Reliving the 1963 NFL Championship Game

Two time defending champion Green Bay packers had a great season, but one of their rivals overcame even them that year.

It's up for a surprise and we have our historian friend Tom Poland joining us to tell us all about it in just a moment.

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

Your host, Darren Hayes, his podcast broadcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pigskind dispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to puzzle football history.

And welcome to our edition of our NFL Championship games before the Super Bowl.

And gosh, we are having a great time learning a lot about the early National Football League, the, the championship games, the players, the teams and the coaches.

You know, just some tremendous names that have been discussed here.

And as always, we have a guest historian from the team that won the National Football League championship that year.

Tom, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Oh, thanks a lot, Darren.

It's great to be here.

I, it's an exciting series so, so I'm thrilled to be a part of it.

Yeah.

Tom, since you're a first time guest here on our show, I know you've been on a couple of the other Sports History Network shows and you're in the works of having your own show here real soon.

Why don't you tell our listeners here in the Pig Pen a little bit about yourself and your background.

Well, I've been a sports fan all my life.

I've read extensively about sports history, baseball and football, especially been a Bears fan all my life and which for the most part can be very frustrating.

But I guess all fans can say that about their teams though it's one time or another.

So it's been very varied, but it's a lot of fun to do these kind of things.

I enjoy them, yeah, most definitely.

And we're so glad to have you, especially your extensive writing on the Bears and the National Football League in general with the Falcons and the Bears.

So that's great.

Well, it was a.

It's kind of a strange year because it started out with two of the biggest stars getting suspended for that season, you know, with Alex Karras of the Lions and.

And Paul Horning of the Green Bay packers for betting on football games.

And so, you know, associating with known gamblers.

It was rough.

But Pete Roselle did what he felt he had to do to maintain the integrity of the league.

To kind of use as a model for what gambling could do to a professional sports league.

So.

But Roselle did what he had to do and it hurt the packers because the packers were on a roll as NFL champions.

They had won in 61 and 62 over the New York Giants.

Giants were getting their third attempt at it, this time against the Bears.

But it was kind of the.

A breaking.

I mean, it was the start of one of the greatest dynasties in NFL history.

So.

But losing Hornet did hurt the.

Hurt the packers that year with the Bears.

You know, so so offense.

It seems like we always say that about the Bears.

A so so offense, but incredible defense.

So that's the way it went.

George Hallis was head coach again and they had an outstanding defensive head coach, George Allen, who went on the coach head coach for the Rams and Washington Redskins.

But Hallis wanted George Allen to coach the Bears.

He was grooming him to take his place as the head coach of the Bears.

And Allen, of course left to head coach the Los Angeles Rams and was a huge split between Hallis and Allen from then on.

It was amazing what that did kill their relationship.

It was amazing.

You know, they had five first team all pros, one second team all pro.

So just an incredible defense to make up for the fact that the offense was a little questionable.

Yeah, I mean, it's tremendous.

Like when you're talking about the packers falling off, you know, the packers fell off to an 112 and 1 record and wasn't good enough to win because Chicago was 11, 1 and 2.

Yeah, just one loss difference or tie difference.

Basically a tie turned into a loss.

And you know the Bears are in the championship game because in that era you had to top teams from each division for the championship.

And the.

Actually the Giants didn't have an easy time of it either because the Cleveland Browns were 10 and 4, the Giants are 11 and 3.

So both of them just narrowly winning out their respective conferences to make the championship game.

Well, the main thing with the Giants, they had an incredible offense with YA Tittle at quarterback who is trying desperately for his NFL championship game win, to finally win a championship.

Spent years as the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.

But you know the Giants had a then NFL record points, four points know scored that year.

And not just points allowed.

448 points which was just unbelievable for a 14 game season.

And yeah, and remember it was 14 games.

That's all you got.

Yeah, they had a really a big flurry of stars just like the Bears did.

You know, offensively besides YA Tittle, he's throwing to Gifford and Del Schoffner, Gifford and Del Shoffner.

He has Joe Walton as a tight end, Hugh McElhaney as a running back, Alex Webster, you know, they were very potent offensively like you said and it's really a great matchup of them against that very stout Bears defense.

Yeah, and that's what a lot of people were looking forward to.

And I think Tittle, you know, was a bit favored because I think a lot of NFL fans wanted to see him get his championship.

