Logo of a college football team that plays in the Mid-American Conference, the Central Michigan Chippewas. A historic program that began play in 1896, they have won 16 conference titles and a Division II national championship in 1974. Chippewa alumni who have gone on to play pro football include Walter Beach, Ray Bentley, Joe Staley, Antonio Brown, Eric Fisher, Gary Hogeboom, Frank Zombo and Cullen Jenkins.
This is a logo of one of the teams that will begin play in Vince McMahon’s new XFL when it commences operations in 2020, the St. Louis BattleHawks. The team will compete in the East Division of the new league. They will be the only XFL club to not share the market in their city with an NFL franchise, since St. Louis lost 2 NFL teams, the Cardinals and the Rams, over the years. Former NFL player Jonathan Hayes will serve as both coach and general manager, and their coaching staff includes a former member of the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show On Turf”, Az-Zahir Hakim.
This season many NFL teams are celebrating anniversaries, whether it’s 100 seasons as an NFL franchise or 60 years as an AFL charter member. This logo, appropriately, was issued in 1995 to celebrate the 49th anniversary of the San Francisco 49ers franchise. The team had just completed the highly successful Joe Montana era where they captured 4 Super Bowl championships and was into the Steve Young era, where they added a fifth. “Winning With Class” as the logo displays, was a definite true statement for the team at that time.
Logo honoring the 60th season of the Kansas City Chiefs’ existence as a franchise. The team started out as a charter member of the American Football League in Dallas as the Texans, and moved to Kansas City in 1963. The logo includes a football containing the initials of their founder and original owner, Lamar Hunt. The Chiefs’ 87 victories were the most of any team in the 10 year history of the AFL, and the franchise capped off the pre-merger AFL era by upsetting the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. Legendary Chief players include Hall of Famers Len Dawson, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, Jan Stenerud, Emmitt Thomas, Curley Culp, Johnny Robinson, Willie Roaf and Tony Gonzalez.
This is a logo for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, commemorating their 60th year of existence in 2019. While the NFL is embarking on it’s 100th season, the Bills, and the rest of the American Football League, played their first games in 1960. The Bills were a bit of an enigma in those early AFL days, as they won back-to-back league championships on the strength of their defense in a league known for wide open offense. Founded and owned by Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. until his death, the franchise has a colorful history, and some of their top players over the years have been Jack Kemp, Tom Sestak, Billy Shaw, Cookie Gilchrist, Joe Ferguson, O.J. Simpson, Tony Greene, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith and Darryl Talley.
This is a logo of a pro football team from Wisconsin, originally sponsored by the Acme Packing Company, that eventually evolved into the NFL’s only community owned franchise, the Green Bay Packers. There were many “small town” teams when the NFL was founded in 1920, in fact all of them were, but the Packers are the only one still surviving. Their 13 NFL championships won are the most of any franchise. They were founded by Earl “Curly” Lambeau, and boast 26 Pro Football Hall of Famers, second to only the Chicago Bears. They include Lambeau, Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr, Don Hutson, Ray Nitschke, Herb Adderley, Johnny “Blood” McNally, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, Tony Canadeo, Willie Wood, Dave Robinson, Brett Favre, Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo, Reggie White and most recently, Jerry Kramer.
Logo of a team that plays in the National Football League, the Cleveland Browns. This “Brownie” logo has been associated with the team since 1948, but this particular version, with the Brownie elf wearing a champion’s crown, was used during their years in the All America Football Conference, when they won all 4 titles in the league’s existence, through 1959. They also won the NFL title in their first year being incorporated into the established league in 1950 under their founder and coach, Paul Brown.
Not many National Football League teams can boast that they have a special 100 year logo for this historic season, but the Chicago Bears are one of those rare teams. Founded by George “Papa Bear” Halas in 1920 as the Decatur Staleys, the “Monsters of The Midway” are one of the league’s most iconic franchises. They have had many great players don their uniforms over those 100 years, including the most Hall of Famers, 28, of any NFL team. That list includes Halas, Sid Luckman, Bronko Nagurski, Red Grange, Bulldog Turner, Walter Payton, Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Mike Ditka, Bill George, Doug Atkins, Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton and Richard Dent. The team has also had a number of memorable players who were not Hall of Fame caliber, like Jim McMahon, William “The Refrigerator” Perry, Brian Piccollo and Devin Hester.
Logo of a college football team that plays in Conference USA, the Florida Atlantic Owls. The school plays in the Football Bowl Subdivision and the program has been in existence since 2001. Currently coached by former Oakland Raider coach Lane Kiffin, the Owls have sent a few players on to NFL careers, including Ed Newman, Alfred Morris, Lucky Whitehead and current Buffalo Bills’ draftee Devin Singletary.
This is the logo the National Football League will be using in 2019 to celebrate the league’s historic 100th season of existence. It was known as the American Professional Football Association (APFA) upon its’ inception in 1920, and was renamed the NFL in 1922. The story of how the league was founded at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio is well known, and is why Canton earned it’s nickname as the “birthplace of professional football”. Only 2 franchises that originally began play in 1920 still remain in the league – the Chicago Bears (then known as the Decatur Staleys) and the Chicago (now Arizona) Cardinals.