 | |
| Founded | January 29, 1952 |
|---|---|
| Suspended | 1953 |
| Based in | Dallas, Texas (games 1–7) Hershey, Pennsylvania (games 8–12) |
| League | National Football League |
| Conference | National Conference |
| Team history | Dallas Texans (1952) |
| Team colors | Royal blue, silver, white |
| Head coaches | Jim Phelan |
| Home field(s) | Cotton Bowl (games 1–7) traveling team (games 8–12) |
TheDallas Texans played in theNational Football League (NFL) for one season in1952. They posted a record of 1–11.
Initially based inDallas, the team was returned to the league in the middle of the season and became atraveling team based inHershey, Pennsylvania, andAkron, Ohio.
Professional football returned to Dallas in 1960, as the American Football League (AFL) commenced operations with one of its eight charter members in Dallas, also called the Texans, while the NFL added theDallas Cowboys. The AFL Dallas Texans would later move toKansas City, Missouri, and be re-branded as the "Chiefs" in 1963.
After the team folded, the league awarded its assets to the newBaltimore Colts, who retained the team's blue-and-white colors. However, neither the Colts nor the NFL recognize the Texans or their previous incarnations dating back to 1944 as part of the Colts' legacy. Thus, as of 2025, the Dallas Texans are the most recent NFL team to fold and not have its legacy included in that of any other team.[1]
After the1951 season, the financially troubledNew York Yanks franchise was put on the market byTed Collins, who had founded the franchise in1944 as theBoston Yanks before moving it toNew York City in1949, rebranding them as theBulldogs, and rebranded it again as the Yanks in1950. After failing to find a buyer, Collins sold the team back to the League.
On January 29, 1952, aDallas-based group led by a pair of young millionaires, brothers Giles and Connell Miller, completed the purchase of what was ostensibly a new franchise: the first-ever major league sports team based inTexas.[2] However, the Millers also acquired the entire Yanks roster in the sale;[3] thus, for all intents and purposes, the brothers bought the Yanks and relocated them to Dallas. Purchase price for the team was $200,000 — with $100,000 paid up front and the balance paid in installments.[4] This comparatively vast expansion fee was charged to allow the league to buy out the Yanks' lease for the use ofYankee Stadium.[4]
NFL owners voted 10–1 in favor of the sale and relocation, withPittsburgh Steelers ownerArt Rooney casting the lone dissenting vote.[5]
Home games were set for the 75,000-seatCotton Bowl, home stadium of theSouthern Methodist University Mustangs. Three names were considered for the new franchise: the Rangers, the Rebels, or the Texans.[6] The last-mentioned was eventually the moniker chosen.
The Millers believed that the growing state of Texas, with its longstanding support of college and high school football, would be a natural fit for the NFL to move farther south and west. With this in mind, Giles Miller declared, "There is room in Texas for all kinds of football."
However, the opening game against theNew York Giants set the tone for the season and the franchise. While the Texans scored the first touchdown, they missed the extra point and did not score again, losing 24–6 in front of only 17,499 fans at the Cotton Bowl.
Fan interest quickly waned as the team collapsed to 0–9 and showed no sign of being competitive. In the four games the Texans played at the Cotton Bowl, they lost all four by an average of eighteen points, and drew a total of only 54,065 fans: this was by far the lowest in the League, and barely half of the 25,000 per game required for the team to break even. The nadir came in a November 9 game against theLos Angeles Rams, a 27–6 blowout loss which attracted only 10,000 fans, and as it turned out, would be the last game the Texans would play in Texas.
By this time, the Millers had sustained losses of $250,000, a staggering sum by 1950s standards, and were unable to meet payroll. The situation was exacerbated by the woeful ticket sales and an inability to get any financial support from local businesses – an important factor even in this decade – to cover these debts, or even operating expenses. Unlike present economic arrangements in which the NFL's multi-billion-dollar television contracts essentially underwrite the league's franchises, teams in this era had no hope of remaining solvent without local support. NFL games were not carried on national TV at all until 1953,[7] and then only on the now-long-defunctDuMont Television Network, for a pittance compared to the contracts of today. Only two Texans games were televised: October 12 against the Bears in Chicago on ABC, and the Thanksgiving game (see below), also against the Bears, on DuMont.[8]
The Millers had seen enough and sold the team back to the league on November 14, with five games remaining in the season.[9] Afterwards, the NFL moved the franchise's operations temporarily toHershey, Pennsylvania (though it kept the Dallas Texans name), and moved the Texans' last two home games out of Dallas, thus making them atraveling team.
