Who made it to the first NFL championship?

Answer 1

Depends on how you mean the question!

If you mean, who won the first NFL championship, that would be the Akron Pros in 1920. The NFL wasn't even called the NFL then--it was the APFA (American Professional Football Association). They changed the league's name two years later.

However, in those days, the champion was determined simply by whichever team had the best record in the league. There was no championship game.

Which brings us to the next possibility:

If you mean, who won the first NFL championship GAME, well, believe it or not, it still depends on how you mean the question!

After the 1932 season, the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans (who would change their name to the Detroit Lions two years later) were tied for the best record in the league. So the NFL decided to hold a one game playoff to determine their champion--which Chicago won, 9-0, in a game played in Chicago Stadium, the first ever pro football indoor game. However, OFFICIALLY, the game WASN'T the NFL Championship Game--it was merely a tie-breaking playoff. They even counted the results of the game in the final league standings--and the extra loss dropped Portsmouth into third place in those final standings. Because this game was set up specifically to determine the league champion, many people call this game the "first NFL Championship Game"--but that is completely unofficial.

However, the popularity of that playoff game caused the league to create an OFFICIAL championship game the very next year. During the off-season, the league was split into two divisions, with the two division winners pitted against each other in the first OFFICIAL NFL Championship Game. That game was played in Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants, 23-21.