The 1941 NFL Championship is a profound emblem of the American spirit amidst the tumultuous backdrop of global conflict. We delve into the remarkable dominance exhibited by the Chicago Bears during this pivotal season, culminating in a title victory that reshaped the landscape of professional football. This episode features insights from NFL historian Jeff Berckes, who elucidates the intricate narratives woven into the championship, revealing the profound implications of the Bears' innovative offensive strategies. As we explore the historical significance of this era, we confront the intricate interplay between sports and societal upheaval, examining how the Bears’ achievements resonated deeply within the fabric of American culture. Join us for an enlightening discussion that transcends mere statistics and delves into the essence of a team that not only triumphed on the field but also captured the hopes and aspirations of a nation at war.

Our guest Jeff Berckes of WindyCityGridiron.com and YouTube Channel 2ndCityGridiron joins us to tell the story of the Bears' Dominance.

Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website and the Sports Jersey Dispatch to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

Imagine a nation at war, a world at war, and a gridiron clash for the ages.

How did the mighty Chicago Bears dominate this fateful season with a title victory.

For the history books?

What stories lie beneath the headlines of that era?

Join us as we tackle these questions and more.

And our special guest, NFL historian Jeff Burkus from the Windy City Gridiron and Second City Gridiron for an inside look at the championship forged in a nation's defining moment.

And you won't want to miss this.

And it's all coming up with Jeff.

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 is podcasting 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 pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history, and welcome to championship year.

We are talking about the NFL championships before the Super Bowl.

Welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Thanks, Darren.

I appreciate it.

Really looking forward to what I think might be the best team in Chicago Bears history.

Well, that is quite a bit to say because last time you were on, you talked about the Bears, you know, having the most dominant victory in NFL history over the Washington Redskins, which we just played some previews of that before coming in the intro, you know, so how.

It's really interesting.

I, I don't want to, like, blow my notes that, that I'm, that I want to build up to a little bit, but this to me is the year that changes the NFL forever.

That.

That's, that's what I'm going to try to convince you by the end of this episode.

Okay, Challenge is on.

Let's do it.

All right.

There's probably still plenty of doubters, right?

Like the, the Bears were just an, you know, a good team going into that game.

And so I, I think we're going to find.

I'm going to, I'm going to have some numbers in this episode that I think you're going to find convincing.

George Musso, Joe Steidhar, Danny Fortman, Bulldog Turner, all on the line.

Those are those four hall of Famers that are, that are on the line, which is kind of incredible.

You'd love to have that in any era.

You know, Sid Luckman is now kind of entering the prime of his career.

He's, you know, he's, this is his third year.

He's.

He's figured out the T formation.

George Hallis says it takes three years to really learn the tee.

Here he is in the third year, right?

So he, he starts to take off.

Bill Omanski is still there.

George McAfee is still there.

So you've got, you know, great backfield components there.

Ken Kavanaugh, one of the best ends in the league.

No significant losses.

You know, we talk about automatic Jack Manders, maybe the, the most significant loss.

Not a particularly strong draft.

But the Bears do add Norm Stanley from, from, from Stanford, and, you know, he'll, he'll play a role in the championship game.

And then eventually when they, when they come into the NFL, Hugh Gallarneau, he's a Stanford halfback.

I mentioned him because behind me, if you're watching video, he's actually the player who's wearing number eight in this great program cover.

So this is a program cover of Bears, Packers.

All of these are actual program covers behind drawn illustrated by one artist.

His name's Jerry Keefe.

I mentioned this because I did a story on Jerry and Chicago Bears artwork a couple years ago.

One of my favorite stories that I've ever written, researched.

Just a really fun history article.

It's pinned to my Twitter account.

You can find me at gridironborn or you can just Google my name.

And when he said a good iron with brushstrokes.

A genius, I believe, is what I called it.

Or Jerry Keefe.

And, and you'll get that hit.

But some really cool artwork.

And it was fun to find out who the players were that were wearing the different jersey numbers that, that this guy drove drew in on on some of these players.

So anyway, I wanted to mention Hugh and then I also want to mention chuck and Charlie O'Rourke.

He's a quarterback who tied.

Sorry.

He set the rookie record, Chicago Bears record for touchdown passes as.