The team played one of its remaining two relocated home games at theRubber Bowl inAkron, Ohio, where the franchise tallied its only win under the Texans moniker, an upset over theChicago Bears ofGeorge Halas, in front of a meager crowd of only 2,208 fanson Thanksgiving Day.[10] This remains the smallest crowd at any NFL game since 1939 (excluding 2020, whenthe COVID-19 pandemic severely limited attendance).
As a measure of how low the NFL ranked on the sports scene in the early 1950s, the Akronhigh school Championship Game played at the Rubber Bowl that morning attracted 14,284 fans, far outdrawing the afternoon's professional contest.[11]
Head coachJim Phelan jokingly suggested because of the small turnout, the Texans players should "go into the stands and shake hands with each fan," while Halas had been so certain that the Bears would overpower the lowly Texans that he started only his second-string players. The Texans jumped out to a 20–2 lead, and after a Bears rally, scored a touchdown with 34 seconds left for an upset 27–23 win.
With the victory, the NFL avoided having a franchise with a winless regular season, something that had not happened since1944.[12]
The team's final game was a 41–6 blowout loss at the hands of theDetroit Lions: while this game had been scheduled to be played in Dallas, it was moved toDetroit after the league took over the team, thus forcing the Texans (who were the designated home team) to make their second trip of the year toBriggs Stadium – this game drew 12,252 fans, less than one-third of the average for the Lions' home games that year. Two weeks later, the Lions won theNFL Championship.
HalfbackGeorge Taliaferro, the team's leading rusher, was selected to thePro Bowl at the end of the season.
For all intents and purposes, the conclusion of the Texans' brief history was written before they even played their last game. Unable to find a buyer for the team, but not wanting to outright contract the franchise (which would have unbalanced the schedule), the NFL quickly began to solicit bids from other cities. The week after the Texans' Thanksgiving upset, the NFL granted a new franchise to aBaltimore-based ownership group headed byCarroll Rosenbloom, and awarded it the remaining assets (including the players) of the Texans organization.[13] Rosenbloom named his new franchise theBaltimore Colts (after theunrelated previous team from the competingAll-America Football Conference, which merged with the NFL in 1950).
The Colts do not claim the history of the Texans and their predecessors as their own, despite the Colts'inaugural roster including many of the players from the1952 Texans, plus a number of players from the 1950-1951 Yanks.
As a result, the Texans are officially recognized as the last NFL team to permanently cease operations and not be included in the lineage of any current franchise.
Although the NFL rapidly grew more prosperous during the latter part of the 1950s (especially after the success of "The Greatest Game Ever Played", the1958 Championship Game atYankee Stadium between the vauntedNew York Giants and the developing Colts, leading to a later profitable nationwide television contract), the 1952 debacle in Dallas left the NFL leery of further expansion.
Seeking a franchise in his home state and unable to persuade NFL owners to reconsider, Texas oil scionLamar Hunt, with others, founded theAmerican Football League as a direct competitor to the older NFL, with Hunt launching his own newDallas Texans franchise.
Threatened by the new league and its impact upon attendances, player contract rates, and the television market, the NFL quickly reconsidered its position on expansion. A second venture into Dallas in 1960, establishing what would become a far more successful team, theDallas Cowboys. The Cowboys' first game as a franchise would scheduled against the Steelers, eight years after the Steelers had voted against placing a team in Dallas. With fans in theDallas–Fort Worth metroplex not forgetting this fact, combined with both teams being enormously successful in the following decades andestablishinglarge fan bases in doing so, this would eventually lead to theCowboys–Steelers rivalry.
