As a Packer fan, I cringed at the thought of using founder names, because I immediately realized one of the 4 would have been the Halas Division.
Yeah, given the rivalries I don't think they could have used the NHL's later idea of naming divisions after people.
Of course, then again, saying we won the Halas Division might give Packer fans some joy.
Players would have been interesting - the Thorpe Division could have had the Browns, Steelers, etc. (St. Louis being in there would have been nice as a shoutout to the Plains Indians.) Others could have been the Grange... nah, there's a Bear again.
Colors could have been used, too - Yellow (or Gold if they didn't want the coward association), Red, and Blue for the primary colors, and then add Green in.
Okay, we've kind of run out of what-ifs, so let's try something a little different, based on the
Javier Baez crazy rundown - how could we get an all-time great in any of the major sports to have such a brain fart that he's remembered as still an all-time great but also as someone along the lines of Fred Merkle of
Merkle's Boner or Jim Marshall of the
wrong-way run. I'm not talkign just a strategic blunder (like Baby Ruth being caught stealing for the last out of the 1926 World Series) but a "My LIttle Leaguer said that was dumb" blunder. (Although if you can turn one into Bull Buckner for the '86 Red Sox that would also be interesting.)