Worth a Thousand Words: Bronko Nagurski and Beattie Feathers

  

     Bronko Nagurski was born in the picturesquely named town of Rainy River, Ontario, and grew up in International Falls, Minnesota. From the time he was very young, he was regarded as a sort of real-life Paul Bunyan.

     Clarence “Doc” Spears, his coach at the University of Minnesota, had a colorful account of how he recruited Nagurski. “I saw this young kid pushing a plow,” Spears said. “There was no horse or anything else, just this kid pushing a plow. I asked directions of him, and he picked up the plow and pointed with it. I decided then and there he should go to Minnesota.” 

     Bronko went on to perform spectacularly at Minnesota, and he joined the Bears in 1930. He weighed about 235 pounds at a time when very few players exceeded 210. A fullback on offense and a tackle and linebacker on defense, Nagurski was the heart and soul of the Bears’ powerhouse teams of the thirties, and he later came out of retirement to lead the Bears to the NFL championship in 1943. 

    

BRONKO NAGURSKI and BEATTIE FEATHERS

 

In 1934, running behind his lead blocker Nagurski, rookie halfback Beattie Feathers became the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season. Feathers averaged an unbelievable 8.4 yards per carry (Nagurski himself registered an impressive 4.8) as the Bears went 13-0 for the regular season before the New York Giants denied them a third straight world championship in the title game.

     Nagurski was a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1963. His plaque calls him “a bulldozing runner on offense and a bone-crushing linebacker on defense.” 

     Has there ever been a more intimidating, bad-ass Bear than Nagurski? It’s hard to say,  because very few people who saw him play are still around to tell about it--and because Dick Butkus also played for the Bears. At the very least, Nagurski certainly fits right in with the likes of Butkus, Doug Atkins, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Olin Kreutz, Khalil Mack, Steve McMichael, Ed O’Bradovich, Doug Plank, Brian Urlacher, and anyone else who comes to mind.

     A quote from Green Bay Packers fullback and linebacker Clarke Hinkle, whose career overlapped almost exactly with Nagurski’s, will shed some light on how Bronko was viewed by his contemporaries. “Nagurski was probably the greatest player I ever went up against,” said Hinkle, himself a Hall of Famer. “I thought to myself, ‘You either better start moving and go after him or just get the hell out of the way, because otherwise you are going to get killed.’”

 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.     

 

Monsters of the Midway

What George Halas, Sid Luckman, and the Bears did in their 73-0 victory over Washington in the 1940 NFL championship game soon revolutionized football. The Bears’ stunning success loosed a stampede to the T-formation offense by virtually every pro, college, and high-school team in the country.

The formation was not new. “From time immemorial,” Halas wrote in his autobiography, “the backfield had lined up in a T, the quarterback directly behind the center, the fullback directly behind him four or five yards with a halfback on each side. The ball went to the quarterback who pivoted and handed or pitched to one of the backs. The other backs became blockers or receivers. The formation made sense for driving straight ahead. The objective then was power, power, power.”

By the late twenties, coaches were experimenting with ways to free their linemen and backs from plowing straight into the defense’s strength. They shifted players around before the snap, forcing defenders to adjust their own positions at the last second. But something was still missing until Ralph Jones, head coach of the Bears from 1930 to 1932, began to exploit the previously obscure rule by which one man could shift his position and continue moving behind the line of scrimmage right up until the time the ball was snapped.

The man-in-motion feature became the key to the Bears’ modern T-formation. In Halas’s words, “It broke the game wide open.” The man in motion “could take a lateral and run straight ahead,” Halas explained, “or he could run downfield to take a long pass, or he could come in behind the defensive line to take a short pass, or he could join the end in blocking for another back coming around with the ball.” The man in motion could also be used as a decoy; if a linebacker or defensive back followed him downfield, other areas would be left open and vulnerable.

Throughout the thirties, Halas and his colleague Clark Shaughnessy worked at refining Jones’s innovations. They were aided by several new rules. One permitted a forward pass from anywhere behind the line (replacing the earlier limit of at least five yards). Another called for the ball to be placed 10 yards from the sideline after being carried out of bounds, so the offense didn’t have to spend a down in order to gain room to maneuver. Still another made the ball less round, more streamlined and thus easier to throw. Halas and Shaughnessy devised myriad plays and blocking schemes to capitalize on these changes. When Sid Luckman arrived in 1939, everything fell into place. Halas now had the quarterback he needed to run his modern T with devastating effectiveness.

