History
In 1919, the New York Times reported that a pro football team, backed by the New York Giants baseball team and led on the field by Charley Brickley as player-coach, would begin playing in the Polo Grounds that fall.
Brickley had been an All-American halfback at Harvard and was generally considered the finest dropkicker of his day. He held his team's first practice on Sunday, October 5, a week before the scheduled opening game against the Massillon Tigers. However, the proposed team never actually played.
New York had recently passed a law allowing professional baseball on Sunday and the team's backers thought it would also apply to football. The day after that first practice, though, it was ruled that pro football was still outlawed on Sundays, so the team disbanded.
Two years later, pro football was legal on Sundays and Brickley was back, this time with financial backing from Billy Gibson, better known as a boxing promoter. The team variously known as Brickley's New York Giants or the New York Brickley's Giants or, simply, as Brickley's Giants, was granted a franchise in the American Professional Football Association.
Aside from Brickley himself, the team had no college stars. The Giants lost their first game on the road in October and didn't play another league game until December. That was another loss. In between, the Giants played a number of non-league games against lesser teams. The franchise folded after the 1922 season.