The 1920 APFA season opened with two games for Sunday October 3, 1920. The games consisted of the
Columbus Panhandles playing the
Dayton Triangles at
Dayton, while Muncie played the
Rock Island Independents at
Rock Island. With Dayton and Rock Island being in different time zones, as well as their being no standard kickoff times and the fact that newspaper accounts of the games did not give the kickoff times, so there is no way of knowing which game started first. This means that Cooney may have played in the very first NFL game. However, the Flyers lost their game to Independents, 45–0. It would be the team's only game played during the
1920 season. The Flyers had a tough time finding teams to play against in the league. The Staleys cancelled their game against Muncie the following week and a game to be played against Dayton was rained out. The Flyers came back to the APFA in
1921. The team though lost league games against the
Evansville Crimson Giants, and the
Cincinnati Celts. They were scheduled to play again on November 13, 1921, against the
Green Bay Packers, however that game was cancelled, leaving the Flyers with a 0–2 APFA record. The team then folded. Cooney cited that the salaries, transportation and operating costs were just too steep for the team's gate receipts. The Flyers mark in APFA football was an unimpressive 0–3. But during 1920 and 1921, the Flyers posted a 4–0 mark against non-APFA teams. Including 1919, the Flyers posted an 8–1–1 record against non-APFA teams. The team regrouped and began playing independently of the NFL, after 1922. Cooney renamed the team the Congerville Flyers. By 1925 the Flyers based their team out of neighboring
Jonesboro, and was called the
Jonesboro Flyers. The team played nine of eleven games in Jonesboro and finished with a 6–2–3 record before disbanding for good that year. ==Later life==