The Rock Island Independents were a professional football team from Rock Island, Illinois, and one of the original members of the National Football League. This site keeps their record: every season, every score we can document, the all-time record against each opponent, and the men who played for them.
The Rock Island Argus first reported an Independents football game on November 11, 1901: a scoreless tie with the Moline Fifth Ward team before a good crowd. The 1902 team went unbeaten and unscored on, and the first full season on record came in 1907. By 1919 they were one of the best teams in the Midwest, going 9-1-1 and outscoring opponents 309 to 12 at Douglas Park.
In September 1920 manager Walter Flanigan joined George Halas and the other founders in Canton, Ohio, and Rock Island became a charter member of the American Professional Football Association, renamed the NFL in 1922. The Independents played six NFL seasons, went 42-14-13 in that span counting every game, and sent five players to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1926 they left for the first American Football League, and the club played its last games in 1928.
