The Inaugural NFL Championship Game: A Closer Look at 1933

Joe's up right after this to tell us all about it.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron day at a time.

Welcome to the Pig Pen, everybody.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskind dispatch.com we are so excited to talk about this.

And we have a lot of help coming in.

And tonight we have one of the great historians of football history.

Joe, welcome back to the Pig pen.

Oh, Darren, thanks so much.

What a wonderful game to start with in this remarkable series.

And I've been looking forward to hearing it and from the other folks that are involved and from you, of course.

So thanks very much for having me.

And we got a lot of fun stories tonight.

Yeah, I'll bet we do.

And this is like the first championship game and boy, did the NFL nail it on this one.

We're going to find out here later.

We haven't talked to you in a while.

So what do you have going on in your life of football?

Yeah, I've been starting to write some more books.

My last book was Bears vs.

Cardinals, the NFL's oldest rivalry.

Really enjoyed doing that.

And this was a lot of fun to update.

It's kind of like a dream come true to have that book come out again because there's things I wished I knew at the time and didn't.

And of course, our means of researching now has become so accelerated that we can find out so much more.

And so we made a lot of changes to that book, including adding an index and all of the resources, which took a long time after 25 years to go back and plug in the resources for everything, and then also do some new interviews with people that we've met over the years and adding some new information, including some lost games from the Chicago Cardinals.

So looking forward to seeing that coming out very quickly from our friends at McFarland.

Oh, I think we all are excited about that because we know how good the first edition was.

How many years ago was it that the first edition came out?

The first edition came out.

So, yeah.

Got a quarter of a century in between these.

A little over a quarter century.

Well, I was in kindergarten then, so it pretty a big project for me at the time.

I didn't know how to type, so I wrote everything out, printed it by hand.

I.

I thought it was all in crayon.

I thought I recognized for me.

But Joe, we were so glad that you're.

You're back to writing again.

You got some new projects.

You're rehashing some old projects.

Well, we want to talk about one of your favorite subjects, and that's Chicago football.

Maybe you could tell us about the season and how it went and.

And what happened.

I think, actually, if you don't mind, I'd step back three years.

Sure.

Before we get to 33 and.

And maybe tell or share how we got to that.

Before that, it was the best record.

But even that was a little wacky.

The Bears were 6:1 and 6, Portsmouth was 6:1 and 4.

So we eliminated that.

And so those were decided to be the two best teams.

And that's when the Bears and the Chicago Cardinals decided to have an exhibition game for charity during the Depression and wanted to meet outdoors somewhere in December.

The weather was horrible, so they decided they would try and play an indoor game at Chicago Stadium, which is the home the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team.

So in Order to pull this off for the game and the only date or so that they could get, they had to unfreeze the rink, bring in six inches of dirt almost overnight and play the game inside the.

The hockey rink.

And it was really a comedy of errors.

The Bears won the game late.

We had things going on like Ernie Nevers punching one off the scoreboard above the ice, guys getting knocked woozy, hitting the sideboards because they were in the, in the hockey rink with the wooden sideboards.

But it was fun.

A few thousand people came.

It was the first time I've ever seen something where football memorabilia I can't even pronounce that was offered because they had an autograph football from Red Grange and Ernie Nevers that they were going to auction off.

So it was really a lot of fun.

And we kind of put that aside because it's listed as the first time of pro teams or pro teams had met indoors, which is true with the modern NFL.

So these fields were a lot shorter, a lot narrower, and certain rules were in place, like no field goal tries and no punting after some of the games.

And I think the National Football League was also beginning to realize that all these zero to zero ties, and there was a ton of them that year, were maybe hurting attendance.

So they were kind of thinking of ways to change the college or change the rules from what the college game was offering.

It wasn't a championship game, but it was considered a playoff game since they had these identical 6 and 1 records.

If you toss out the ties, the game was supposed to be in Chicago.

The weather was horrible.

George Hallis decided, hey, we did this a couple years ago, maybe the league would be interested rather than postponing the game and losing what gate we might have had.

Because again, the only revenue was from the attendance, not from television, which didn't exist, or cable rights, etc.

So they agreed that they would play in Chicago Stadium.

The scenario was a bit different this time.

A starving End a coach who spit tobacco juice and an unconstipated elephant.

And this time they didn't have to unfreeze the ice.

They didn't have to bring in dirt because the circus had been in town for a week.

Well, what this meant was dirt was brought in so that the deer and the antelope could play.

And the in the rink, including the elephants.

And the elephants were using this.

I'm trying to be politically correct.

They had to use the field as their washroom.