With Luckman at the controls, the Bears were close to perfect. The unforgettable championship game of 1940 was just the beginning for the team that became known as the Monsters of the Midway. For the next three years, the Bears dominated the league like no other team before or since.

In 1941, the Bears defeated the Packers 25-17 in the season opener at Green Bay. The Packers—led by the great tandem of Cecil Isbell and Don Hutson—beat the Bears 16-14 at Wrigley Field in the sixth game. Neither team lost another game, and both finished the regular season 10-1-0. A week after Pearl Harbor, they played off for the Western Division championship. Sensing that the game would for all practical purposes decide the world championship as well, more than 43,000 fans packed into Wrigley Field despite the temperature of 16 degrees. After spotting the Packers a 7-0 lead early, the Bears scored 30 unanswered points before halftime and coasted to a 33-14 victory.

The title game was a bit of an anticlimax, as fewer than 14,000 showed up to see the Bears dispatch the New York Giants 37-9 for their second straight world championship. In 13 games (including the postseason), the Bears scored 30 or more points 10 times. In four games, they scored 48 or more. In no game did they allow more than 24.

 

In 1942, the Bears had the greatest regular season in NFL history. They won all 11 games, amassing 376 points to their opponents’ 84. In their closest game, they won by two touchdowns. They scored 35 or more points seven times. In the final six games, they recorded four shutouts and allowed but seven points in each of the other two. Riding an incredible 18-game winning streak, the Bears rolled into Washington for the championship game favored by more than 20 points. Redskins coach Ray Flaherty said nothing to his players before the game; he simply went over to the blackboard and wrote 73-0. The inspired Redskins pulled off a 14-6 upset to give their owner George Preston Marshall his revenge for 1940.

BRONKO NAGURSKI

In 1943, many key players were in the armed forces—as was Halas, who had joined the Navy. Fortunately for the Bears’ temporary co-coaches Hunk Anderson and Luke Johnsos, Sid Luckman remained. The league’s Most Valuable Player that season, Luckman was joined by the legendary Bronko Nagurski, who returned to help out after five years in retirement. Nagurski, 34, had initially declined the Bears’ entreaties that he come back, saying he was “just a little too old for this type of activity.” When Johnsos promised that he could play tackle exclusively and not have to worry about running the ball, Bronko agreed.

The promise was broken in the last game of the regular season. Needing a win to earn the Western Division title and another shot at Washington for the league title, the Bears found themselves trailing the winless Cardinals 24-14 after three quarters in the snow at Comiskey Park. Then Bronko took over. “What a great spot for a legend to be in,” William Goldman wrote, “coming back after so many years, one quarter to play, the title on the line, and 10 points behind.” Nagurski lined up at his old fullback position, and Luckman gave him the ball time and time again. “He was like an ax hitting a tree,” Goldman wrote. “It doesn’t matter how big the tree is, when the ax starts coming, you better look out.”

Nagurski kept hammering away behind center Bulldog Turner, and the Cardinals found it harder and harder to bring him down. He rushed 16 times for 84 yards in the fourth quarter, carrying the Bears to three touchdown drives for a 35-24 win and the division crown.

In the championship game, Luckman threw for five touchdowns and also intercepted three Washington passes as the Bears triumphed 41-21—thus avenging their only loss of the regular season and their defeat in the previous year’s title game. A reporter asked Nagurski why he had returned after such a long time away from the game. He simply said, “Halas wanted me to.” Since the comeback had gone so well, the reporter inquired, would he stay on for another season? “Hell no,” Nagurski said, smiling. “I can’t go on taking care of Halas all my life.”

 

The Bears of 1941, 1942, and 1943 ran up an unbelievable regular-season record of 29-2-1, averaging almost 34 points a game while holding their opponents to just over 12. Including postseason, their total record was 32-3-1. In addition to Nagurski (whose earlier career had already qualified him), six members of this juggernaut were destined for the Pro Football Hall of Fame: center Turner, right guard George Musso, left guard Danny Fortmann, left tackle Joe Stydahar, halfback George McAfee, and quarterback Luckman.

Only Green Bay and Washington stood between the Bears and absolute perfection during this period. The Packers beat the Bears once and tied them once, while the Redskins beat them twice. Against the rest of the league, the Bears were 25-0-0.

