1933 Cincinnati Reds (NFL) season

The 1933 Cincinnati Reds season was their inaugural season in the National Football League (NFL). The team started 0–5-1 before winning three of four games down the stretch to finish the year at 3–6–1.

The Reds had one of the most anemic offenses in the history of the NFL, marking the nadir to set records for fewest yards gained, fewest first downs, fewest passing attempts, fewest pass completions, and fewest passing touchdowns in a season. The 1933 Reds scored only three touchdowns all year, also still an NFL record. Cincinnati also seems to have played host to the smallest paid crowd in league history when approximately 300 fans braved a steady drizzle to watch the team be shut out by the Philadelphia Eagles on November 5.

The Cincinnati Reds debuted in the National Football League inauspiciously, traveling to Portsmouth, Ohio for a September 17 match-up with the Portsmouth Spartans. The contest was one-sided, with the Reds only cracking midfield one time and never threatening to score, losers on a hot day by a score of 21–0.^[2]

It would be more than three weeks before the team played again — a home opener against the oldest team in the league, the Chicago Cardinals. Not for the last time, weather would be a factor, with the start of the game delayed 20 minutes by a torrential downpour, with the size of the crowd held to 1,500 by the meteorological unpleasantness.^[3] Once again the Reds would fail to score, with halfback Joe Lillard out of the University of Oregon — characterized by the local press as a "giant Negro" despite his quite mortal stature of 6'0" and 185 pounds — the star of the game.^[3] It would be a Lillard field goal that would provide all the scoring in another shutout loss for Cincinnati, 3–0.^[3]

The October 22 home game against Pittsburgh was again played in the rain and ended in an entirely appropriate 0–0 tie — memorable only as a punting extravaganza. The two teams combined to boot the ball skyward an NFL record 31 times in the contest, with the Redlegs setting winning the punting battle, at least, 17 to 14.^[4] Only the fact that the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers found themselves in the same weather situation on the same day with the same 31 punt result has kept the Reds from sitting atop alone the record book in this dubious category.^[4]

The biggest crowd of the season would see the Reds smacked with their biggest loss, as passing sensation Benny Friedman of the Brooklyn Dodgers hit his teammate John "Shipwreck" Kelly for two TD passes en route to a 27–0 laugher at Ebbets Field.^[5] Only the merciful coach of the Dodgers, John McEwan, kept the debacle from getting out of hand by sitting on the ball to avoid running up the score after the four-score lead was achieved.^[6] Jack Miley of the New York Daily News was frankly not impressed with the cut of the Redlegs' jib, characterizing the visiting squad as "eleven portly and puffing old fellows from Cincinnati, whose bright college years were deeply dimmed by the mists of time," who "handle themselves as helplessly on the gridiron as do their townsmen, the [cellar-dwelling] Cincinnati Reds on the diamond."^[7] They presented "soft picking, indeed" for the Dodgers, Miley declared.^[7]

But things managed to get worse. On November 5, the Reds seem to have been host to one of the smallest crowds in NFL history, when under a steady rain fewer than 500 partisans assembled at Redland Field to watch another shutout loss, this time 6–0 to an only-slightly-less-hapless expansion team, the Philadelphia Eagles.^[8] Coming on the heels of a previous loss-in-the-rain before just 900 fans in the Cardinals game, one feels sorry for the entire franchise for the dismal local news coverage the game generated. The reporter of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote: "The game, played in a constant drizzle, was devoid of any outstanding plays, and, on most occasions, the slow underfooting nullified the teams' progress to such extent that they [punted] on second or third down."^[8]

The loss to the Eagles capped a first phase of the season in which the Reds went 0–5–1 and were outscored by their opponents 74 to 3.

Fortunes changed for the club on November 12, with Cincinnati visiting the Chicago Cardinals at Wrigley Field. On the third play from scrimmage, Cincinnati back Lew Pope popped off a 46-yard touchdown run, and despite a 0-for-2 passing day the Reds would hold on to win, 12–9.^[9] They would finish the season winning three games out of four, posting victories over the Portsmouth Spartans — a franchise soon to be sold and moved to Detroit — and a rematch with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The final game against Brooklyn actually provided the greatest gridiron thrill of the season for suffering Reds fans, when 5'6" halfback Gilbert "Frenchy" LeFebvre ran back a punt 98 yards for one of the three touchdowns Cincinnati would score in the 1933 season.^[10] The "portly and puffing old fellows" had delivered their revenge upon the Dodgers at home, 10 to 0, and there was much rejoicing.

Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.

Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.

The National Football League began collecting and retaining game statistics only in 1932. Consequently, the league's official records start only from this point, perhaps accidentally absolving the miserable seasons of one or more pioneering teams. With that fact acknowledged, the 1933 Cincinnati Reds managed to set a number of league records for futility that remain on the books nearly a century later.

In addition to their informal record for smallest paid crowd at an NFL game (300),^[17] the 1933 Reds continue to hold official NFL records for Fewest Yards Gained in a Season (1,150),^[18] Fewest First Downs in a Season (51),^[19] Fewest Points Scored in a Full Season (38),^[20] Fewest Touchdowns Scored in a Season (3),^[21] Fewest Passes Attempted in a Season (102),^[22] Fewest Passes Completed in a Season (25),^[22] Fewest Touchdown Passes in a season (0),^[23] as well as Most Punts in a Game (17).^[24]

None of these records seem likely to be broken by a team in the modern era of the NFL, insuring a unique place for the 1933 Cincinnati Reds in league history.

† — denotes Game 1 starter; ‡ — denotes Game 10 starter.