Philly’s Bert Bell created the NFL draft almost 90 years ago, and changed the direction of the league

NFL teams will select 257 college prospects during the draft, which gets underway on Thursday. Thousands of fans will be in attendance in Detroit. Millions more will watch at home.

But 88 years ago, just nine men sat in a single hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton on South Broad Street for the very first NFL draft. The Eagles, coming off a 2-9 season in 1935, had the first pick, but their selection, Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago, didn’t even end up playing for them.

Berwanger, the first winner of the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy (renamed the Heisman Trophy in 1936), wanted $1,000 per game, and the Eagles offered only $150. He opted for the more lucrative career of a foam rubber salesman. It didn’t get much better after Berwanger — the Eagles failed to sign any of the nine players they selected in that first draft.

The first draft on Feb. 8, 1936, was a far cry from what the event is today, but its creation — by De Benneville “Bert” Bell, a Philadelphia native, former Penn football player, and owner of the Eagles — allowed the NFL to prosper for years to come.

“He saw way ahead of all the people that the NFL was not going to last unless they had a common draft,” said Upton Bell, Bert’s son and former New England Patriots general manager. “And he had to convince everybody to do that. … If there’s no common draft, there’s no NFL.”

Bell became the first and only Penn quarterback to lead the Quakers to the Rose Bowl, in 1917. Midway through his college career, Bell enlisted in the Army in World War I, and was cited for bravery by both the U.S. and France.

Bell returned from the war and dropped out of Penn, but he stayed with the football team as the running backs coach under head coach John Heisman for eight years. During those years as a position coach, Bell spent much of his time drinking, gambling, and partying with the Philly aristocracy.

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In 1933, with money borrowed from his wife, Bell and some other investors bought the Frankford Yellow Jackets, which he would rename the Philadelphia Eagles, for $2,500. It certainly proved to be a wise investment, but not right away.

The Eagles went 9-21-1 over the first three seasons under Bell and struggled to sell tickets, outmatched by the New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Chicago Bears, and the Green Bay Packers. The four premier teams were able to bid higher amounts on the incoming college players, who were already more inclined to play for the established NFL squads.

“Gentlemen, the league is no stronger than its weakest link,” Bell told the other owners, “I’ve been a weak link for so long I should know. Four teams control the championships, the Giants and Redskins in the East, the Bears and Packers in the West. Because they are successful, they keep attracting the best college players, which makes them more successful.”

Bell proposed a draft to the rest of the league owners. In reverse order of the final standings, teams would select college players for their respective squads.

Despite the potential harm for the four premier teams, the sway of competitive balance contributed to the vote’s being unanimous.

“I thought the proposal [was] sound,” Bears owner George Halas wrote in his memoir. “It made sense.”

Nine months after he convinced the other owners of the idea, the group gathered at the Ritz, owned by Bell’s father, and where he worked after his stint as a Penn assistant coach.

Without the resources to scout prospects, draft research at the time was more akin to a fantasy football draft of today.

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“We used to go down to the train station on Saturday night and buy the out-of-town newspapers to read about the college games,” Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney once told a writer. “We also looked in the press books of various schools, read magazines and All-American lists.”

There was no media, no fans announcing the picks, no fanfare. Just nine men who had “crowded into Bert Bell’s hotel room, shucked their jackets and cleared sitting room on beds and bureaus,” Robert Lipsyte wrote in the New York Times in 1968.

Berwanger’s declining to play in the NFL was not an anomaly. A mere 24 of the 81 players chosen over nine rounds actually played in the league. Among those 24, four became Pro Football Hall of Famers, including Giants fullback/halfback Alphonse “Tuffy” Leemans.

As the sport grew, and scouting, the combine, and television worked its way into the draft, the event became a staple for the NFL.

“The draft was the greatest thing that ever happened to the NFL,” Bell said in 1957. “Over the years, it brought balance to the league.”

Bell, who went on to become NFL commissioner in 1946, was also responsible for the incorporation of television and the addition of night games, the Pro Bowl, sudden death overtime, and the additions of the Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, and San Francisco 49ers.

As commissioner, Bell attended a game with his children at Franklin Field in 1959 between the Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers — the two teams he once owned — and died of a heart attack in the stands at age 64.

Bell was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1963.

“Before Bert Bell, the NFL operated out of a closet, almost,” said former Eagles coach Dick Vermeil. “Most of what you associate with pro football today began with Bert Bell.”

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