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.

Bears By the Numbers

The Bears are the NFL's flagship franchise, have won nine world championships, have more Hall of Famers than any other team, and boast more than a handful of names that are truly legendary--Halas, Grange, Nagurski, Luckman, Sayers, Butkus, and Payton, to name the more obvious ones.  

For no particular reason, we thought it would be fun to name the greatest Bears by uniform number, so here goes. (Asterisks indicate retired numbers.)

 

  1. Jimmy Conzelman, HB/E, 1920

  2. Paddy Driscoll, HB/QB, 1926 - 1929

  3. * Bronko Nagurski, FB/LB/T, 1930 - 1937, 1943

  4. Jim Harbaugh, QB, 1988 - 1993

  5. * George McAfee, HB/DB, 1940 - 1950

  6. Jay Cutler, QB, 2009 - 2016

  7. * George Halas, E, 1920 - 1928

  8. Rex Grossman, QB, 2002 - 2008

  9. Jim McMahon, QB, 1982 - 1988

10. Rudy Bukich, QB, 1963 - 1968

11. Jack Concannon, QB, 1967 - 1971

12. Link Lyman, T, 1926 - 1934

13. George Trafton, C, 1920 - 1932

14. Dick Plasman, T/E, 1937 - 1941, 1944

15. Brandon Marshall, WR, 2012 - 2014

16. George Blanda, QB/K, 1953 - 1958

17. Richie Petitbon, DB, 1959 - 1968

18. Mike Tomczak, QB, 1985 - 1990

19. Gary Huff, QB, 1973 - 1976

20. Mark Carrier, DB, 1990 - 1996

21. Donnell Woolford, DB, 1989 - 1996

22. Matt Forte, RB, 2008 - 2015

23. Devin Hester, KR/WR, 2006 - 2013

24. Roosevelt Taylor, DB, 1961 - 1969

25. Todd Bell, DB, 1981 - 1987

26. Bennie McRae, DB, 1962 - 1970

27. Mike Richardson, DB, 1983 - 1988

28. * Willie Galimore, RB, 1957 - 1963

29. Ronnie Bull, RB, 1962 - 1974

30. Mike Brown, DB, 2000 - 2008

31. Joe Fortunato, LB, 1955 - 1966

32. Johnny Lujack, QB/DB, 1948 - 1951

33. Charles Tillman, DB, 2003 - 2014 

34. * Walter Payton, RB, 1975 - 1987

35. Neal Anderson, RB, 1986 - 1993

36. Markus Paul, DB, 1989 - 1993

37. Tony Parrish, DB, 1998 - 2001 

38. Danieal Manning, DB, 2006 - 2010

39. Eddie Jackson, DB, 2017 - present

40. * Gale Sayers, RB/KR, 1965 - 1971

41. * Brian Piccolo, RB, 1966 - 1969

42. * Sid Luckman, QB/DB, 1939 - 1950

43. Jim Dooley, E, 1952 - 1961

44. Terry Schmidt, DB, 1976 - 1984

45. Gary Fencik, DB, 1976 - 1987

46. Doug Plank, DB, 1975 - 1982

47. Johnny Morris, WR/RB, 1958 - 1967

48. Allan Ellis, DB, 1973 - 1980

49. Charlie Bivins, RB/TE, 1960 -1966

50. Mike Singletary, LB, 1981 - 1992

51. * Dick Butkus, LB, 1965 - 1973

52. Dan Neal, C, 1976 - 1983

53. Nick Roach, LB, 2007 - 2012

54. Brian Urlacher, LB, 2000 - 2012

55. Lance Briggs, LB, 2003 - 2014

56. * Bill Hewitt, E/DE, 1932 - 1936

57. Olin Kreutz, C, 1998 - 2010

58. Wilber Marshall, LB, 1984 - 1987

59. Gary Campbell, LB, 1977 - 1983

60. Wally Chambers, DT/DE, 1973 - 1977

61. * Bill George, LB/DT/G, 1952 - 1965

62. Mark Bortz, G, 1983 - 1994

63. Jay Hilgenberg, C, 1981 - 1991

64. Andy Heck, T/G, 1994 - 1998

65. Noah Jackson, G, 1975 - 1983