As a rookie.

That was only just broken by Caleb Williams this past year.

So he was.

So he was drafted 84 years later.

Yeah, I mean it's unreal.

So he was drafted in 41.

He did not play at all.

But again he was drafted 41.

So I just wanted to mention that served in World War II.

You know, notice a theme there.

And then when he came back, he played for the LA Dons in the AFC and then backed up ya tittle for the Colts.

So, you know, bounced around a little bit.

But you know, had a very interesting record for the Bears for quite a while.

Darren, the thing that you got to know about the 41 bears is that they finished the regular season with a point differential of plus 249, which was a league record at the time.

This is in 11 games.

Yeah, I was going to say these are shorter, much shorter seasons than we're used to now.

They averaged 36 point points per game.

She said, and that's a new league record.

At the time, a team would average about 11 or 12 points a game.

That's all through the 30s.

That's essentially what football was.

Each side average somewhere in 11 to 12.

Yeah, you get a random 28 point game or something like that.

But over the long term, teams scored about 11 or 12 points a game at that at this point.

So to hop this up from 11 or 12 all the way up to 36 points a game in, in, in that.

In.

And that's essentially where we're at today.

You know, if you see through the history of the league, you see that the points per game essentially has been about that through the.

Since after the Bears.

So this is the most significant offensive NFL innovation because we now enter modern scoring.

It really hasn't changed.

It's gone down a little bit like in the 70s and then it slowly slugged out in the 80s which is where the era that I grew up in.

And you know we see a lot of points today, but it's essentially what it was back, you know, after this.

This offensive innovation took fold.

And then Darren, I want to like continue my point here with, by, by, by trying to impress upon you just how impressive 36 and 34 points per game.

34.2 points per game are.

Care to take a guess where that would rank all time for.

For a single season average points per game Mark?

Well, I, I have to tell you I.

So I, I apologize.

You.

I may have to correct some things here, but I, I do know that it wasn't.

There's modern teams that are in the top 10, but it's not a modern team.

That is the top spot.

So.

And I'll let you.

I'll let you go ahead and I'll run through them.

So.

So.

I'll go bottom to top.

That's fun.

That's more fun for a list.

And that'll be the next episode.

They lost in the championship, you know, but that's.

That.

That is what it is.

Are these postseason and regular season.

This is just regular season because that's how most of those are.

Most of those are tracked through that.

Right.

They lost their championship game.

They lost in the divisional round to San Francisco.

They lost the NFC championship game to The Falcons.

They lost the AFC championship game to the Ravens.

They lost the divisional round to the Giants going on winning that one.

2018 Chiefs 35.3 points per game, lost in the AFC championship game to Tom Brady's Pats.

1941 Bears in the number four spot, 36 points per game.

They are the only team on this list to win the championship.

They lost their super bowl to Seattle.

They're the top team.

But here's the thing.

Who are they coached by?

Do you know the coach?

Was it Shaughnessy?

Wasn't it?

Shaughnessy's coached in, in 48 and 49.

And then Shaughnessy gave.

So, so there's the Bears connection.

Shaughnessy gives way to Joe Steidahar, Bears hall of Fame tackle.

He's.

He's the coach in 50 and 51 that the Rams win at 51.

So he, he takes over for Shaughnessy.

And then another person that was on his staff is Hampton Pool, who we talked about last episode having a pick six that kind of broke the game, you know, in that 73 to nothing game, made it 35 to nothing.

So you have these Bears disciples that are over with the Rams and running, running Los Angeles.

So again, like the 2, 241 and the 42 teams are two of the top 10 scoring offenses of all time because of this offensive innovation.

And you know that that is amazing.

And I, you're.

I mean, I miss the, the Bears 41.

So I apologize.

I'm have to redo my infographic.

I even included AFC teams and AFL teams in here.

And you know, the only.

So there's only two that made that the 48, 49ers were 35.35 points per game regular season.

The 61 Oilers in the AFL were 36.64.

So, so that's, that shows you how the impressive.

The Bears are among the three, you know, more modern leagues of scoring.

Now I did see the Oilers.

I decided to not include them because they were afl.

But.

