 duluth, minnesota, hosted a professional football team called the kelleys (officially the kelley duluths after the kelley-duluth hardware store) from 1923 to 1925 and the eskimos (officially ernie nevers' eskimos after their star player) from 1926 to  1927 in the national football league. after being a traveling team during most of their time as the eskimos, they withdrew from the league after the 1927 season. the kelleys, residing in the northernmost city in the nfl at the time, had the disadvantage of not being able to play at home during late november and early december, due to the harsh winters in northern minnesota. this meant that duluth either played unusually short seasons (they played only 16 games in three years as the kelleysâseven in 1923, six in 1924 and three in 1925) or had to play on the road (as the eskimos did, which allowed them to have much longer schedules). duluth's best season came in 1924, when the kelleys went 5â1. under modern nfl tiebreaking procedures, the kelleys would have won a share of the nfl title with the league champion cleveland bulldogs. (assuming the league would have implemented a tiebreaker, it would be assumed cleveland would have been given the title anyway, seeing that the bulldogs played more games.) the contemporary percentage used to rank teams in the era, wins divided by the sum of wins and losses, put the kelleys in fourth place. the kelleys lost their name sponsorship in 1926, but signed star running back ernie nevers. the team renamed  themselves ernie nevers's eskimos in response to these developments. the 1926 nfl season saw an increased emphasis on traveling teams: the los angeles buccaneers represented the west coast, the louisville colonels represented the southeast, and the buffalo rangers represented texas and the desert southwest. the eskimos joined in on the trend, becoming a traveling team (assumabl
American_football_teams_in_Minnesota Defunct_National_Football_League_teams Sports_clubs_disestablished_in_1927 Sports_clubs_established_in_1923