And so when the players and the team showed up, the stench was pretty bad.

In fact, there's reports that a couple of the Bears actually got sick from the smell of the field.

The elephants felt a lot better.

The Chicago Bears players did not.

And even the late Virginia Muskowski, who passed away recently, the owner of the Bears, recalled being at that game and said she still remembered the smell.

So as the game went on, there was certain rules in place.

Again, we had a very narrow field.

It was 80 yards long, but that was only 60, really, for the field.

And so every time a team would get to a certain yard line, they'd move it back 20 yards to kind of simulate what a normal 100 yard field would be.

But the Bears won the game late in the game between two brilliant hall of Famers named Bronco Nagursky and Red Grange.

And the rule at the time for passing was passing still wasn't really looked upon too favorably.

But the one rule was you had to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage before you could launch a pass.

So Nagurski got the ball.

He started trudging up towards the line of scrimmage.

All of a sudden he jumped up, threw a jump pass to Grange, who dove for the ball, grabbed it for the touchdown.

The referee said the play was legal.

I think it was Dutch Clark, who was the coach of Portsmouth, just went absolutely nuts.

He said, there is a rule in this league that you got to be 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

But the referee said, no, it was okay.

And it was interesting because winning this one on the indoors, it really wasn't considered a championship.

But it gave the league some ideas.

A couple things had been done in the game that really made sense.

One was the ball was moved five yards in from the hockey boards, which became hash marks.

And they also had a rule of course, with the, the passing.

The league decided after the season that you can now pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage.

And even Dutch Clark, he, he agreed with that.

He said why not?

Because if we didn't have it, Nagursky would throw it from anywhere anyway.

So we had the new rule for passing.

We had the hash marks which were going to be on the field because in the old days if the guy ran out of bounds, you would put the ball right there next to the out of bounds lines.

With your unbalanced line you'd have to waste a play just to get away from the out, out of bounds to, to get your play going.

And so those were a couple of the great rules that changes were made.

But the other one was this idea of having a playoff between two teams that tied made a lot of sense.

And so Joe Carr, who was always looking for ways of improving the game, he was the commissioner of the league.

And they decided to divide up the 10 teams into five divisions.

Eastern Division and the Western Division and the east would play the west in the overall championship game.

Made a lot of sense.

Just like the World Series in baseball.

And almost as if it was scripted, the New York Giants and Chicago Bears both ran away to their divisions.

And it really helped that the two largest cities in the league or in the country at the time were going to play for the championship.

The Giants were 11 and 3, the Bears were 10, 2 and 1.

And they got to that point kind of on different paths.

The Bears started out, or the Giants both actually started out strongly and then had mid season rough areas.

But the Giants were definitely the hottest team in the league, winning their last several games going into the championship.

So both teams had a lot of really, really good players on their teams.

So guys like Grange, Nagursky, etc were there.

And led of course by George Hellas, their curmudgeon owner at the time.

But the Bears really had some decent players.

He was still with the bears.

I shouldn't say bigger names, but guys that became kind of well known as the season went on.

Some of the players, I'm trying to think.

Hat Moran, who's been around his son Michael Moran talks quite a bit about the Giants and what they did.

But I think the best thing that we know about the Giants is they had great nicknames.

We had Red, Tiny, Potsy, Kink, and Rib.

Not sure where the name King came from, but as we look over the roster, Red Badgrow, we had him on the team.

Harry Newman, King Richards, of course, and Ken Strong, the fullback.

And they were led by coach Steve Owen, who had played in the league himself.

He was described usually as stout, 5 foot 9, 5 foot 10, 230 pounds.

One time when he was playing, he complained that he wasn't being sold for enough money.

And he said something like, I've seen fat cows or pigs being sold more than for $500.

But then again, he said, maybe a fat pig is worth more than a fat tackle.

So I guess I'm.

I'm valued.

So that brought us again to the.

And before I jump on, do you have any comments or anything?

I'm babbling quite a bit here during.

I apologize.

No, no.

But when you go back to some of those rules that were added, I believe this was actually the first year that the NFL separated itself from the NCAA rules.

They wrote their own rule book with those additions.

So those were the impetus of putting the NFL on its course of having its own rule book separate from the college and the high school games.

Yeah, it certainly was, especially in the passing now that you could pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage.

And I believe that year or the year after, they also streamlined the ball a little bit to make it easier to pass.

Yeah.

So these big changes, the has marks, the passing rule, and of course the divisions, all really, really help to improve the NFL.

And they moved the field goal, goal post up to the end of the.

I should say the end line.

Years later, they moved it back again.