Both franchises shared the Cotton Bowl stadium (also the home ofSouthern Methodist University's (SMU) Mustangs)for their first three seasons.[14] The Cowboys were even more woeful on the field in their inaugural season, enduring awinless season with an 0-11-1 record, and would not post a winning record until 1966, while the AFL Texans, after going .500 over their first two seasons in the new league, would capture the1962 AFL Championship after defeating the cross-state rivalHouston Oilers in double overtime. Both teams also initially struggled to draw enough fans to the Cotton Bowl to turn a profit. However, Texans owner Hunt and Cowboys ownerClint Murchison, Jr. were far better financed than the Millers had been, and also had the patience to absorb the massive losses.
Nevertheless, by the Texans' 1962 championship season, they were being consistently outdrawn at the gate by the Cowboys even though they had made a far better account of themselves on the field. Hunt realized that there was not nearly enough fan support or corporate support to support both teams. He relocated his team to Kansas City and rebranded them as theChiefs, the second and last of two occasions that a professional American football champion has played the following season in another city. The other occasion was in 1945, with the NFL's Cleveland Rams. One month after winning the championship, franchise owner Dan Reeves, who had sustained five years of substantial financial losses, a situation that was exacerbated by poor home crowds and the pending arrival of the AAFC's Browns (who were to commence play the next year), relocated the Rams to Los Angeles.
In 1974, theWorld Football League placed a team in Texas called theHouston Texans. The team transferred toShreveport, Louisiana before the 1974 season was finished.
The Texans nickname was later revived by the NFL for theHouston Texans, an expansion team awarded in2002 to fill the void left after the Oilers relocated toNashville, Tennessee in 1997, subsequently being rebranded as theTennessee Titans.
| Dallas Texans Hall of Famers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | ||||
| No. | Name | Position | Tenure | Inducted |
| 70 | Art Donovan | DT | 1952 | 1968 |
| 75 | Gino Marchetti | DE | 1952 | 1972 |
| Year | Player name | Position | College | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Les Richter | G | California | Pick was actually made by theNew York Yanks on January 17: the Yanks picks were subsequently given to Dallas. |
After Richter, a star at theUniversity of California, made it clear he did not want to play for Dallas, he was traded to theLos Angeles Rams, sending him closer to home. While the Rams sent a whopping eleven players to Dallas in exchange - still the second-biggest trade involving a single player in NFL history as of 2024 - the deal turned out to be very lopsided in the Rams' favor.
Richter went on to play nine seasons in Los Angeles and be elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame, while of the eleven players sent to Dallas, defensive back/endTom Keane was the only one of the eleven who lasted in the League beyond 1952, making All-Pro for theBaltimore Colts in 1953 before he retired in 1955. Of the remaining ten players, four did not last beyond the Texans' only season, and six never played another down of professional football.[16]
| Year | W | L | T | Finish | Coach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 6th National | Jim Phelan |
| Week | Date | Opponent | W-L-T | Score | Venue | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | September 28 | New York Giants | L | 24–6 | Cotton Bowl | 0–1–0 |
| 2 | October 5 | San Francisco 49ers | L | 37–14 | Cotton Bowl | 0–2–0 |
| 3 | October 12 | Chicago Bears | L | 38–20 | Wrigley Field | 0–3–0 |
| 4 | October 18 | Green Bay Packers | L | 24–14 | Cotton Bowl | 0–4–0 |
| 5 | October 26 | San Francisco 49ers | L | 48–21 | Kezar Stadium | 0–5–0 |
| 6 | November 2 | Los Angeles Rams | L | 42–20 | Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum | 0–6–0 |
| 7 | November 9 | Los Angeles Rams | L | 27–6 | Cotton Bowl | 0–7–0 |
| 8 | November 16 | Detroit Lions | L | 43–13 | Briggs Stadium | 0–8–0 |
| 9 | November 23 | Green Bay Packers | L | 42–14 | East Stadium | 0–9–0 |
| 10 | November 27 | Chicago Bears | W | 27–23 | Rubber Bowl (Akron, Ohio) ^ | 1–9–0 |
| 11 | December 7 | Philadelphia Eagles | L | 38–21 | Shibe Park | 1–10–0 |
| 12 | December 13 | Detroit Lions | L | 41–6 | Briggs Stadium ^ | 1–11–0 |
^ moved from Dallas