1937 American Football League season


The 1937 American Football League season is the second season of the second edition of the AFL. After the folding of the Syracuse/Rochester Braves in the 1936 season and the departure of the Cleveland Rams for the National Football League, the league added the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Bulldogs, the latter being the first professional football team to play its home games on the American West Coast.
The season got off to a rocky start, with the Pittsburgh Americans folding after playing only three games. After a 1936 move from Brooklyn, the Rochester Tigers limped through with a paucity of fan support. The defending champion Boston Shamrocks and 1936 contender New York Yankees were hit hard by the raiding of their rosters by the NFL, a counterpoint to the latter's method of building its squad; as a result, both wound up with losing records. Cincinnati's Bengals almost matched the Yankees in their futility, finishing with a 2-3-2 record.
Only two teams in the AFL finished with a.500 or better record in 1937: the Rochester Tigers and the team that was rejected when the NFL admitted the Rams, the Los Angeles Bulldogs The West Coast newcomers dominated the league, finishing 8-0-0, the first perfect season by a professional football team while winning its league championship.
The Bulldogs had an average 14,000 attendance for its 1937 home games, comparable to the draws of the Rams, Shamrocks, and Yankees the previous year, but Cleveland's absence and decline of the other two 1936 contenders proved devastating to the AFL. Of the six AFL teams, only Los Angeles made a profit. With the league owners having lost their optimism, the second American Football League came to an end. The Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Bulldogs continued their existence as independent teams while the other AFL franchises ceased to exist.

Final standings

TeamWLTPct.PFPACoach
Los Angeles Bulldogs8001.00021969Gus Henderson
Rochester Tigers331.50094115Mike Palm
New York Yankees231.40057115Jack McBride
Cincinnati Bengals232.40010289Hal Pennington
Boston Shamrocks250.2867698George Kenneally
Pittsburgh Americans030.000769Jess Quatse

All-League selections

, Los Angeles
Bill Steinkinber, Cincinnati
Pete Meloringer, Los Angeles
Lee Mullenuaux, Cincinnati
Alex Drobnitch, New York
Harry Field, Los Angeles
Red Fleming, Boston
Harry Newman, Los Angeles
Don Geyer, Cincinnati
Al Nidelazri, Los Angeles
Gordon Gore, Los Angeles