The 1937 NFL Championship Game was the fifth championship game of the National Football League (NFL), held December 12 at Wrigley Field in Chicago with an attendance of 15,878. The game featured the Western Division champions Chicago Bears (9–1–1) and the Eastern Division champions Washington Redskins (8–3), with the Redskins winning 28–21.
Background Prior to the 1937 season, Redskins owner George Preston Marshall moved the team from Boston to his hometown of Washington, D.C. The Boston Redskins won the Eastern Division title the previous season, but attendances were very poor in Boston, which forced Marshall to move the 1936 NFL Championship Game from Fenway Park to the Polo Grounds in New York City. The Redskins selected quarterback Sammy Baugh from TCU in the first round of the 1937 NFL draft, and the rookie led the league in passing with a then-record 81 pass completions, and Redskins halfback Cliff Battles led the NFL in rushing with 874 yards.
The Bears had a nine-win season under head coach George Halas, the last for Bears great Bronko Nagurski (other than a brief, one-year return to the Bears in 1943).
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."
Learning from the "Sneakers" game of 1934, both teams were prepared with a supply of basketball shoes in case of slippery field conditions. The temperature at kickoff in Chicago was .
Game summary 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.
The Bears came back, however, as halfback Jack 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.
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 an average of 102.5 yards passing per game.Pro-Football-Reference.com: 1937 NFL Leaders and Leaderboards) 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.
In the fourth quarter, the score was tied 21–21, before Baugh threw a 35-yard touchdown strike to Redskins wingback Ed Justice to take the lead for good, 28–21.
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." "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."
Scoring summary Sunday, December 12, 1937Kickoff: 1:15 p.m. CST
First quarter WAS – Cliff Battles 7-yard run (Riley Smith kick), 7–0 WAS CHI – Jack Manders 10-yard run (Manders kick), 7–7 tie Second quarter CHI – Manders 37-yard pass from Bernard Masterson (Manders kick), 14–7 CHI Third quarter WAS – Wayne Millner 55-yard pass from Sammy Baugh (Smith kick), 14–14 tie CHI – Edgar Manske 4-yard pass from Masterson (Manders kick), 21–14 CHI Fourth quarter WAS – Millner 78-yard pass from Baugh (Smith kick), 21–21 tie WAS – Ed Justice 35-yard pass from Baugh (Smith kick), 28–21 WAS
Source:The First Fifty Years: A Celebration of the National Football League in its Fiftieth Season, Simon and Schuster, Inc., Copyright 1969, ASIN: B0018NJUO0, p.164-165
Attendance and players shares of gate receipts An anticipated attendance of 40,000 was not reached with the week's inclement weather in Chicago impacting the crowd size. The crowd of 15,870 was minuscule compared with attendance that Chicago had recently seen for amateur football competition. Only weeks earlier, the annual Chicago Prep Bowl game at Chicago's Soldier Field had attracted a historic crowd of approximately 120,000.
A portion of the gate receipts were distributed to players on the two teams. Each player on the winning Redskins team received $225, while the Bears received $127 each.
Starters
Players played both ways, offensively and defensively, in 1937. Thus, there were only these eleven starters for each squad.Roger Treat, The Official National Football League Football Encyclopedia. New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1952; p. 236.
Washington Redskins LE - Wayne Millner ‡ LT - Turk Edwards ‡ LG - Les Olsson C - Ed Kawal RG - Jim Karcher RT - James Barber RE - Charley Malone
QB †/K - Riley Smith LHB - Sammy Baugh ‡ RHB - Erny Pinckert FB - Cliff Battles ‡
Chicago Bears LE - Edgar Manske LT - Joe Stydahar ‡ LG - Dan Fortmann ‡ C - Frank Bausch RG - George Musso ‡ RT - Del Bjork RE - George Wilson
QB - Bernie Masterson LHB - Ray Nolting RHB/K - Jack Manders FB - Bronco Nagurski ‡
† - Note: The quarterback in the single-wing offense was sometimes called the "blocking back", the ball was generally shotgun snapped to the left halfback or the fullback. ‡ - Member of the Professional Football Hall of Fame.
Officials
The NFL had only four game officials in ; the back judge was added in , the line judge in , and the side judge in . The four officials in this game were:
Referee: Bill Halloran Umpire: Ed Cochrane Head linesman: Bobby Cahn Field judge: Tommy Hughitt
References