But this encouraged field goals to get rid of some of these nasty 00ties.

So it was a.

A game that was set up, and the Chicago Daily News eventually called it the greatest game ever playing professional football.

The reason for that was the game just went back and forth.

They.

They guys couldn't keep a lead, so they Would give it up, someone else would grab the lead.

It really kind of started out with the, with the Bears with their new kicker, Jack Manders, who for the first time was someone in the league who was accurate with kicking.

You know, if we look through and research these older games and a lot of them were drop kicks, the accuracy wasn't too good.

And you kind of look back say, oh, this guy was 10 for 18 that year and he was the acclaimed kicker.

But Manders, I believe, kicked all 14 of his extra points.

And he was also very accurate on field goals.

So when the Giants showed up for this, this big game, the championship game, Manders let off the scoring.

Bears had a six to nothing lead, but the Giants came back.

Red Badgro picked up a pass 29 yards from Henry.

Henry Newman.

And there was some story about that play where way back when there would be kind of a hidden ball trick.

And so there was a trick play where I think it was Newman was supposed to run with the ball and then he decided to throw it because the other guy was wide open.

That might have been Ken Strong later, but a lot of different things in the game.

Sometimes the Bears would wear brown patches on their jersey so the ball would be disguised when they ran with it.

The NFL got smarter of course over the years and outlawed the brown patches.

But anyway, the touchdown by Red Badgro on the pass from here, Harry Newman made it 7 6.

Giants at the half.

Things get even Crazier in the second half.

Manders kicked his third field goal, this time for 15 yards in the third quarter.

So the Bears led nine to seven.

And then Max Kraus scored on a one yard run.

The extra point was good, so the giants now led 14 to 9 in the third quarter.

So how would this one end up?

The Bears finally got a touchdown.

And this was kind of an unusual play.

In fact, I found an imitation of it on YouTube.

A rookie end named Bill Carr caught a.

A pass.

Well, actually from Bronco Nagurski.

This is before the last play I just mentioned.

And Carr caught this eight yard pass from Nagurski.

Manders made the kick, so it was 16 to 14 in terms of the Bears being ahead.

And Bill Carr is an interesting gu.

You don't hear a lot about in the history book, but he was extremely valuable to the Bears.

I met his grandson a while back who told me that when he was approached by George Hallis to play for the Bears.

He said, yeah, I'd love to.

And Hallis sent him just a minimal amount of money to get to Chicago.

Maybe it was $10.

So by the time he used it on his railroad fair and had a sandwich, he was kind of broke.

He went to the Bears training camp and after a couple days he just looked weak and they noticed he didn't look too good and finally said, well, I haven't eaten in two or three days and so hell, so I'm going to give you a bonus.

And he took them out for a big steak dinner.

That was George House, no money involved, but he bought him dinner.

And I think later they started feeding the training camp.

So the bears were up 16, 14 at the end of three.

What would the Giants do?

Well, Strong caught an eight yard pass, another one from Newman, and the kick was good.

So The Giants led 21 to 16.

And that led to this wacky crazy play, another touchdown by Bill Carr in the fourth quarter.

And what happened was Bill Hewitt caught a pass from Nagursky and as Hewitt was running with the ball, he all of a sudden lateral the ball to Bill Carr, who want the final 31 yards for the touchdown.

And with the extra point, The Bears led 23, 21.

And that was the final score.

That wacky play was kind of a fun game for the spectators.

The bears took home $210 each, which was the first place championship prize at the time.

And the Giants walked away with $140.

So no one was complaining.

But it ended what was considered one of the best games in NFL history.

And before the game, Joe Carr, the commissioner, had promised something interesting to the fans.

He said he knew the fans wanted more football thrills.

And he said it's the tendency in our league to open the game up.

Football fans want to see that football.

They want to see spectacular plays, kicks and long runs for touchdowns.

And we're going to go out and do our best to give them what they want.

So he certainly did in that game.

And as we just talked earlier, I think this really opened up the NFL.

Attendance started increasing, there was more scoring with the passing game being opened up.

College game was still popular with the humongous crowds.

But you can see the the pros starting to get a little bit of their share in places where Chicago, New York, with the teams were established.

So all in all, that very first NFL game could be called a landmark.

It was certainly not only a good game, but showing off the new rules and the fact that a championship game would work just like the World Series did.

And so as we know today we have something called the Super Bowl.

Were 129 million people watch that final game.

Wow.

Well, well done, Joe.

That is a great story, a great season and what a, what a game to have your first championship game.

Be a two point game that gets resolved, you know, late in the game too.