But yes, like, I mean, even, even so even if you say, well they've got two of the top 12, you know, in the expanded look, it's still really impressive that these two years are, are ridiculous.

And then when you consider what happened in the end of this year, which we'll get to in a minute, and, and what happened with, with guys leaving for the war.

I mean Mac, if he leaves in 42, so you don't have your Swiss army knife, you know, who is probably your best, you know, skill player, you don't have him for, for 42, you know, there's a lot of other guys that start leaving, including Hallis.

So you don't have, you know, your master tactician, you know, at the helm either.

So you Know, there's, I think, some reasons why the Bears don't complete that three peat.

There's some reasons why the Bears, you know, aren't competitive in 43 and 40, 44.

Right.

Like, there are some reasons here.

And so, you know, there's that.

What if that's, I think, very interesting for football historians.

Like, would the league, the league eventually catches up, right?

Like, innovation has a first mover advantage.

Eventually everybody else catches up, they get the right personnel, they learn it, you know.

But Hallis says it takes three years to learn the table.

Right.

So if you take that at its word, once you convert over, you know, it's going to take you about three years to master it.

So, you know, there is some, some cause here to think that, you know, the Bears probably missed out on, on some titles that they may have otherwise won if they would have been able to, to remain full strength.

And everybody remained full strength until the league caught up with them.

Yeah, that's, that's some excellent points, you know, but sort of broke up that dynasty with the war and it's a, it's a.

Who knows where they might have gone with that?

You know, they could be, you know, ultimately historic here.

You know, you'd be, you know, could be the, the most wins in a row for championships.

And it's unfortunate.

So, so let's dig into 41 a little bit.

You know, they only lose one game, 14 to 16 against the Packers.

Otherwise, you know, they, they run the table.

They're 10 and 1.

They did need to win.

They went in their last game.

They needed to win it against the Cardinals, you know, usually played the crosstown Chicago Cardinals, you know, the last game of the year.

The game, you know, the date is a date that most people would know that even if they don't care about football.

It's a day that lived in infamy.

It's a day that lived in infamy.

Right?

And it's not because the Chicago Bears were victorious in a football game against their crosstown rival Cardinals.

It's because the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor and the press box starts to learn about this attack about around halftime of this game.

So, so the players don't know, at least in my research, the players aren't finding out about this.

The fans aren't finding out about this.

You don't have a cell phone, right?

No one's calling you, you know, or texting you, like, hey, you know, you'll never believe what happened, you know, so, you know, people are living in, you know, ignorance and bliss.

Probably watching a football game here.

And the Bears are able to take care of business, little know, for a while.

The first half's, you know, pretty competitive, but the Bears are able to.

To take care of business and, and, and basically share.

They share the, the.

The Western Conference title with, with the Packers.

So they have to play a playoff game to determine who will, who will play the championship.

So I can only imagine.

I mean, you know, I, I'm, you know, 43 years old.

I was in college in 9 11.

Um, I remember how I felt when that happened.

I remember going to a class the next day and just, you know, am I supposed to go to class?

Are we doing what is, you know, what's, what's, you know, what's happening here?

Like what, you know, what's happening?

I believe the NFL delayed a week, you know, 9, 11, if I remember that correctly.

But here they did.

I think you're right.

They, they, they went forward and they, they played this football game against the packers to determine the Western, the Western Conference champion.

You know, Bears don't have a problem here.

They easily handle the Packers.

It's 33 to 14.

You know, it's not a particularly exciting game.

Again, this is a very dominant team.

They had one blip.

Packers were a good team, right?

Bears were a great team.

And, and they, and they take care of them.

No, no problem.

You know, it's remembered as a blowout.

It's not 73 to nothing.

It's remembered as a blowout because 37 to 9.

But it was pretty competitive.

Early, you know, went to half, Giants are down three.

They come out, they tie it with a field goal.

It's nine to nine, you know, early third quarter, but it's, you know, it's a cold day.

There's not a lot of fans there.

It's.

It's pretty drab.

I think you can imagine it has a lot to do with two weeks after the attack.

You know, Americans are trying to figure out what's happening.

A lot of people are already, you know, signing up to, you know, enter the armed services.

There's just a lot of momentum going on.

Who cares about a football game, right?