66. * Bulldog Turner, C/LB, 1940 - 1952

67. Jerry Fontenot, C/G, 1989  - 1996

68. Jim Osborne, DT, 1972 - 1984

69. Revie Sorey, G, 1975 - 1982

70. Herman Lee, T, 1958 - 1966

71. James "Big Cat" Williams, T, 1991 - 2002

72. Jim Cadile, G/T, 1962 - 1972

73. Mike Hartenstine, DE, 1975 - 1986

74. Jimbo Covert, T, 1983 - 1990

75. Kyle Long, T, 2013 - 2019

76. Steve McMichael, DT, 1981 - 1993

77. * Red Grange, HB/DB, 1925, 1929 - 1934

78. Stan Jones, G/T/DT, 1954 - 1965

79. Dick Evey, DT/DE, 1964 - 1969

80. Curtis Conway, WR, 1993 - 1999

81. Doug Atkins, DE, 1955 - 1966

82. Wendell Davis, WR, 1988 - 1993

83. Willie Gault, WR, 1983 - 1987

84. Brian Baschnagel, WR, 1977 - 1984

85. Dennis McKinnon, WR, 1983 - 1989

86. Marty Booker, WR, 1999 - 2008

87. Ed O'Bradovich, DE, 1962 - 1971

88. Bobby Joe Green, P, 1962 - 1973

89. * Mike Ditka, TE, 1961 - 1966

90. Julius Peppers, DE, 2010 - 2013

91. Tommie Harris, DT, 204 - 2010

92. Hunter Hillenmeyer, LB, 2003 - 2010

93. Adawale Ogunleye, DE, 2004 - 2009

94. Leonard Floyd, LB, 2016 - 2019

95. Richard Dent, DE, 1983 - 1993, 1995

96. Alex Brown, DE, 2002 - 2009

97. Chris Zorich, DT, 1991 - 1997

98. Bryan Robinson, DT/DE, 1998 - 2003

99. Dan Hampton, DE/DT, 1979 - 1990

 

Powerhouse

The first postseason game in NFL history was also the first indoor game in NFL history. It was played on December 18, 1932, in Chicago Stadium. In that game, the Bears took on the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans, who would soon move to Detroit and become the Lions. The account below is adapted from the recent book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports.

BRONKO NAGURSKI

     Bronko Nagurski grew up in International Falls, Minnesota, a remote outpost along the Canadian border, and from the time he was very young he was regarded as a sort of real-life Paul Bunyan. Clarence “Doc” Spears, his coach at the University of Minnesota, had a colorful account of how he recruited Nagurski. “I saw this young kid pushing a plow,” Spears said. “There was no horse or anything else, just this kid pushing a plow. I asked directions of him and he picked up the plow and pointed with it. I decided then and there he should go to Minnesota.”
     Bronko went on to perform spectacularly at Minnesota, and he joined the Bears in 1930. He weighed about 235 pounds at a time when very few players exceeded 210. A fullback on offense and a tackle on defense, he was easily the best player in the NFL at both positions. He was the heart and soul of the Bears’ powerhouse teams of the early thirties.
     “Bronko Nagurski was probably the greatest player I ever went up against,” said the Green Bay Packers’ Hall of Famer Clarke Hinkle. I thought to myself, ‘You either better start moving and go after him or just get the hell out of the way, because otherwise you are going to get killed.’”