So that's just a back and forth affair with two, the best, definitely the best two teams in football at the time.

And they played like it and played evenly matched.

So that was, that was a great, great way to tell us about that history.

So, yeah, it was a fun game.

Like I said, easily the two best teams based on records.

And it was interesting.

The Giants went through their season without a tie.

The bears just had one tie.

And so between them they were 21 and 5 and 1.

And that sounds so foreign to us, you know, when we were talking about the rules being changed and we take those for granted.

The hash marks, you know who, whoever thinks about the hash marks.

Probably most people don't even know they exist.

And.

Yes, but it's such commonplace and you know, just some of the other rules, you know, where the field goals, goal posts are now and you know how all that transpires.

But you're right, this is a milestone year, not only because of the rules and the championships and creating separate divisions for separating the NFL into two divisions, but just, you know, the games themselves and the competition level, everything went up a notch.

And I think that really helped them start to compete against the college.

It was going to be another 20 years before they start getting some footing against the college game, but they're getting there.

So that's a interesting year.

Very interesting year.

And we can all blame it on the circus.

Yeah.

Especially with the unconstipated elephants, as you said.

One of the great lines I think you've ever shared with us on the show.

I apologize.

No, no, it was great.

It was great.

You're very politically correct.

So we appreciate that.

Our younger audiences appreciate that too.

But, you know, something that we do appreciate is, you know, you're always working to preserve football history and, you know, what do you have coming up on the horizon that people maybe can get excited about?

Well, we're continuing our podcast, which is called When Football Was Football, where we look at something related to the Chicago area, whether it be the Bears, the Cardinals or colleges.

But also have a couple more books coming out.

One which is close to My Heart is called from the NFL to Baton and Back, which is the heroic journey of Notre Dame's Mats Tenelli.

And Mats was a player for the Cardinals who volunteered for World War II before the war started.

Unfortunately was in the Philippines when the Japanese hit Pearl harbor and then the Philippines.

He was part of the Bataan Death March and he survived.

But he spent the entire war in prisons, in Japanese prisons.

And he gave credit to his football training with Notre Dame and the Chicago Cardinals for giving him the strength to get through that.

And it's.

It's a tough story to write.

Has been because of.

I wanted to keep that story of that generation and those guys going.

What they went through, how their life could be changed in a day or so with war.

And what they went through was pretty tough.

But also the just the elation of coming home, playing in that game and being back with your family who had no idea where you were for almost four years.

So that's one.

Working with his family and his daughter has been really just emotional.

But also I'm just so happy to be able to share that story.

His family really did a service for us pro football researchers by donating Dutch's letters and correspondence to the hall of Fame a few years ago.

So working again with the family, his daughter and his grandson were putting together a biography of Dutch, which is a lot of fun as well because he kept all the financial records from the early years.

We haven't seen that before.

We know that.

So things were not easy for the NFL in those early days.

And with Dutch hasn't been given enough credit for what he did to not only help save the league, but bringing on Red Grange and a lot of the other innovations that he brought with him as part of the owner owner of the Bears.

Well, I'm really excited to do that.

And you know, actually Dutch tournament.

We.

We referenced some of your Dutch tournament references in your when football was Football.

The original where you have some telegrams of for our Pottsville again talking back and forth where she gave, gave some great insight just on the telegrams that he was sending to Hallis, I believe.

Yeah.

With the whole thing with Grange and the possible maroons in the Frankfurt yellow jacket.

So I can't wait to, to read both of these books, you know, both great stories by a great storyteller and we're so excited and we can't wait to those come out.

Well, very kind.

Thank you.

And of course, as we always like to say, thank you, Darren and the Pigskin Dispatch for all you do on a daily basis to keep pro football history alive.

It's greatly appreciated.

And generations to come, we'll have this record of all the information that you're helping us retain.

Well, Joey, thank you.

And it's, it's guests like you that make the history come to life and tell the stories to help preserve the football history.

And you know, your podcast and everybody else's podcasts that are out there, you know, especially the PFRA associated folks that are doing it because we're, we're trying to get the facts and, and put them out there for the public to enjoy for, like you said, for ages to come.

So a great, great work that we're doing in writing.

So Joe, we really appreciate you coming on here and we got you penciled in for a few more visits here in our journey through these four decades of NFL championship games before the Super Bowl.

And we can't wait to hear what you have to say on some of these other great teams.

And we're having fun with this, this series already and you're kicking us off.

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity as always, Darren, and can't wait to share some wacky stories about some of these other title games.

All right, Joe, we'll talk to you very soon.

Great, thank you.

Take care.

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