But the Bears, really, their offense gets it together in the second half, they wake up, you Know, Norm Stanley, you know, mention him, his one year with the Bears, he gets it going in the third quarter, scores a couple touchdowns.

He finishes the day with, you know, 89 yards rushing.

The two scores and another 34 yards receiving.

McAfee essentially has the same stat line.

123 scrimmage yards and one touchdown.

Ken Kavanaugh kind of closes it out with a scoop and score fumble return for a touchdown.

So, you know, it ends up lopsided.

Giants turn the ball over a bunch in the second half, you know, including three interceptions.

Stanley has an interception.

Danny Fortman, my guy.

Danny Fortman's one of my favorite players.

You know, from a historical perspective, I just, I love the story.

I love that he, you know, was a doctor and you know, did, did the, you know, medic in the World War II and then came back was a team.

I just love all that about him.

But I love the undersized guard and you know, that was the position I played, not undersized.

I was relatable to.

He's relatable to me.

Right.

Yeah.

So it's all of us.

Yeah, he's really, yeah, he's the guy that I really, I really like reading about the most.

And then, and then Bulldog Turner.

So back to back championship games.

Bulldog Turner has an interception.

So I think that's, that's worth, worth mentioning here.

I think if you're going to give an mvp, it probably goes to the rookie, Stanley, just because he's able to have a couple touchdowns and gets, gets a, you know, gets a turnover and really broke the game open.

So probably goes to him.

And so I think this, you know, the, just the interesting thing about 41 is that it's, at the time I think it was probably pretty like that.

Bears are really good, right?

Like they mean, you know, they, they walk through, they handle both their playoff games.

It's just, it's really impressive.

But I think it's even more impressive when you have 100 plus years of history and you're able to really look at the numbers and say, well, this is what caused the spike.

This changed offenses because you see the average points per game move up and you got the word years and that's weird and you know, it really impacts football.

Okay.

Probably a few coaches at other levels, the college and high school levelers are saying, hey, let's learn a little bit about this T formation.

Maybe we'll implement it well after this.

You know, two years in a row of dominating the highest level of football.

You know, these folks are probably, you know, packing classrooms and you know, on field practice fields everywhere.

Learning this T formation from that Shaughnessy and, and Halas really made something really special out of.

So you'll hear clips with, with Luckman talk about, you know, oh, I went here to teach so and so the, the tea.

And you know, I have a, I have a book from Le Notre Dame and about the tea.

You know, so, so eventually Notre Dame picks it up.

Right?

And, and, and this is interesting is that Notre Dame has Johnny ljack and you.

He's, he's running this.

And Halas drafts Johnny ljack to, to be Luckman's successor.

And he, you know, he is for a couple years, but then, then he drifts off because he's got other options.

So you know, another theme that we talked about last time with Bronco Nagurski, uh, essentially Johnny Lujak does the same thing to Hallis that, that Nagursky did, which he had, he had better options.

And so he, he took him as opposed to taking a pay cut or, or not getting the raise that he thought he deserved.

Um, I went through and just did some, did some math just because it's fun and I think if, and I always, I'm saying this with, you know, please take this for what it is.

They're one loss against the Packers.

You know that 16 to 14, they scored 915 points.

They gave up 254.

So that is a, a plus six hundred and sixty one point differential.

That, so if you take out the, the, the one loss.

So in those 24 wins, their average margin of victory during this run was 27.6 points per game.

Geez Louise.

So this is what I mean by this is the most dominant team, I think in NFL history.

Like I just, I don't, I don't think that it has a comparison because of, of what they're able to do.

And then every.

Because they're so dominant, everybody adopts this.

And, and, and by the end of the decade Everybody's caught up.

So did the Bears get enough championships for this innovation?

They got four.

That's pretty great, right?

You'll hear about a couple more, you know, from, from my colleague here in a few weeks.

Little teaser.

That's, that's pretty great, I think, you know, you take that, you certainly take that deal nowadays, right, with how competitive the league is.

But even then, I think that's still pretty good.

They probably would have had more had the war not interrupted them, but it's just an amazing run.

I mean, 20, 25 games is, you know, that's about one year plus a little bit now, you know, and back then, it's essentially two years.