He had been, you know, shut down by the packers two straight years and always a popular player.

Popular player in New York too when he.

Not at first when he took off for Charlie Connerly, but you know, as he, you know, led the Giants and had the Giants winning became was very popular in New York and I know they were enthusiastic about seeing him finally winning an NFL championship.

And so.

And the Giants went into the game slightly favored.

So you know, but it's tough to work against a defense the way the Bears did.

He had defensive end Doug Atkins who ended up in hall of Fame, linebacker Joe Fortunato, another Hall of Famer and Bill George and two safeties and Richie Pettibone and Rosie Taylor that, you know, just incredible talent the Bears put on the field on defense.

So you know, it was always going to be tough for Tittle in this game.

But you know, the.

What I forget the phrase now I'm trying remember, but kind of the irresistible force going against the Immovable object.

You know, it's.

It's the way that went together.

But it's a, it's amazing that you say the Bears were the underdogs going, you know, Giants were favored against an 11 and 1 team.

Yeah, this team, you know, the Bears only lost once all season and they are the underdogs in this championship game.

That's.

That sort of blows my mind.

I know.

It really did.

But as I said, I think some of that had to do with the fact that the kind of hearts and minds were going for Tittle in, in that game.

But yeah, it is.

It's very surprising that Bears went into that game slight underdogs, but, you know, the way Tittle led that offense, it's, you know, do you, do you look at it a little surprising?

It just.

The Giants were favored by one point, so, you know, against that Bears team in Wrigley Field, you know, on the Bears turf.

So I guess, you know, been talking about these championship games and actually we haven't talked about the Bears since what, the 46 season?

Oh, 56.

I'm sorry, you're right.

They hadn't won since 46.

That's right.

Okay, so they were.

But it's been one time in the last two decades that they've been in where the Giants had three state straight season.

So maybe that, like you say, like you're alluding to, people are saying, okay, this is their time wide Tittles taking them there three times.

They lost twice to the Packers.

They have.

This Bears team hasn't been there in forever and, you know, who cares if they're 11 1?

It's a giant season.

So, yeah, the odds makers are saying, okay, we're going this way with our odds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So again, yeah, it's a little surprising, but in playing in the Bears home at Wrigley Field, I guess the Bears had an opportunity to play that game at Soldier Field, but Hallis didn't want to.

I think Pete Roselle wanted the Bears to play that game in Soldier Field because of the lights and the increased seating capacity, but Dallas turned them down, said, no, we are playing in our home ballpark.

And.

And that's the way it is.

So ended up being played at Wrigley Field.

And a lot of Chicago fans don't even realize or just don't remember that the Bears played for years at Wrigley Field.

It was a dual home.

So I've always found that amazing.

You Know, you have Soldier Field, this giant behemoth in downtown Chicago.

And they're playing the college All Star Game there every.

Every late summer, I guess, you know, getting a great draw there.

The Bears don't play there for decades.

It's not their home.

Yeah, it's surprising.

They hadn't played the Soldier Field before.

But, you know, that goes into the politics of how things work in Chicago.

And, you know, I don't really think we need to go there, but.

Right, right.

So.

But I think that's still up at the air, in the air at the time we're recording this.

I don't think definitive answer where they're exactly going to be at.

Somewhere in the Chicagoland area.

Well, a little bit northwest, in Arlington Heights they're talking about.

They bought the Arlington Heights racetrack site toward now the track, which was devastating because it was a historic track in.

In, you know, in the nation, in the country.

Ran the Arlington Million there for a long time, and it was one of the top race tracks in the country as.

As far as horse race fans know that, and tore it down to.

And the Bears bought that land.

And it is an extensive plot of land that they have out there, and a lot they can do with it.

And it's looking like the stadium is going to go there.

So you have half of Chicago saying, no, half of Chicago saying, you know, let's.

Let's get it over with and do it.

It's.

It's crazy.

Chicagoans can never agree on anything.

So, yeah, that's.

That's why you always have.

You had two NFL franchises for many, many years and two baseball teams forever.

Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah.

But with the baseball teams, you can't be a fan of one and being a fan of the other, you gotta be fan of one or the other.

And then when football season starts, everybody comes together to be a Bears fan.

There you go.

And the Blackhawks and the Bulls.

So you got that.

You got that unity, too.

So.

Right.

So I guess going into the 63 championship game, okay, you have.

We just talked about it.

