1926 New York Yankees Season The 1926 American Football League season is the only season of the existence of the first American Football League . It started with nine teams , with the initial game of the season being played in front of 22 , 000 fans in Cleveland , Ohio , but by the end of the season ( December 14 , 1926 ) , only four teams were still in existence : three teams owned or subsidized by league founder C . C . Pyle and star Red Grange ( New York Yankees , Los Angeles Wildcats , and Chicago Bulls ) and league champion Philadelphia Quakers . The initial lineup of teams included the traveling Wildcats and a charter member of the National Football League , the Rock Island Independents , which became a second traveling team after having poor attendance in its first three games . Most AFL games were defensive affairs , with only New York and the Cleveland Panthers averaging more than 10 points of offense per contest . The majority of scoring was by either placement or drop kick ; Chicago ' s Joey Sternaman scored 52 of the team ' s total of 88 ( 60 % of Chicago ’ s points ) , but that wasn ' t the largest share of team points in the AFL of 1926 : Newark ' s Doug Wycoff had his team ' s entire point total for the year when he scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point in the Bears ' first game . While Philadelphia and New York were consistently playing in front of crowds of at least 20 , 000 per game , the rest of the league was not so fortunate . While crowds of more than 10 , 000 attended games in Fenway Park and Comiskey Park in September and October , crowds in other AFL cities were consistently much smaller : Rock Island ( Moline , Illinois ) struggled to draw 5000 into its home stadium ; Newark didn ' t have a total of 5000 in its three home games combined . Competing against the Brooklyn Lions of the National Football League , the Brooklyn Horsemen called it quits in November and merged with its NFL brethren . As the AFL decreased in size in October and November , so did the attendance figures in Philadelphia , the only team in the AFL reported to have made a profit . Two weeks after clinching the AFL championship , the Philadelphia Quakers played an exhibition game with the NFL ' s seventh place team , the New York Giants , in a driving snowstorm at the Polo Grounds . Only 5000 hardy fans witnessed the home team ' s 31 - 0 whitewash of the AFL titlists . While the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Wildcats went on a barnstorming tour , the rest of the American Football League folded . AFL - NFL Challenge Game . New York Giants 31 , Philadelphia Quakers 0 . December 14 , 1926 – Polo Grounds , New York , New York ( attendance 5000 ) In an exhibition game between the AFL ’ s champion Philadelphia Quakers and the NFL ’ s seventh place New York Giants , the host Giants crushed the visitors 31 - 0 in a driving snowstorm . A first period field goal by Jack McBride gave the Giants an early 3 - 0 lead that stood into the second half . As conditions deteriorated , the Quakers had trouble hanging onto the ball as the opportunistic New Yorkers converted turnovers into points in the third and fourth quarters . McBride scored two touchdowns and all four extra points in the second half and the Giants ' Jack Haggerty and Tillie Voss each crossed the goal line once as the Quakers were held to one first down in the game . Wildcats - Yankees barnstorming tour . After the season , the Yankees and Wildcats went on a barnstorming tour of the Southern United States . After four games against each other , the Wildcats went to California to play two home games : one against the local Hollywood Generals in Los Angeles ' s Wrigley Field , and the second effectively becoming the West Coast AFL - NFL Challenge Game against the Los Angeles Buccaneers in San Francisco ' s Ewing Field . The Yankees also went to California , played " three " games against the Buccaneers and one against the Generals , and this resulted in their season extending all the way until February 1927 , practically unheard of at that time .