On This Date in Sports December 17, 1933: The first NFL Championship Game
In collaboration with the Sportsecyclopedia.com
The Chicago Bears edge the New York Giants 23-21 in the first official NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field. The Bears win the game thanks to a lateral play in the final two minutes. With the ball on the Giants 19-yard line Bronko Nagurski pass to Bill Hewitt who tossed the ball to Bill Karr who scored the game-winning touchdown against the confused Giants defense.
The 1933 NFL season was the year the NFL came of age. After 13 seasons of teams in small towns making their own schedule, the league was not taking shape with the advent of divisional play. Soon would come standardized scheduling as the NFL went from a rag-tag sandlot league to big stadiums on a Sunday Afternoon. Three new teams joined the league that year, the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, who were originally called the Pirates. The idea of divisional play and a championship game came after the 1932 season ended with a tie, with the Chicago Bears beating the Portsmouth Spartans in a playoff.
The New York Giants coached by Steven Owen easily won the Eastern Division with a record of 11-3, finishing well ahead of second place Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants were sparked by the league’s top passing game, with Harry Newman leading the NFL with 973 passing yards and 11 touchdown passes. The defending champion Chicago Bears also easily won their division as the team led by George Halas finished 10-2-1 and beat out the Portsmouth Spartans in their final season before becoming the Detroit Lions. The Bears focused on a ground game with a backfield of NFL legends Bronko Nagurski and Red Grange.
The Bears hosted the first championship game that would alternate between the champs of the West and the East. After finishing unbeaten at home in the regular season, the Bears drew 26,000 at Wrigley Field. Both offenses started slowly as Jack Manders gave Chicago an early 3-0 lead on a 16-yard field goal. Manders added a second field goal to make it 6-0 in the second quarter before the Giants got on track. New York would score the game’s first touchdown to take a 7-6 halftime lead as Harry Newman connected with Red Badgro on a 29-yard pass. In the third quarter, the Bears regained the lead on a 15-yard field goal by Jack Manders, but the Giants answered with a one-yard run by Max Krause. The Bears though began to open things up and regained the lead on an eight-yard pass from Nagurski to Bill Karr. Trailing 16-14 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Giants again took the lead on an eight-yard pass from Newman to Ken Strong. The Bears though drove down the field and continued the game’s back and forth trend, by taking a 23-21 lead under two minutes left with a trick play that saw Bronko Nagurski pass to Bill Hewitt who tossed the ball to Bill Karr to complete 19-yard touchdown play. The Giants would get the ball down to the Bears 40, looking to win the game, but ran out of time, as Red Grange took down Badgro before he could lateral the ball back.
Each member of the Bears received a $210 bonus for winning the NFL Championship, while the Giants took home $140.