You have these two very formidable rosters, you know, coming at each other, and we're playing in Chicago.

What kind of weather are we having on game day?

We are freezing we are is terrible.

Expect nothing better than that in December in Chicago, as we've seen in many of these championship games over the years.

11 degrees at game time.

They worked hard, did everything they could to try and keep that field warm, keep it from freezing over.

But once they took all the hay and the heaters and the tarps off the field, it froze right over.

There was nothing they could do.

And you know, which made it a little tougher on the Giants as far as being able to run their offense.

But yeah, it is kind of what you would expect in December for each NFL championship game.

You know, that's, that's what you get.

But yeah, it's was too bad for the Giants.

But as the game started it seemed like, you know, both teams were kind of feeling each other out.

The Giants got off to the, got off to a first score, Tittle to Frank Gifford and then one of the big praise of the game was not Kittle to Frank Gifford, but Larry Morris going down and hit Tittle in the knee.

And he had.

And from what Tittle said later, that one wasn't too bad, but it was a rough hit, it was tough to take.

So that was turned out to be one of the keys of the game later because near the end of the second half, near the end of the first half, Morris hit Tittle again in that same knee.

And that was the big injury for Tittle.

Affected his ability to play quarterback the rest of the game.

And it was kind of rough.

But Tittle had already thrown a couple of interceptions before that.

It's amazing.

Tittle for 14 interceptions all season.

The bears picked him off five times in that game.

Wow.

Yeah.

Five interceptions, so.

And now nowadays you throw five interceptions in a two game span is career ending, you know.

Yes, it is.

Right.

But again that Bear secondary was so good that Del Schaffner went over 5 as far as receptions.

He, you know, trying to face Pettibone and Rosie Taylor, they just completely shut that New York passing game down.

And that's one of the things Shoffner did drop a touchdown pass in that game, probably because of the cold, but it prevented another, you know, Giants touchdown.

Which in that the way the Bears offense operated and the way the temperature was in that game might have been a decider for the Giants.

You know, it was rough.

But the Bears kind of went through that season.

They never, they rarely turned the ball over.

Led the NFL in on offense and turnovers and probably one of the reasons why the offense worked, they were 10th in scoring but didn't turn the ball over on offense.

So you know, the one thing that saved that offense and helped that defense out a lot.

So.

And they, they did fumble twice in this game.

But you know, the Giants had seven turnovers in the game, five interceptions, two fumbles.

And that's amazing that the game stayed as close as it did.

So, so who did the, the Chicago scoring?

Billy Wade, the quarterback, did the two.

Got two Bears touchdowns, both on quarterback sneaks, both in short range.

The Bears tied the game seven, seven in the first, you know, in the first quarter and stayed tied until late in the second half when the Giants were finally able to move the ball down into Bears territory.

I think they made it to the Bears 3 yard line before they had to.

3 incompletions by Tittle forced them to kick a field goal and gave them a 10 to 7 lead.

But again, just before the half ended, Tittle took that second shot in the knee from Larry Morris and had to be helped off the field by Hugh McElhenny.

The Giants had their finished the first half with their backup quarterback who apparently in seven plays gained two yards of offense.

And at one point Ali Sherman, the coach of the Giants, punted on third down because he didn't want to give his quarterback another snap.

That's how bad his backup was.

So.

But as McElhenny had to help Tittle off the field and you know, when he got his knee hurt and then you know, into the locker room, apparently Tittle, he had to take a couple of shots, novocaine cortisone and get heavily bandaged just to play the second half.

But can you imagine that in 11 degree weather you're already aching?

I mean, first of all, when even perfectly healthy people going out in 11 degrees, you know you're aching, right?

You're going to go out there after you've taken a pounding, you're going to go back out there.

Oh, that's, that's some bravery there.

I can't even think, I don't even want to imagine it.

Even when I was old enough to go out and do something like that in 11 degree weather, I didn't want to do that in 11 degree weather.

It's just, it's, it's terrible, it's horrible.

But Tittle was a warrior, he always was.

And that's one of the reasons why he was so popular with the 49ers and then with the, with the Giants.

See, he would do anything possible and he knew without him the Giants had no chance.

So because that backup quarterback was not going to Move the football.

So he got heavily bandaged, did everything he could, but apparently from reports, he was throwing off his back foot most of the second half.

