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| Date | December 12, 1937 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Stadium | Wrigley Field Chicago | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 15,878 | ||||||||||||||||||
The1937 NFL Championship Game was the fifthchampionship game of theNational Football League (NFL), held December 12 atWrigley Field inChicago with an attendance of 15,878.[1][2][3][4] The game featured the Western Division championsChicago Bears (9–1–1) and the Eastern Division championsWashington Redskins (8–3), with the Redskins winning 28–21.[5]
Prior to the 1937 season, Redskins ownerGeorge Preston Marshall moved the team fromBoston to his hometown ofWashington, D.C. TheBoston Redskins won the Eastern Division title theprevious season, but attendances were very poor in Boston, which forced Marshall to move the1936 NFL Championship Game fromFenway Park to thePolo Grounds inNew York City.[6] The Redskins selectedquarterbackSammy Baugh fromTCU in the first round of the1937 NFL draft, and the rookie led the league in passing with a then-record 81 pass completions, and Redskins halfbackCliff Battles led the NFL in rushing with 874 yards.
The Bears had a nine-win season under head coachGeorge Halas, the last for Bears greatBronko Nagurski (other than a brief, one-year return to the Bears in1943).
Baugh stated that the field conditions were, in his words "the worst field I ever saw. The field had been torn up the previous week, and it froze solid with jagged clods sticking up. I've never seen so many people get cut up in a football game."[6]
Learning from the "Sneakers" game of1934, both teams were prepared with a supply of basketball shoes in case of slippery field conditions.[7] The temperature at kickoff in Chicago was 24 °F (−4 °C).[8]
The Redskins scored first when Baugh led the team down to the Chicago 7-yard line, where he slipped the ball to Battles on a reverse for the game's first touchdown.[6]
The Bears came back, however, as halfbackJack Manders scored the next fourteen points for the Bears: a touchdown run, a touchdown pass reception, and two extra points. Chicago led 14–7 at halftime.[6]
Baugh took over in the second half, mixing short and long passes, shredding the Bears defense. (Baugh would finish the game 18-for-33 passing, for 335 yards; he had led the league in 1937 with anaverage of 102.5 yards passing per game.[9]) Even using five defensive linemen (most teams used six at the time) and a sixth defensive back, the Bears could not stop the Redskins passing attack.[6]
In the fourth quarter, the score was tied 21–21, before Baugh threw a 35-yard touchdown strike to RedskinswingbackEd Justice to take the lead for good, 28–21.[1]
The First Fifty Years, a 1969 book that chronicles the first half-century of the NFL, listed the game as the second of "Ten Games That Mattered."[6] "In his rookie year," the book concludes, "Sammy Baugh had beaten pro football's best with a style of play 15 years before its time. And in his first year in prestigious Washington, George Preston Marshall ran up a championship flag. Pro football was getting its base."
Sunday, December 12, 1937
Kickoff: 1:15 p.m.CST[10]
Source:[6]
An anticipated attendance of 40,000 was not reached[7] with the week's inclement weather in Chicago impacting the crowd size.[2] The crowd of 15,870 was minuscule compared with attendance that Chicago had recently seen for amateur football competition. Only weeks earlier, the annualChicago Prep Bowl game at Chicago'sSoldier Field had attracted a historic crowd of approximately 120,000.[11]
A portion of thegate receipts were distributed to players on the two teams. Each player on the winning Redskins team received $225, while the Bears received $127 each.[12][13]
Players played both ways, offensively and defensively, in 1937. Thus, there were only these eleven starters for each squad.[14]
Washington Redskins
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| Chicago Bears
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The NFL had only fourgame officials in1937; the back judge was added in1947, the line judge in1965, and the side judge in1978. The four officials in this game[1][10] were:
41°56′53″N87°39′22″W / 41.948°N 87.656°W /41.948; -87.656
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