After 75 years, Bears' 73-0 title win still stands in record books

After an incomplete pass, Bears quarterback Sid Luckman connected with halfback George McAfee, who streaked toward the goal line. Washington defensive back Dick Todd stopped him on the half-yard line, and the home crowd roared its approval. With the seconds ticking off the clock high on the bleachers, the Bears drew a five-yard penalty. On the next play, two Washington defensive linemen swatted away Luckman's first pass attempt, leaving the Bears with only seconds to run another play.

With the Bears in their revolutionary T formation, Luckman took the snap from under center, dropped back, and fired the ball at fullback Bill Osmanski. Jostled by Redskins defenders in the end zone, Osmanski got his hands on the ball but couldn't bring it down.

With no time on the clock, Bears coach George Halas joined his team on the field yelling for an interference call from the refs. No luck, and no instant replay in those days. Game over.

George Preston Marshall, the Redskins owner, was a press-savvy promoter and businessman. But in the postgame excitement, he derided the calls for a penalty on the final play and declared to the reporters, "The Bears are a bunch of crybabies. ... The Bears are quitters."

Three weeks later, on a day 75 years ago this week, Marshall would have to eat those words.

EARLY NFL YEARS

The Bears were among the founding teams of the American Professional Football Association in 1920, although they were then known as the Decatur Staleys. They began play as a company team for the Staley starch company in Decatur, Ill., and upon moving to the Windy City in 1921, became the Chicago Bears. When the APFA changed its name to the National Football League in 1922, Bears owner and coach George Halas became an NFL stalwart for generations.

In 1932, the NFL team owners added a franchise in Boston under the ownership of Marshall, an entrepreneur from Washington DC. He named the team after the Major League Baseball club in town, the Braves, a common practice in the early NFL. The New York Giants, for example, were named for the baseball team, as were the Pittsburgh Pirates before they became the Steelers.

The new Boston team played at Braves Field, a baseball park, in 1932, and moved to Fenway Park for the 1933 season. As a tribute to the host Red Sox, Marshall changed the team name to Redskins. Before the season's home opener against New York, the players posed for photographs in war paint and feathers. They left the makeup on for the game, and although things were a bit messy under those leather helmets, the Redskins were warlike enough to beat the Giants, 21-20.

Professional football didn't play well in Boston, though, and Marshall lost money from the start. "The Boston sportswriters were loud in their dislike of pro football," Corinne Griffith, Marshall's wife, wrote in 1947, "It was too far a cry from Harvard." Marshall, who owned a chain of laundries in Washington, reacted by moving the team to the District of Columbia prior to the 1937 season.

Griffith, a silent film star, married Marshall in 1936 and actively promoted the team. She wrote the lyrics to the team fight song, "Hail to the Redskins," and chose the team colors of burgundy and gold.

Fast forward to 1940.

After the Redskins upset the Bears, and the crybaby taunts that followed from Marshall, Washington won the NFL's East Division. Chicago won the West, and the two teams would meet in the NFL Championship on Dec. 8, 1940, in Griffith Stadium, the Washington Senator's ballpark.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

From 1920 through 1931, the NFL crowned the league champion by comparing winning percentages. The league scheduled its first playoff game in 1932 between the Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans at Wrigley Field. Snow forced the game indoors in the Chicago Stadium, and Chicago won, 9-0.

The following year, the league divided into two divisions and established a formal championship game between the East and West winners. The Bears won that game, and the Redskins won the 1937 championship in their first year in Washington.

The Bears arrived in Washington by train the morning before the game and held a brief workout at Griffith Stadium after the Redskins had finished their practice. They then settled into the Mayflower Hotel, a local landmark five blocks from the White House. There they saw that the hometown press had continued to fan the Marshall-crybaby brouhaha.

