1942 NFL Championship Game

Lore & Background

The Bears were co-coached by Hunk Anderson and Luke Johnsos (after George Halas had entered the U.S. Navy) and led on the field by quarterback Sid Luckman. The Redskins were led by head coach Ray Flaherty and quarterback Sammy Baugh. Chicago had won easily in the summer exhibition game with Washington, but the teams had not met during the 1942 regular season. The Bears were aiming for their third consecutive league title and were favored by three touchdowns, but were upset 14–6 by the home underdog Redskins.

In Their Own Story

The air inside Griffith Stadium was biting cold, smelling faintly of wet wool and gasoline fumes from the surrounding city. Inside the tunnel, Sammy Baugh adjusted his helmet, the silence broken only by the heavy thud of cleats on concrete. He knew the Bears were giants, a machine that had chewed up teams for years.

Reader's Guide

Tickets were sold out three weeks in advance, and some were being resold for up to fifty dollars. This was the second and final NFL title game played at Griffith Stadium and in the city of Washington. The two teams met on the same site two years earlier with a very different result, as the visiting Bears won in a 73–0 rout. The gate receipts from the sellout were over $113,000, a record, and each Redskin player received about $976 while each Bear saw about $639.

Did You Know?

• This was the last major professional sports championship won by a Washington, D.C.-based team until the then-Washington Bullets won the NBA championship in 1978.
• This was the last championship won by the Redskins until Super Bowl XVII in 1983.
• The NFL had only four game officials in 1942; the back judge was added later, the line judge later, and the side judge later.