Chicagoist Wayback Machine: When The Bears Weren't As Bad

Uck. Grey crappy icy Sunday afternoon. No Bears game - just the memories of Thursday's injury plagued horror. If only it were 1940 - it was during this weekend of that year that the most lopsided NFL games ever played took place - and the Bears whooped the Redskins' ass 73-0. The below video from that game is titled The Greatest Block in NFL History - it might not be the absolute greatest of all time but it's some pretty awesome human pinball.

According to bearshistory.com, "Late in the game, the officials pleaded with Halas to not kick for extra points as they were running out of footballs that had flown through the uprights into the crowd." Kickass. The 40's were pretty good to the Bears - they won 4 Championship games (no Superbowl back then, remember) and had players like Sid Luckman, Bronco Nagurski, and Clyde "Bulldog" Turner. As nicknames go, "Bulldog" beats the pants off of "Peanut." The fans in this picture, taken at Soldier Field from 1929, might have been watching a racing event, a rodeo, or an appearance by Charles Lindbergh - they certainly weren't watching the Bears. They didn't start playing at Soldier Field until 1970.

Image from Chicago Daily News archives.