"We got to our hotel rooms and the sports section was on top of everybody's bed," Bears halfback Bob Snyder told a Toledo Blade reporter in 1994. "The headline was, 'Gutless Bears Hit Capitol.' "

The bookies had the Bears as 7-5 favorites, but the locals had snapped up all 36,034 seats for the game. Washington Post reporter Al Hailey described the ticket demand: "It'll be easier tomorrow to get into the White House than it will be at Griffith Stadium if you don't have a ticket."

Hailey also wrote about the contrasting styles of the two teams, especially their offensive formations. The Bears had long used the T formation, with the quarterback under center and the fullback and halfbacks lined up abreast behind him. Luckman was later considered to be the first great T-formation quarterback, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

On the other hand, Washington used a single wing formation, with the tailback taking a long snap much like today's shotgun. The quarterback was mostly a blocking back. Slingin' Sammy Baugh, another Hall of Famer, was the Redskins tailback in 1940.

On Sunday, Dec. 8, before the 1:30 p.m. start, coach Halas played his strongest motivational card. He had posted newspaper clippings on the locker room wall, all reporting Marshall's inflammatory comments from the Bears-Redskins game the previous month. Luckman told a Milwaukee reporter in 1980 what Halas did next.

"Before we took the field, he pointed to the clippings and said, 'Gentlemen, this is what Mr. Marshall thinks of you. I know you are the greatest football team in America. I know it and you know it. I want you to prove that to Mr. Marshall, the Redskins and, above all, the nation.' "

"After that," Luckman continued, "we let out a big war whoop and broke the door down getting to the field."

On a clear, but cold afternoon, the "Chief" walked to center of the field. Fully clad in Indian garb, including a war bonnet, he listened to trumpeters herald the entrance of Washington's 150-piece marching band. Once band members had taken their positions on the field, Chief signaled the start of "Hail to the Redskins." After player introductions, the band played the Star Spangled Banner.

Mutual Broadcast System announcers described all of the pregame hoopla to millions of radio listeners via 129 stations coast-to-coast. Nearby, 150 reporters, then the largest contingent ever in American sports outside of the World Series, stood ready to capture the sights and sounds of the championship game. Additionally, five newsreel companies had film crews at the game.

On the first play from scrimmage, Bears halfback George McAfee ran for seven yards. Halas jumped from the bench and yelled, "We got 'em!" Halas said years later that if the Redskins lined up in the 5-3-3 defense they had used in the November game, his game plan for the title game would work. "We ran one play as a test," Halas said, according to the Los Angeles Times' Bob Wolf, "to see which defense they were using." Halas had the answer.

On the next play, Bill Osmanski scored on a 68-yard run. Jack Manders kicked the extra point.

The Redskins quickly responded when Max Krause returned Manders' kickoff 56 yards to the Bears 40. The fans in the stands had every reason to think their team could match the Bears, score for score.

After the Redskins advanced the ball to the Chicago 25, end Charley Malone dropped a Baugh pass on the 4-yard line. Bob Masterson then missed a 32-yard field goal attempt, and Bears took over on their own 20.

Chicago drove 80 yards in 17 plays, with Luckman scoring on a sneak from the six-inch line. Snyder made the point after, and the Bears led 14-0.

Every Redskins possession in the first quarter yielded nothing, while the Bears scored a third time on a 42-yrad run by Joe Maniaci. After the first 15 minutes, the Bears led 21-0.

Chicago cooled off a bit in the second quarter, scoring only once on a 30-yard pass from Luckman to end Ken Kavanaugh. Unfortunately, Washington stayed stone cold. At the half, Bears, 28-0.

During halftime, Halas gave his players a pep talk. "We can't let up," he said, according to reserve quarterback Solly Sherman in a 1990 interview. "The Redskins are too good a team," Halas continued. "They can come back!"

Corinne Griffith recalled that the Washington fans were stunned during the intermission. "What's happened?" she heard people say. "What's the matter?" In her book "My Life with the Redskins," Griffith offered her take: "The Redskins became mentally petrified."

