Los Angeles Wildcats The Los Angeles Wildcats ( also reported in various media as Pacific Coast Wildcats , Los Angeles Wilson Wildcats and Wilson ’ s Wildcats ) was a traveling team of the first American Football League that was not based in its nominal home city but in Chicago , Illinois ( it trained in Rock Island ) . Coached by Jim Clark , the team was designed to be a showcase for University of Washington star back George “ Wildcat ” Wilson . Compared to most traveling teams in professional football , the Wildcats were successful , compiling a 6 - 6 - 2 record in the only season of the team ’ s – and the league ’ s – existence . Origin . The existence of the Wildcats began with the 1926 formation of the American Football League by C . C . Pyle , a sports agent who represented star back Red Grange . Pyle ’ s application for a National Football League franchise in New York was rejected as Tim Mara , owner of the New York Giants objected to Pyle proposed intrusion into the Giants ’ territory . Armed with a five - year lease at Yankee Stadium , Pyle subsequently announced the formation of the American Football League as a showcase for his client . The league was also a showcase for another Pyle client who was an All - American on the West Coast : Wilson . Because of the limitations of train ( or bus ) travel , the National Football League extended only from the Atlantic coast westward to Kansas City , Missouri , and Pyle wanted to tap the talent of college football players along the Pacific . His solution was novel ( and one that the more established NFL would copy quickly ) : establish a traveling team nominally representing Los Angeles and headed by Wilson . The team would be based in Moline , Illinois ( home of the Rock Island Independents , which jumped from the NFL to the AFL ) and would have no home stadium . Virtually all of the players of the team attended colleges sited west of the Rocky Mountains . The team was owned by C . C . Pyle and Red Grange , who also owned another AFL team ( the New York Yankees ) and had stock in a third ( the Chicago Bulls ) . The three teams and league champion Philadelphia Quakers were the only four teams ( of the original nine ) still in existence at the end of league play on December 12 , 1926 . Upon the completion of a barnstorming tour , the Wildcats closed up shop after only one year of existence . American Football League Play . As the team began league play , it became evident that Wilson was not the only weapon that the Wildcats had . Coach Jim Clark had the versatile Mal Bross for either rushing and receiving duties ; ends Ray Flaherty and Jim Lawson dutifully caught passes from Wilson , while Duke Morrison ran when Wilson didn ’ t take the ball . Furthermore , no fewer than four Wildcats handled the kicking job at one time or another . Originally scheduled to play only 10 games , the Wildcats played additional contests as last - minute “ fill - in ” opponents as one team after another in the American Football League folded or otherwise left the league . Immediately after tying the Chicago Bulls in Comiskey Park , the team trekked to Toronto ’ s Maple Leaf Stadium for a game with the New York Yankees , which also played games on back - to - back days . The Yankees won , 29 - 0 . It was not the first weekend in which the Wildcats played on consecutive days ( they actually did so on three other weekends ) ; their Thanksgiving Day contest with the Bulls ( a scoreless tie ) was their third in a five day stretch . By the end of October , the Cleveland Panthers and Newark Bears have closed up shop ; the Brooklyn Horsemen merged with their NFL cousins , the Brooklyn Lions in early November , and the Boston Shamrocks , a team that was subsidized by Pyle ’ s money dropped out . In the four weeks from the departure of Cleveland and the exit of Boston , scheduling “ holes ” were filled by the two traveling teams of the AFL : the Wildcats and the Rock Island Independents … that is , until November 21 , when the Independents – charter members of both the NFL and the AFL – joined the exodus from the younger league by calling it quits after a 3 - 0 loss to the Bulls . With only two weeks remaining in the season , the Wildcats , Yankees , and Bulls – three teams owned ( or co - owned ) by Pyle and Grange – and the Philadelphia Quakers were the last teams remaining , with only the Quakers reporting a profit . Only two official AFL games were left to play in December 1926 . On the 5th , the Wildcats shut out the Bulls 5 - 0 on a frozen field in Comiskey Park , while the Bulls hosted the Yankees the following Sunday as the visiting team wrapped up the 1926 season of the American Football League with a 7 - 3 victory . At the same time , in a snowstorm at the Polo Grounds , the league champion Quakers were crushed , 31 - 0 , by the New York Giants in a game that marked the end of the American Football League , December 12 , 1926 . After the first AFL . Two days after the end of the 1926 season ( and of the AFL ) , the Wildcats and the New York Yankees started a series of exhibition games as the two Pyle - owned teams went on a barnstorming tour of the American South and West . The two teams competed in Atlanta ( a 7 - 7 draw ) , Birmingham , Alabama ( a 14 - 3 Yankees win ) , Beaumont , Texas ( a 34 - 0 Wildcats win ) , and San Antonio ( a 20 - 14 Yankees win ) before traveling to California for games against the independent Hollywood Generals ( whom the Wildcats defeated , 26 - 7 , in Wrigley Field of Los Angeles ) and the NFL ’ s traveling team , the Los Angeles Buccaneers ( the Wildcats won , 17 - 0 , in a game played in San Francisco ) . With the dissolution of the American Football League ( Pyle ’ s Yankees were preparing to join the NFL under an arrangement with New York Giants owner Tim Mara , who acquired the assets of the defunct Brooklyn Horsemen ) , the Wildcats ceased to exist after the game in San Francisco . Wildcat Wilson joined the Providence Steam Roller for the 1927 NFL season . Wilson was not the only 1926 Wildcat to join a NFL roster for the 1927 season : Mal Bross – Green Bay Packers < br > Ted Bucklin – Chicago Cardinals < br > Walden Erickson – Pottsville Maroons < br > Ray Flaherty - New York Yankees < br > Ted Illman – Chicago Cardinals < br > Jim Lawson – New York Yankees < br > Ray Stephens – New York Yankees < br > John Vesser – Chicago Cardinals < / br > Flaherty continued to play until 1935 ( taking 1930 off to teach college football ) , then became head coach of the Washington Redskins in 1937 . He became a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1976 .