November 29, 1931: The Packers' 1st "Threepeat"

Johnny "Blood" McNally

November 29, 1931: The Championship of the National Football League is clinched... at Ebbets Field. The Green Bay Packers beat the football team named the Brooklyn Dodgers, 7-0, to advance to 12-1 on the season.

Coached by Earl "Curly" Lambeau, the Packers' star player was John Victor McNally Jr., from New Richmond, Wisconsin, across the State, close to Minneapolis rather than to Green Bay or Milwaukee. He starred at St. John's University in Minnesota, and then at Lambeau's Alma Mater, Notre Dame.

In 1922, while at St. John's, he and a teammate, Ralph Hanson, were passing a Minneapolis movie theater, showing the movie Blood and Sand, starring Rudolph Valentino as a Spanish bullfighter. McNally turned to the teammate, and, knowing that they could secretly make money playing professional or semipro ball on Sundays, the day after playing for Notre Dame, if they used fake names, and said, "I'll be Blood, and you be Sand." Hanson, as Ralph Sand, never played in the NFL, but John McNally was "Johnny Blood" from then on.

He played in the NFL for the Milwaukee Badgers, the Duluth Eskimos and the Pottsville Maroons, before joining the Packers in 1929, eventually helping them win 4 NFL Championships. In this 1931 season, the two-way halfback scored 2 touchdowns rushing, a then-record 10 receiving, and another on an interception return. He later served as a player-coach with the football version of the Pittsburgh Pirates, before they changed their name to the Steelers; and returned to St. John's to coach. (St. John's is now an NCAA Division III school, and has no connection besides name to the one in New York City.)

The Packers benefited from having their 1st 7 games all at home, probably because most NFL teams then used the biggest stadium in their city, which tended to be not a college football stadium, including one of the many "Memorial Stadiums" built to honor the dead of World War I in the preceding decade, but a baseball park, and most of those parks were occupied in September.

The Packers beat the football version of the Cleveland Indians, 26-0; the Dodgers, 32-6; the team that would become their arch-rivals, the Bears, 7-0; the football version of the New York Giants, 27-7; the Chicago Cardinals, 26-7; the Frankford Yellow Jackets, 15-0; and the Providence Steam Roller (no "S" on the end), 48-20.

The Packers went to Wrigley Field to play the Bears again, and won, 6-2. They hosted the Staten Island Stapletons, and won, 26-0. They were finally beaten by Ernie Nevers and the Cardinals, 21-13 at Wrigley, where they played their home games that season, rather than at Comiskey Park, the usual home of the Cardinals and baseball's Chicago White Sox.

The Packers rebounded, beating the Giants, 14-10 at the Polo Grounds; beating the Steam Roller, 38-7 at the Providence Cycledrome on Thanksgiving; and clinching against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The following week, they lost to the Bears, 7-6 at Wrigley Field. But it didn't matter, because the Portsmouth Spartans finished at 11-3, and could not catch the Packers.

The Packers thus won their 3rd straight NFL Championship. It had never happened before. Through the 2021 season, it has happened only once since: The Packers again, in 1965, 1966 and 1967, including Super Bowls I and II.

This remains the last time the NFL Championship has been decided without some form of postseason play.

Lambeau and McNally were both charter inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. Lambeau died in 1965, and Green Bay's new City Stadium was renamed Lambeau Field in his memory. McNally was one of a few 1920s players interviewed by NFL Films for their 1976 documentary Old Leather, and lived until 1985.

UPDATE: The Green Bay Packers have the largest team Hall of Fame of any team in the "Big Four" North American sports: The NFL, MLB, the NBA and the NHL. From the team's founding era, 1919 to 1928, but not on the 1929, '30 or '31 title teams, they have inducted tackle Howard "Cub" Buck, back Charlie Mathys, and team executive Andrew Turnbull.

From the 1929-30-31 title teams, they have inducted co-founder, owner, general manager, head coach and back Earl "Curly" Lambeau; co-founder George Whitney Calhoun; executives Frank Jonet, Gerald F. Clifford, Fred Leicht, Emil Fischer and Lee Joannes; backs Johnny "Blood" McNally, Verne Lewellen, Arnie Herber, Hank Bruder and Joseph "Red" Dunn; ends Lavern "Lavvie" Dilweg and Milt Gantenbein; tackle Cal Hubbard; guards Mike Michalske and Howard "Whitey" Woodin; centers Francis "Jug" Earp, Bernard "Boob" Darling and Nate Barragar; trainer Carl "Bud" Jorgensen and team doctor W. Webber Kelly; and the team's 1st broadcaster, Russ Winnie.

Lambeau, Buck, Dilweg, Dunn, Goldenberg, Lewellen, McNally and Michalske have also been inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

*

November 29, 1931 was a Sunday. Only 2 other games were played that day. The Giants and the Steam Roller played to a 0-0 tie at the Polo Grounds. This turned out to be the last game the Steam Roller ever played. They had won the NFL Championship in 1928, but the Great Depression did them in.

And the Spartans beat the Bears, 3-0 at Universal Stadium in Portsmouth, Ohio. It still stands, as Spartan Memorial Stadium.

The day before, the Cardinals beat the Indians, 21-0 at Wrigley Field. And, 2 days before that, on Thanksgiving Day, these games were played:

* The Giants lost to the Stapletons, 9-6 at Thompson Stadium on Staten Island.

* The Bears beat the Cardinals, 18-7 at Wrigley Field.

* And, as I said, the Packers beat the Steam Roller, 38-7 at the Cycledrome.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-0 at the Chicago Stadium. And the Detroit Falcons beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow scored the winning goal, 3:33 into overtime. The next season, the Falcons became the Detroit Red Wings.