&id=175. Retrieved 2010-11-27. 

External links

• The Pro Football Hall of Fame page on the Dallas Texans.
• Season stats