A profound exploration of the Green Bay Packers' historic 1929 season unveils a juxtaposition of triumph and unexpected defeat. A mere 96 years prior, the Packers, under the astute leadership of Curly Lambeau, secured their inaugural National Football League championship with an impressive record of 12 wins, no losses, and one tie. Their dominance was underscored by a formidable defense that permitted a mere four points in their first five games, culminating in eight shutouts throughout the season, thereby establishing them as a veritable powerhouse in the league. However, this narrative takes a perplexing turn as we delve into the circumstances surrounding their singular defeat, which transpired not during the regular season but in an exhibition match against the Memphis Tigers, a team bolstered by players from various NFL franchises and driven by the financial exigencies following the onset of the Great Depression. This loss raises intriguing questions about the nature of competition and the complexities of early professional football, where financial motivations often intersected with the pursuit of athletic excellence.

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Let's Travel back some 96 years ago into the National Football League season of the champion Green Bay Packers, a season that was unforgettable for their first championship, but kind of forgettable at the end when they took a loss.

How can an undefeated team have a loss?

We'll have that and more coming up in just a moment.

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

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Now onto our episode.

Well, my football friends, this is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

Well, the season ended shortly before December 15th.

The Green Bay packers were 12 oh and one and they were spectacular.

Curly Lambo's team was just phenomenal.

They had their first five games.

Only four points had been scored against them and that was two safeties.

So they were playing some good defense.

They were outscoring everybody.

They had eight shutouts during the the whole season and that included a 0 to 0 tie.

Their only blemish on that 12 oh and 1 record.

So how could a team that was 12 on 1 be be declared the National Football League champions suffer a loss?

Well, that's what we're going to get to at the Story of today and we'll do that right after this message.

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They were just a dominant team, had eight shutout victories.

Eight shutouts, I guess all together.

Seven of those were victories.

One was a 0 to 0 tie.

They were only blemished on that record of slate the first five games.

Only four points were scored against them and that was two safeties the rest of the year.

No other team as an opponent could score more than six points against the packers during the National Football League season.

So the early December, the National Football League season was over and the packers were declared champions by virtue of having the best record.

1929 was an important year because just two months earlier, at the end of October, the Wall street crash happened and the start of the Great Depression happened on that Black Friday.

And people all around the country and around the world were suffering some financial dire straits.

And one of the things that they were giving was most likely going to football games.

And the team suffered a little bit by that.

The National Football League teams, especially the players, because they got part of the gate as their pay.

And when they weren't getting paid, there's nothing going in their pockets to feed their families and pay for their expenses of most of them being away from home, playing at the cities they're playing, including the Packers.

But they played for the love of the game and hope to make more money in some exhibition games.

So the packers and their great coach, Curly Lambeau, decided to schedule some exhibition games.

And one team was an independent team down in Memphis, Tennessee that was headed and funded by a man named Clarence Saunders.

Clarence Saunders would go on to found the Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain.

And anybody that lives south of the Mason Dixon line probably has been in a Piggly Wiggly and, and bought a few things of produce or groceries at that store to feed your family.

But Clarence back then, he was just some independent things, was a wealthy business owner.

And one of his business interests was his football team that was doing quite well as an independent.

They were 10 and 1 at this point.

Well after that loss to the Bears, Saunders decided he was going to get some reinforcements from some other National Football League teams and that included Ken Strong of the played for the Staten Island Stapletons later would be known as one of the great New York Giants.

Doug Wyckoff and Reg Strader, among others, would come on and join the team.

Only three members of the Memphis Tigers independent team that played against the Bears a few weeks earlier were playing against the National Football League champion Packers.

And the packers really didn't know what hit them because it went into a scoreless tie at halftime.

Neither team could really move the ball much.

And then the packers were sort of stunned in the second quarter when the Memphis Tigers took the lead.

You know, this National Football League teams couldn't score more than six points against them, but this team of, you know, Saunders guys came out and really did some damage.

Player by name of Austin Applewhite was the first one to score for the Tigers when he crossed the gold line in the third quarter.

And the packers and the crowd were all stunned as the Memphis Tigers went up on the Green Bay packers with that seven to nothing.

And then Tiny Drolet, another Memphis player, added to the conviction with another touchdown just a few minutes later.

And three scores altogether had the Tigers up 20 to nothing.

And it got down to only like two minutes left.

Darkness was settling in.

The teams were thinking about folding the game.

The officials are going to call the game.

And that's when Johnny Blood ended up being part of a scoring drive that put the packers on the board to at least avoid total embarrassment of a shutout.

But the Memphis Tigers won this game 20 to 6.

And you know, so you have a team that was undefeated National Football League champions, put their reputation on the line and that just to make a couple bucks for them, themselves and their family, because that's the way things were back in professional football.

Then they would all go off to their normal jobs in the off season for whatever they did.

Some even played other professional sports.

But they had to make a little bit money playing football and traveling on these barnstorming tours was one way to do that and get the chance to see other parts of the country.

Maybe they didn't get a chance to see before.

And it's probably not so bad going to Memphis, Tennessee and in the middle of December instead of staying up in Green Bay or up in the north or in the Great Lakes region where it gets cold and there's some white stuff that falls down on there.

So some great stuff there.

Now that Red Grange tour that we talked about earlier, you can find out more about that in a book that we recently helped Chris Willis on called Red Grange and the Chicago Bears and 100th anniversary scrapbook of that Great Barnstorming Tour of Red Grange.

Great book.

You can find that on pigskindispatch.com store on the front page of pigskindispatch.com so till next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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