     In the final game of the 1932 regular season, Nagurski’s 56-yard touchdown gallop led the Bears to a 9-0 victory over the Packers amid swirling snows at Wrigley Field. The win moved the Bears into a tie with the Portsmouth Spartans for first place in the NFL, and league president Joe Carr decided to have a playoff game to settle the issue. Because Portsmouth’s stadium seated only 8,000, the first postseason game in pro football history was scheduled for Chicago.
     That the NFL was still in its infancy was demonstrated by the fact that Portsmouth’s star tailback Dutch Clark, the league’s leading scorer, was not available for the game. His contract as basketball coach at Colorado College called for him to report immediately after the Spartans’ season was concluded, and it had no provision for an extra week.
     The weather worsened in the days leading up to the game, with snow continuing intermittently and the temperature plummeting to below zero. Bears coach and owner George Halas recognized that few hardy souls were likely to pay hard-earned Depression dollars to sit out in a blizzard at Wrigley Field, so he got approval from the league to play the game indoors at Chicago Stadium. Inside the Stadium, a field was set up that was 20 yards shorter and 15 feet narrower than the standard.
     A circus had come through the week before, and a six-inch layer of dirt remained on the Stadium’s cement floor. With rolls of sod laid on top of the dirt, the playing surface was passable and certainly safer than the frozen ground at Wrigley Field. One observer reported, however, that the arena “was a little too aromatic, what with the horses and elephants that had traipsed around there a few days before the game.”
     More than 11,000 people showed up, vindicating the decision to play the game indoors. “They were exposed to the violence of professional football,” Richard Whittingham wrote, “in a way that spectators in outdoor stadiums never were. In the enclosed stadium, the sounds of impact when players blocked or tackled each other resounded through the acoustically controlled hall.”
     Both defenses held sway for the first three quarters. There was only one punt returned all day, as most of them flew well into the seats. The Bears’ Red Grange was knocked out cold when he was thrown out of bounds and into the hockey boards after an end run of 15 yards. He was carted off, but soon returned. In the fourth quarter, Dick Nesbitt of the Bears intercepted a pass at the Spartans’ seven-yard line. Nagurski bulled his way down to the two on first down, but then he was stopped for virtually no gain on his next two attempts.
     On fourth down and goal, the Portsmouth defenders massed in the middle of the line, convinced that Nagurski would carry the ball again. Bronko did take the handoff from quarterback Carl Brumbaugh, but instead of charging ahead, he backpedaled and lofted a pass over the scrum at the goal line. Grange was alone in the end zone to gather it in for a touchdown. Portsmouth coach Potsy Clark was apoplectic, arguing that Bronko had been too close to the line of scrimmage when he delivered the ball (at the time, one had to be at least five yards behind the line in order to throw a legal forward pass). Potsy may have been right, but the call stood.
     When Clark finally calmed down and returned to the sidelines, Tiny Engebretsen kicked the extra point for the Bears. Several minutes later, a Spartan fumble rolled out of the end zone for a safety. The score of 9-0 held up, and the Bears were world champions.
     The postseason playoff game stirred up so much interest that NFL owners quickly agreed to make it an annual event. Accordingly, the league was split into two divisions whose winners would meet after the season for the championship. This model remained in place until the inaugural Super Bowl after the 1966 season.

Adapted from Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports
(c) 2009, 2010 by Christopher Tabbert
    

Bears Honor Roll

DICK BUTKUS

     The Bears are going through their paces at training camp, and fans are eagerly looking forward to another NFL season. Here's a look back at some of the men who have made the Bears Chicago's favorite team and one of the greatest franchises in all of sports.

Bears retired numbers:
  3 - Bronko Nagurski
  5 - George McAfee
  7 - George Halas
28 - Willie Galimore
34 - Walter Payton
40 - Gale Sayers
41 - Brian Piccolo
42 - Sid Luckman
51 - Dick Butkus
56 - Bill Hewitt
61 - Bill George
66 - Clyde "Bulldog" Turner
77 - Red Grange

World champion head coaches:
1921 - George Halas
1932 - Ralph Jones
1933 - George Halas
1940 - George Halas
1941 - George Halas
1943 - Luke Johnsos (co-coach)
1943 - Hunk Anderson (co-coach)
1946 - George Halas
1963 - George Halas
1985 - Mike Ditka

NFL Most Valuable Player:
1943 - Sid Luckman
1977 - Walter Payton

Super Bowl Most Valuable Player:
1986 - Richard Dent

NFL Leading rusher:
1934 - Beattie Feathers
1939 - Bill Osmanski
1956 - Rick Casares
1969 - Gale Sayers
1977 - Walter Payton

NFL Leading passer:
1943 - Sid Luckman
1945 - Sid Luckman
1946 - Sid Luckman
1949 - Johnny Lujack

NFL Leading scorer:
1934 - Jack Manders
1965 - Gale Sayers
1985 - Kevin Butler

Defensive Player of the Year:
1985 - Mike Singletary
1988 - Mike Singletary
2005 - Brian Urlacher

Offensive Rookie of the Year:
2001 - Anthony Thomas

Defensive Rookie of the Year:
1973 - Wally Chambers
1990 - Mark Carrier
2000 - Brian Urlacher

Coach of the Year:
1963 - George Halas
1965 - George Halas
1985 - Mike Ditka
1988 - Mike Ditka
2001 - Dick Jauron
2005 - Lovie Smith