And we know that, you know, fundamentally horrible for a quarterback to be thrown off his bad foot.

He couldn't plant it.

It may lead to five interceptions in a game.

Right?

Yeah, right.

But, you know, he was doing everything he could to be on the field, and that was one of the problems because the big play of the game in the third quarter, he was trying to throw a screen pass, and Ed Abradovich, the Bears defensive end, came through the line and intercepted the screen pass.

You know, maybe if Tittle was healthy, he gets a little more zip on that pass.

It doesn't float.

But Abradovich was able to get his hands on it and return the ball down to the Giants 14.

So a 24 yard interception return, and that's what set up the Bears for their final touchdown.

They were at third and 10, hadn't moved the ball, or I think third and eight, moved the ball two yards.

And then Wade completed a pass to Mike Ditka, tight end, and Ditka carried the ball down to the one yard line.

And that set up Billy Wade's quarterback sneak for the touchdown.

It's really fortunate, you know, I guess, you know, the Bears eventually scored, but it's unbelievable that a screen pass that's picked off doesn't go for a pick six.

Yeah.

You know, because everybody's letting the, you know, the defense run through, so you definitely have more defenders back in that area than you do offensive guys that can make a tackle after a turnover like that.

So.

Yeah, he must have been running with like a refrigerator on his back or something after picking off that pass.

Yeah, Abramovich wasn't particularly fast.

He was big, but, yeah, definitely not fast.

He probably didn't take any ribbing in the locker room after, I'm sure.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

What do you think, Ed?

You couldn't get that ball in the end zone, for crying out loud.

Right.

Yeah, but he was brought down by this.

You know, one of the Giants running backs was like half the size and.

And finally, you know, dragged down.

But yeah, it was really something.

That was this big play of the game.

That.

That was the key play.

That was everything.

Because again, that cold, it gets harder to move the football the more you're out there.

And Tittle, the more he was out there, the more struggles he was having.

Yeah, so.

And then that's it for the scoring, right?

For the game.

That's that after that Bears chant or a touchdown and there's nothing in the fourth quarter.

Was there any like late drives or anything that maybe the Giants had some hope at the end?

Yeah, there was a two minute drive where Tittle was able to move the ball down to the Bears 40, but that's as far as he got.

He made one last attempt to try to find Schoffner in the end zone.

And you gotta realize Till was great at throwing long passes.

He was great doing it for the 49ers.

Well, he's.

He and I forget the 49ers receiver's name right now created this alley oops where Tittle would throw it up high in the end zone and go up and get it and you know, for the touchdown.

It was a great play for the 49ers.

Tittle loved throwing the long ball but overthrew Schoffner in the end zone and Pettibone was in position and made the interception for the second to final play.

Wade, well in that these days it would be taken knee.

But in those days I guess Wade had to kind of go down in the dirt to.

To finish the game.

But you know, again, if Tittle was not injured, how would that play, how would that have played out?

Or if Shofter doesn't drop that earlier?

If Shoffner doesn't drop touchdown.

Yeah.

That.

That changes the complexion of the game also.

Sure does.

Yeah.

Because the Bears with the, you know, 10th ranked 10th in points allowed that season were not going to come back from a big deficit.

The fact that they were down 10 to 7 probably had fans in the stands wondering if they were able to come back or not.

But again, it was up to the defense to make that big play.

And, and that's how the Bears did business all year, was off the backs of their defense.

And I guess if you think about they did do their job, seven turnovers, that's, you know, probably more than 50% of the drives that.

Yeah.

That the.

The other team had the Giants had in this whole game.

You know, that's.

That's quite a bit.

Yeah.

In a game if you're only losing by four points and giving up seven turnovers, you know, that's really an anomaly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I looked for a drive chart online.

I wanted to see how each drive broke down, but I couldn't find anything.

And it's hard to find stats for NFL.

The farther back you go, the harder it is to find these things.

Yeah, I don't.

I'm not seeing one either.

I was just going through real quick and trying to find it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be amazing.

Search for it and normally Pro Football Reference will give you some great stuff to.

As far as information, as far, as, you know, giving you even, you know, the number of drives and how they turned out.

But for this game, they.

They weren't.

Didn't even have that.

So it was a little disappointing.

But again, you hit the main points of the game.

The fact that that Bears defense did rise up and I mean, you were able to make hits on a quarterback that you are not allowed to make today would have been penalized very big for Morris, you know, going after Tittle's knee.

