Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Bert Bell (1895-1959) was the founder of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1933, and commissioner of the National Football League from 1946 until his death. He was responsible for creating the NFL amateur draft. As NFL commissioner, he merged the NFL with the All-America Football Conference, and single-handedly plotted out league schedules each season on his dining-room table using a giant checkerboard. He died of a heart attack on October 11, 1959 at Philadelphia's Franklin Field, where he was watching a game between the team he founded, the Eagles, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, which he briefly co-owned during World War II. He coined the phrase, "On any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team." This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.