1950 Season

 

Through the first four weeks of the inaugural AFL season, things were looking bright for the developing league. The Chicago Hogs were the team to beat, rolling out to a hot 4-0 start with help from QB Alfred Walton leading the charge on the offense and players like LB George Post and DB Vincent Kelly. The Hogs weren’t in the clear just yet, as the Tri-Cities Hawks were right on their tail with a high-powered offensive attack led by QB Gilbert Clay, RB Herman Gibbons, and WRs Stuart Kane, John McLane, and Dale Riggs. The Detroit Knights handed the Hawks their sole loss in week 2, but they don’t seem all right after losing 2 multi-score games to Cincinnati and Chicago. They started the year out strong at 2-0, but their lack of coaching skill is beginning to show as the Knights are starting to lose morale, with QB Roy Woodward and WR George Payne not looking like the stars they were made out to be. The team looking to take advantage of the Knights’ looming demise are the Cincinnati Rivermen, who share the same 2-2 record as Detroit. The Rivermen mostly relied on RB Elmer Carson for offensive production, but still had a solid defensive core led by DB Jim Farmer and LB Jim Norman. Then right at the bottom were Cleveland and Columbus, where both teams were struggling both on the field, and off the field, struggling to get fans into the stadium. The Buckeyes faced this issue more so than the Crows, as their on-the-field product was significantly worse than the Crows. 

When the final week was completed, there was a new team atop the rankings, and unsurprisingly, that new team was the Hawks. QB Gilbert Clay kept on his offensive attack, unanimously winning the first-ever Most Valuable Player award and never looking back from their week 2 loss to the Knights. Clay’s top target all year was WR Stuart Kane, where the duo teamed up for 11 of the 23 TD’s that Clay threw all season. Veteran RB Herman Gibbons still had a bit of spark in him, providing a bit of offensive production that Clay left behind. Their defense was solid enough, even with major injuries to their secondary with DB Oscar Blankenship out for the season and S Walter Carey out for the latter half of the season. The Hawks asserted their dominance over the league, with their front seven being good enough to hold offenses to an average of 13 points a game, while their offense scored almost 28 points a game. 

The team formerly at the top spot comes up right behind the Hawks, as the Hogs would be the team playing them in the inaugural championship game. Chicago remained undefeated until week 8, where they lost a close game to Tri-Cities. The Hogs hit a cold streak after that, losing 3 out of their last 4 games to narrowly lose out on the regular season championship, and nearly lost out on playing in the championship entering the penultimate week of the season in week 10. Luckily, they cruised to a win over the Buckeyes to effectively clinch their way into the championship. QB Alfred Walton stayed in the quarterback race with Tri-Cities’ Gilbert Clay, but the slump over the last 4 weeks put him firmly in second in the MVP race, but awarded him Offensive Player of the Year with his solid production. WR Nicholas Kramer and TE Glenn Chambers were his top targets all year, and injuries to WR’s Donnie Stout and Bobby McLure midseason hindered Walton’s ability to keep up offensively with the Hawks. Their defense was solid as well, with DB Vincent Kelly taking home Defensive Player of the Year with a breakout season at 35. After losing both regular season games to Tri-Cities this year, the Hogs look to get revenge on their rival in the championship game.

Cincinnati gave Chicago a run for their money in the last few weeks of the season in a surprise third place finish. They hung around the .500 mark all season, but were on the outside looking in coming off a win against Chicago in week 9, needing to win their remaining 2 games and have Chicago lose their remaining games to make it in on a miracle. RB Elmer Carson was effectively carrying the team with QB Lee Christian showing his age and mostly proving ineffective at throwing the ball. Carson limped the offense along, while the defense stood strong and tried to keep up with the lacking pace that the offense set up. DB Jim Farmer finished runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, as he led the Rivermen secondary and defense to a potential championship berth. However, the next week, Chicago would beat the lowly Buckeyes and the Rivs would lose to the slumping Knights, ending their potential championship run right there. The Rivermen would end up finishing a game above .500, proving that there was some promise for the team that was struggling to find its identity at the beginning of the season. 

In a perpetual free-fall since week 3, Detroit fell all the way from a promising 2-0 start to end up finishing at a miserable 3-7. Blame was placed everywhere, from the young core not panning out like they did in previous seasons in the MWFC, the coaching staff proving ineffective at coaching a team, and most of all QB Roy Woodward being unable to effectively lead the team through the slump. Although most fans were placing the blame on the players, it was the coaching ability that was strongly affecting the players’ play. Owner/Coach August Riddle was placed most of the blame, as the coaching tree below didn’t exactly pan out as he wanted it to. The offensive play calling during their losing streak was especially atrocious, calling into question who should be calling plays on the offensive side of the ball. The Knights have been known to do things very traditionally, so firing their coaches mid-season didn’t seem like a viable option to Riddle. Their future remains very much in question, whether to continue on in their current state and hope that this year was just an anomaly, or to retool the coaching and/or player staff in order to make that push to the championship. 

The remaining two teams at the bottom, Cleveland and Columbus, were simply not that good. The Crows might have had the same record as the Knights, but only won twice against the Buckeyes and beat the lowly Knights in the last week of the season. They struggled to reel in fans, but ultimately secured enough ticket sales to not be a severe issue moving forward. The Crows had some flashes in the pan, but were ultimately mediocre at best and awful at worst.  The Buckeyes on the other hand, were even worse. Columbus’ only two wins came in a season sweep of Detroit, and were the worst team in the league this season. Their on-field product struggled to bring in fans, even compared to Cleveland’s draw of locals. Ohio Stadium was notoriously sparse during Buckeye games, and the college football team they share the stadium with drew massive crowds. Columbus’ future in the league is up in the air after this season, though the league wants to remain with the current teams they have at the moment and keep stability in the fragile young league. 

Awards:

Most Valuable Player: TRI QB Gilbert Clay

Offensive Player of the Year: CHI QB Alfred Walton

Defensive Player of the Year: CHI DB Vincent Kelly

Coach of the Year: TRI Vincent Merritt

Inaugural American Football Championship Game

Officially deemed the “Inaugural American Football Championship Game” pits the top two teams all season against each other for one final time. The Chicago Hogs were the team to beat for the first half of the season, until a late unraveling gave the regular season title away to the Tri-Cities Hawks. The Hawks went on a rampage offensively, and they don’t look like that is going to stop just because they have an extended break to the championship game. The teams get an extended break because the championship game will be hosted on Thanksgiving Day, one because of the increased attention the league would bring and two because de facto president Donovan Hasenkamp is a man of spite and was told by MWFC commissioner Virgil Bradshaw that the AFL wouldn’t last past Thanksgiving. Who is to win the first AFL Championship? Only time will tell once the clock hits double zeros on Thanksgiving Day.