I, I, but it's just a, it's an incredible run for the Bears.

And, you know, there's a reason why the Bears have the most hall of Fame players of all time.

One, they've been around forever, and two, so many of these guys were, were in this era and, and really, you know, set the course for the modern NFL.

Well, very, very well said.

And, yeah, I can't, I can't.

I don't think anybody in that knows the football history and professional football history can argue any of that.

You know, definitely one of the most dominant teams in history of the NFL.

And you just, you convinced me, you challenged me at the beginning.

You were going to convince me they're one of the most dominant teams in NFL history.

And I think you've convinced myself and the listeners here of that.

So great, great job on that.

You know, I became familiar a little bit your work.

This is my, is my big segue into having you introduce some of your podcast, but I became introduced to you, alluded to it earlier.

We're going to have your colleague Jack Silverstein on here in a couple weeks to talk about some more of the, the Bears championships.

And I heard an episode of you and him from a few years ago on Johnny ljack, and it was, it was phenomenal.

And, you know, folks, you know, and I've listened to more than just that one, but that one really stuck.

Struck a chord with me.

I'm a Notre Dame fan, you know, in Pennsylvania, but, you know, so Lou, Jack was an interesting person to me especially.

We, we just lost them not too long ago and just had a brilliant career in college and, you know, that brief stint in the NFL.

But you guys made it very entertaining, and maybe you could tell us a little about your podcast that you're on and your writing and where people can listen and read your, your items.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you for that.

That.

That means a lot.

You know, I texted Jack after Johnny Lujak passed, and I said, do you want to hop on and do a tribute podcast?

Because I think that he's just someone that was so long ago that most Bears fans don't know the impact of who he is and what he was able to do for the Bears.

And I think he's just a really interesting person to highlight.

Seemed like a really cool guy, too.

Like, you know, able to watch some videos of him and, you know, as an older guy, you know, lived to be a very ripe old age.

So.

Yeah, so that was pretty recent that we did that, but that would have been on the second city gridiron, which is the podcast and YouTube channel that I own co.

Own with my.

With my partner, lester A.

Wiltfong Jr.

He's also my podcast co host for Baron Balance.

That's the one, our flagship.

I also will just do random series that I find interesting.

Right.

So, you know, last year I did a series on Hard Knocks.

I've done something called the Hopium Den, where I talk to a bunch of different fans that come at it from different angles.

I did a history podcast called Hallis the Mac, which Chicago Bears history by the decade.

It was one episode per decade.

We went through the entire history of the Bears.

I just.

I love football.

I find it interesting, and I find no limits to my work.

I think that the history part's cool.

I think the stats part is great.

You know, I have a science background, so that's a pretty natural fit to me.

You know, I played through high school, tried to go to a small college before I got hurt, you know, so I, you know, understand the X's and O's a little bit.

So for me, it's like I'm the utility infielder for.

For Windy City Gridiron where I write, and Second City Gridiron where I talk about football.

And that's.

That's where you can find me just.

Just trying to mix it up and find some interesting stories and angles to tell.

All right, well, folks, if you're driving, we'll put the links to Jeff's work in both the podcast notes and the YouTube show notes.

You can find him easy when you're at your convenience, and I definitely recommend you listening and reading his work.

So great job, Jeff.

We really appreciate you coming on here, sharing this era of Chicago Bears history between these two podcasts.

You've done back to back for us.

Really appreciate your time today and your hard work and research.

Yeah, Darren, Absolutely.

Thank you for having me on and I really appreciate that you are doing this.

I think this is really cool to talk about this era.

And I think that we, you know, we as fans sometimes think that NFL started in Super Bowl 1, and it did not.

There's a lot of really cool and fun stuff to learn about interesting characters all throughout NFL's history.

So it's a, it's a really great.

Thing that you're doing well.

Well, thank you and we'll hope to have you on again sometime.

Here to talk about some of your other work and because we're, because like you, we're kindred spirits, I always like to do some crazy things about football and look at all aspects of it, and this series is just one of those kind of things.

So we appreciate you being a part of it.

Thanks, Darren.

Appreciate it.

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

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football.

With our many articles on the good people of the game, as well as our own football comic strip, cleat marks comics, pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe, as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.