1920 All-Pro Team

The 1920 All-Pro Team — originally cast as the All-Star Professional Teams — was a select list of top performers of the 1920 season of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), forerunner of the National Football League. The list was the sole creation of Bruce Copeland, sports editor of the Rock Island Argus, one of the most pro football-centric newspapers of the day. It was published on December 2, 1920.

The 1920 team was a list compiled by Bruce Copeland, sports editor of the Rock Island Argus, who considered only members of the association's "Big Eight" teams for inclusion.^[1] These were, in his view, the Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Chicago Cardinals and Tigers, Cleveland Tigers, Dayton Triangles, Decatur Staleys, and Rock Island Independents.^[1] He justified these eight teams as constituting an elite of the league based upon "comparative scores."^[2]

In addition to his "three first teams" of eleven players each, Copeland named three reserve elevens, with an addition 44 players accorded "honorable mention" status.^[3] In all, 111 players were named to Copeland's end-of-season roll call of star performers for 1920.^[3]

Copeland's three "All-Star Professional Teams" were published in the Argus on December 2, 1920.^[2]

While five of the six teams excluded were of lesser caliber than their league peers, Copeland did omit one important squad from consideration — the Buffalo All-Americans, who finished fifth in the league standings.^[1] The All-Americans never played a game during the 1920 season outside of New York state and the team's personnel and their relative capabilities may have been unknown to Copeland.

Se ha observado que, dado que se trataba de la lista de un solo periodista deportivo, parece existir un sesgo perceptible hacia el "equipo local", los Rock Island Independents, en las elecciones de Copeland. ^{[ 1 ]} El propio Copeland declaró que sus selecciones se basaban en observaciones personales y en su "conocimiento previo de la mayoría de los jugadores de los Akron Indians, los Canton Bulldogs y los Cleveland Tigers, que no jugaron este año en Rock Island ". ^{[ 2 ]}

El artículo original de Copeland presenta las razones para la selección de los jugadores para el primer equipo. En estas explicaciones, Copeland insinúa que el desempeño defensivo superior fue la principal consideración para los linieros, en lugar de la capacidad de bloqueo ofensivo de los linieros interiores o la destreza de recepción de pases de los alas. ^{[ 2 ]} El ala de Rock Island, Oak Smith, es elogiado, por ejemplo, como alguien que "no podía ser bloqueado" y que "atravesaba las líneas contrarias casi a voluntad, deteniendo al corredor, interfiriendo o bloqueando despejes". ^{[ 2 ]} Por otro lado, los dos mejores alas receptoras de la liga, según la estimación de Copeland, Dave Reese y Dutch Thiele de Dayton, son descartados como "lamentablemente débiles" en defensa, "como lo demostraron las repetidas ganancias en su dirección" durante su aparición en Rock Island en 1920. ^{[ 2 ]}

• Bruce Copeland, "All-Star Professional Teams,"Rock Island Argus, December 2, 1920, p. 17.
• John Hogrogian, "1920 All-Pros,"The Coffin Corner, vol. 6, no. 1 (1984).

• "1920 APFA All-Pros," Pro Football Reference, www.pro-football-reference.com