But what.

That was the game then.

That's how they did it.

Right?

It was rough and tumble back then, that's for sure.

And you had.

Morris did go after his knee.

He wanted to try and bring him down, you know, with his knee and that.

That was just how it went, how you did it.

That was part of the game back then, part of the strategy you had to deal with.

Yeah, devastating.

We never heard of ACL and MCL.

Yeah, you did.

But the common man football fan did not know what it was.

A knee injury is an ankle, the leg.

That's about it.

And usually those were.

Those could be career ending.

You know, everybody has a knee injury.

You know, oh, he busted up his knees.

He's done.

You know, that's.

Well, you look at Gail Sayers, who actually did come back from having ligaments repaired in his knee and, you know, won a rushing title after coming back from knee surgery.

But, you know, these days, Gail Sayers would have played for years afterwards and would have come back as good as new.

And in those days, Gale Sayers came back, but he didn't.

He wasn't the.

He didn't have the speed, didn't have the elusiveness that he had before enduring his knee.

Yeah, I guess maybe a good analogy or comparison of that is maybe like Adrian Peterson, how he had, you know, setting the league on fire like Sayers did.

Knee injury.

Okay, maybe one or maybe a bad year, Peterson really came back really quickly from his injury.

But the year after that, he, you know, he's on fire again.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's.

It's just amazing what you can do medically to help a player recover from these kind of Things it just didn't, didn't happen then.

Yeah, it's you know, Tommy John surgery.

Nobody ever knew what a Tommy John surgery was until Tommy John had the surgery.

But you know, he had a sore arm and, and that was it.

He had a sore arm.

There's nothing you could do about it.

So yeah, sports medicine has really just risen by leaps and bounds, grown by leaps and bounds ever since those days.

And that group really puts more emphasis on what Ya Tittle did.

You know, probably could have been out for the game or out for a longer period of time, but really toughed it out, you know, bandaged up in 11 degree weather and, and goes out there and braves it out to try to lead his team back and still throwing passes and you know, giving his team a chance and only losing by 4.

So tremendous job by ya tittle and for you, Tom, for you know, describing this game, the season and both of these clubs that really legendary players on both sides.

Yeah.

And George Allen did get the game ball for that, for that win, players awarded him the game ball and reminds you of like the 85 Bears when they won Super Bowl 20.

Buddy Ryan had that, you know, was just immensely loved by the defense.

They carried him off the field while the offense carry did go up the field.

So you know, that shows you how defense kind of defines the Bears over the course of their franchise history that, you know, they, they were able to, you know, rely on that defense, on legendary, a legendary defense then legendary defense in 85 and they still play strong defense.

So just the definition of their team.

Yeah, tremendous.

The old adage is true in this case.

Defense wins championships.

And that was the way it worked for many years in the National Football League.

So.

And you look at the packers, they had a very good defense that year too.

They were second in points allowed.

They had a big, it's amazing how big a hole in their offense was created when Horning was out for that year that it.

The Bears scored seven points against them in two games, but you know, 63, it was just enough for the Bears to get over the hump to defeat the packers, slip past them for that Western Conference title.

So it shows you what their Packer dynasty could have been if they had managed in 63 to continue their dominance and play the Giants in a third NFL title game.

And in the super bowl era, you know, one of the first two NFL NFL title games to go against the AFC champions.

So it's, it's amazing how it just comes out that, you know that one suspension that really hurt the packers and the Bears slipped in and did everything possible and, and, and managed to come out on top for that season and you know.

Yeah.

Kind of last hurrah for George Hallis too.

Yeah, right, right.

And he went on to have some more success.

Never really got that those titles with the, the Rams and Redskins which we've talked about on other episodes of this was guests.

But it definitely was his chance to get his ring and good signs for things for other teams to come that he would be bringing some winning ways to their franchises.

Yeah, exactly.

Tom, you know you did a tremendous job here.

And we really look forward to you know, getting a tape today was getting a taste of your upcoming podcast is going to be.

I know, yet untitled, yet described but we really look forward to hearing here working on that.

So it's coming.

Yeah.

So we thank you again for your research and your sharing today of this piece of NFL history.

I appreciate it.

It was great to be here.

Love talking NFL history anytime and the Bears and being on with you, you know, great show and I'm looking forward to catching up with more of your shows on these NFL title games.

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