The 1921 Cleveland Tigers season was their second completed in the young American Professional Football Association (APFA), soon to be renamed the National Football League. The team improved on their previous record of 2âÂÂ4âÂÂ2, winning three games. They finished eleventh in the league.
The 1921 team, remembered by some as the Cleveland Indians, featured legendary player-coach Jim Thorpe at halfback and two other Native-American football stars in the backfield â "Indian Joe" Guyon and fullback Pete Calac, both of whom played with Thorpe on the 1920 Canton Bulldogs. In all, six members of the 1921 Cleveland Tigers team played on the Canton Bulldogs the previous season.
The 34-year old Thorpe â ancient in football years â used himself sparingly but was still effective enough that the Cleveland Plain Dealer could write good-naturedly of his season-opening performance against the Columbus Panhandles: <blockquote>"Poor Jim Thorpe. He has become so old and decrepit that the best he could do yesterday was run eighty yards for a touchdown, shaking off half a dozen tacklers and dodging three or four others. His arm has become so weak he cannot throw the football more than forty or fifty yards in executing forward passes. Poor Jim. The first thing we know he will have to quit the game in ten years or so."</blockquote>