Player injuries were surely a factor for the 'Skins that day. They started the game with a roster of only 32 players because of injuries sustained in the final two regular-season games. Four played hurt, and three were banged up enough during the game to put them on the bench.

In the third quarter, Washington continued to pass in order to catch up, but with disastrous results. The Bears intercepted three passes, one from Baugh and two from Roy Zimmerman, and ran each back for touchdowns. And oh yes, Ray Nolting ran 23 yards for the fourth Bears score in the quarter.

Midway through the third quarter onslaught, the Redskins' PA announcer urged the fans to buy season tickets for 1941. The crowd booed mightily, venting some of their frustration toward the press box.

If the one-sided track meet on the field wasn't bad enough, the Redskins had another big problem in the fourth quarter. They were running out of footballs. At the time, no stadium had nets behind the goal posts, so the extra point and field goal attempts sailed into the stands. The rabid Washington fans wouldn't give them up.

"My dad sent people into the stands to buy back the balls," John Carroll said in an interview. He is a real estate developer in Virginia, and his father Sid was the Redskins' business manager in 1940. "They offered 30-40 bucks for each, but got no takers."

After touchdown No. 10, which put the Bears up 66-0, Sherman came on the field to hold for the point-after kick. "What are you doing?" asked referee Red Friesell.

"We're kicking," said Sherman, who later told the story to a reporter.

"Oh no, you're not. You're passing. That's the last ball we've got."

After a Bears huddle, Maniaci passed to Sherman for the conversion. Carroll said that his father walked over the Chicago bench to reinforce Friesell's message, asking Halas to run or throw for any more extra points.

At that point, Marshall got up from his seat and said to Corinne, "I'm going down to those kids, anything might happen." Walking down the stairs with a police escort, Marshall got an earful from a spectator, "Get 'em outta here, you lug. Take 'em back to Boston!"

Chicago scored again in the final two minutes, and final score was 73-0, a single-game margin that remains an NFL record. Washington rushed for a total of five yards, threw eight interceptions, and produced 231 total yards to Chicago's 519.

Osmanski commiserated with Baugh as they walked off the field. According to Bob Wolf, Osmanski mentioned Charley Malone's drop of a potential touchdown pass on Washington's first possession.

"Think what might have happened if Malone had caught that pass," Osmanski said to Baugh. "It might have made a big difference."

"Yeah, Baugh said, "the score would have been 73-7."

"Who are the crybabies now?" shouted one of the Bears in the locker room after the game. Halas talked with more grace when interviewed by the press. "It was just one of those days. Everything we did, we did right. Everything they did, they did wrong."

Marshall was outraged at first, but calmed down, according to Redskins historian Mike Richman. "They didn't lack courage," Marshall said to the press, "but they lost their heads."

Sid Carroll, who became the Redskins general manager in 1943, hosted a party with his wife Margaret the evening after the game. "My mother told me years later," recalled John Carroll, "about my dad and Sammy Baugh trying to sooth their wounds with several scotches."

AFTERWORD

Sammy Baugh cast a shadow on the 1940 NFL Championship game in a 1999 interview with WJLA, the ABC TV affiliate in Washington, D.C. He said that many of his teammates tried to lose the game to spite Marshall.

"I think it happened because of what the owner did for two weeks," Baugh said in a follow-up interview with the Associated Press. "He put things in the paper running the Bears down. You don't want to help the other team. You shouldn't say things like that. It made us so mad."

The AP reporter asked former Washington lineman Clyde Shugart, who played in the title game, to comment on Baugh's statement. "Was he drunk when he said that?" Shugart asked. "I don't remember anything like that. I played as hard as I could, but I never saw so many holes on a line."

George Musso, a Hall of Fame lineman who played for the Bears that day, gave his take on Baugh's claim to AP. "It doesn't make sense. ... We just outplayed them, that was all. We had seven Hall of Famers on that club. There was good reason for us to win."