By Darin Triumph Amidst Turmoil
The 1946 NFL Championship should have been a celebration of football greatness, marking the close of the Chicago Bears’ dominant 1940s dynasty. Instead, the game was overshadowed by scandal. Word broke the day before the title matchup against the New York Giants that gamblers had approached players to throw the contest—a catastrophic turn of events at a moment when the National Football League was still fighting for supremacy against college football, Major League Baseball, and the rival AAFC. As fans arrived at the Polo Grounds on December 15th, they questioned the integrity of the game they were about to watch. What followed was a brutal, hard-fought, and ultimately clean contest, defined by the sheer grit of players like the Giants’ Frank Filchock, and capped by a legendary, season-defining play call from Bears quarterback Sid Luckman. This is the story of the game that saved the NFL’s reputation and gave the Bears their final title of the decade.
Our friend Chicago Historian Jack Silverstein joined us in 2025 to help tell the story of the ’46 Title in a video.
The Cloud of Scandal and the Gritty Gridiron Battle
Entering the championship, the Chicago Bears were heavy 10-point favorites over the Giants. But the betting scandal broke the day before, immediately casting a shadow over the proceedings. The pressure was immense on the players, including Giants quarterback Frank Filchock and Bears star Merle Hapes, both of whom were known to have been approached. While Hapes was suspended by Commissioner Bert Bell, Filchock played on, though he later admitted he knew of the offer—his motivation being the desire to win the title and the corresponding approximately $1,300 player share.
Despite the off-field drama, the on-field action at the Polo Grounds was rough and brutal. The weather and field conditions were far from ideal, setting the stage for a physical, bang-out game. The intensity was set in the first four minutes when Frank Filchock broke his nose, yet the Giants quarterback famously played the remaining 56 minutes. The game was an absolute war zone, particularly thanks to Bears defensive end Ed Sprinkle, who was described as being “in there just taking heads off.” Sprinkle’s bone-jarring style of play, which helped him earn a Hall of Fame nod in 2020, embodied the ferocity of the contest.
Sid Luckman’s Clutch Performance and the Underrated Playmaker
The Bears initially jumped to a 14-0 lead. The scoring started with a touchdown pass from Hall of Fame QB Sid Luckman to Ken Cavanaugh, followed quickly by an interception returned for a 19-yard touchdown by Dante Mignani. Mignani, a player better known as a Ram, was a crucial Bear in the team’s championship runs, having hauled in two touchdowns in the 1943 title game. In 1946, he snagged two of Filchock’s six interceptions, including the pick-six.
Filchock, despite his broken nose and the mounting interceptions, never quit. He rallied the Giants to score two touchdowns, including a 38-yard strike to Frank Weibel and a short pass to Steve Filipowicz, tying the game at 14-14 in the third quarter.
With the game on the line in the fourth quarter, the Bears needed a breakthrough. Sid Luckman, who was also the team’s punter and had a statistically difficult day throwing the ball, cemented his legacy with a single, dramatic run. Luckman, who rarely ran in the regular season due to George Halas’s fear of injury, walked to the sideline and got approval from “The Old Man.” Halas simply nodded “now.”
Luckman returned to the huddle and called a play called “Bingo, Keep It!” He executed a perfect traditional bootleg, faking a handoff to the tremendous running threat George McAfee, which drew the Giants defense to the left. Luckman booted back around to the right side and ran 19 yards into the end zone, taking a hit at the 5-yard line before punching it in. It was Luckman’s only rushing touchdown of the 1946 season. The score put the Bears up 21-14, and a final field goal sealed the 24-14 victory.
Conclusion and Lasting Legacy
The 1946 NFL Championship victory, played in front of a record playoff crowd of 58,000, marked the end of the dominant run of the George Halas Chicago Bears. The Bears finished the decade with seven championships from 1921 to 1946, a dynasty built, as Hall of Famer Joe Stydahar noted, not on the best personnel, but on Halas’s “psychology and enthusiasm”—the “old bear spirit.” The game’s historical importance stretches beyond the scoreboard; the NFL, under Bert Bell, survived a major gambling scandal and implemented new rules requiring players to report approaches, reinforcing the league’s integrity. Furthermore, this contest featured unique historical footnotes, such as Charlie Berry, a former All-American and player for the Pottsville Maroons, serving as the head linesman. The 1946 title cemented the legacy of Halas as a visionary and the Bears as the team that successfully ushered professional football into the modern era.
