December 28, 1947: A Dream Backfield Wins a Title for the Chicago Cardinals

"The Dream Backfield." Left to right: Paul Christman

Pat Harder, Marshall Goldberg and Charley Trippi.

December 28, 1947: The NFL Championship Game is played at Comiskey Park in Chicago. As was tradition at the time, the Western Division Champions hosted the Championship Game in odd-numbered years, the Eastern Division Champions in even-numbered years. So, this year, it is the Chicago Cardinals hosting the Philadelphia Eagles.

This was the 1st title game for the Eagles, established in 1933, coached by Earle "Greasy" Neale, and led by running back Steve Van Buren. They finished 8-4, including a loss to the Cardinals just 3 weeks earlier, 45-21 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Thus, they finished in a tie for the Eastern Division title, with their cross-State rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. A Playoff was necessary, and the Eagles won it, 21-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Steelers would not reach the postseason again until 1972, with the AFC Division Playoff won with "the Immaculate Reception."

The Cardinals, who dated their founding to a South Side athletic club in 1898, were charter members of the NFL in 1920. They had won the Championship in controversial fashion in 1925, but this was the 1st time they'd advanced to the Championship Game, which was 1st played in 1933.

They were playing under a cloud. Charles Bidwill, a lawyer who ran the company that ran the city's main arena, the Chicago Stadium, had bought the team in 1933, rescuing it from Depression-induced bankruptcy in 1933. He had been a part-owner of the Chicago Bears, and had to sell his share to buy the Cardinals. He had died on April 19, from pneumonia, only 51 years old. His widow, Violet, became the 1st woman to own an NFL team.

No one knew it at the time, but the Cardinals were on the verge of their greatest era -- and had sown the seeds of their own destruction.

Jimmy Conzelman, a former NFL quarterback who was player-coach of the 1928 NFL Champion Providence Steam Roller, was the Cards' head coach. He had what had become known as "The Dream Backfield": Quarterback Paul Christman, halfback Charley Trippi of the University of Georgia's 1942 National Champions; halfback Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg of the University of Pittsburgh's 1937 National Champions; and fullback Pat Harder.

Halfback Elmer Angsman was sometimes considered part of The Dream Backfield. In the era of "single-platoon football," each of these men played both offense and defense, and each played it very well. Indeed, football historians usually consider Harder to be the best defensive back of the 1940s, and Goldberg not that far behind him. Harder was also an excellent placekicker.

With the Bears having won the NFL Championship in 1940, 1941, 1943 and 1946, the Cards were reading to take over. They went 9-3, their losses all coming on the road, against the Los Angeles Rams, the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants. They served notice on the Bears, beating them 31-7 at Comiskey and 30-21 at Wrigley Field.

Game-worn 1947 Chicago Cardinals jersey.
Number 24 was backup back John "Red" Cochran.

Due to the Eastern Division Playoff, the Championship Game was moved to December 28, its latest date thus far. Although Comiskey Park was not right on Lake Michigan, it was still only 29 degrees at kickoff. Knowing that the field was frozen, the Cardinals wore sneakers instead of cleats, which was legal at the time.

The game kicked off at 1:05 PM Central Time (2:05 Eastern). Trippi scored a touchdown on a 44-yard run in the 1st quarter. In the 2nd, Angsman scored on a 70-yard run in the 2nd quarter. Tommy Thompson threw a 53-yard touchdown pass to Pat McHugh, to close the Eagles to within 14-7 at halftime.

Special teams made the difference: In the 3rd quarter, Trippi returned a Joe Muha punt 75 yards for a touchdown, making it 21-7 Cards. The Eagles marched downfield, and Van Buren ran the ball in from the 1-yard line to make it 21-14. But in the 4th quarter, Angsman broke off a 70-yard run to make it 28-14. Russ Craft scored on a 1-yard run, but the Eagles got no closer. The Cardinals won, 28-21.

The teams played each other in the opening game of the next season, also at Comiskey, and the Cardinals won, 21-14. However, Cardinal tackle Stan Mauldin died from a head injury sustained in the game, the 1st NFL player known to have died as a result of an in-game condition. Still, the Cardinals may have been even better than in the season before: They lost their next game, to the Bears, and then ran the table, finishing 11-1. But they lost the Championship Game to the Eagles in Philadelphia.

That would be their last Playoff game for 26 years, and their last NFL championship game, under any name, for 58 years. The '47 title game would be their last postseason victory for 51 years. 

The '48 title game was Conzelman's last in any active role in football, as he was making more money and getting less stress in his off-season job in the advertising industry. It was also Goldberg's last game before retiring as a player. Christman last played for the Cardinals in 1949, Harder in 1950, while Trippi hung on until 1955.

In 1949, Violet Bidwill married Walter Wolfner, a St. Louis-based businessman who got rich selling coffee to the U.S. Army in World War I, who took over the operation of the Cardinals. From 1949 to 1959, 11 seasons, they went through 8 different head coaches. From 1950 onward, they never had another winning season, bottoming out at 1-10-1 in 1953. And, despite not winning another title until 1963, the Bears surged ahead of the Cardinals in popularity in Chicago.

After flirting with moving to Minneapolis, and even playing some "home games" at the new Metropolitan Stadium nearby, Wolfner moved the team to his hometown for the 1960 season, fully aware that there was already a baseball team named the St. Louis Cardinals, with whom they shared Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) until 1965, and Busch Memorial Stadium thereafter.

Violet died in 1962, and left her 80 percent ownership of the team to her adopted sons, Charles Bidwill Jr. and William Bidwill. They immediately fired Wolfner. He sued, claiming that, as adoptees, they couldn't inherit the team. The court didn't buy it, and Wolfner was out. In 1972, Billy Bidwill bought out his brother "Stormy." In 1988, he moved the team, becoming the Phoenix Cardinals. In 1993, he renamed them the Arizona Cardinals. They reached Super Bowl XLIII, but lost it. The 2022 season will be the 75th in a row that they will not end as NFL Champions.

UPDATE: The Arizona Cardinals have established a Ring of Honor. It includes all Chicago Cardinals in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio: John "Paddy" Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Charlie Trippi, Marshall "Biggie" Goldberg, Dick "Night Train" Laine, Ollie Matson, 1947 NFL Championship coach Jimmy Conzelman, and team owner Charles Bidwill.

*

December 28, 1947 was a Sunday. Aurelio Rodríguez, a fine-fielding 3rd baseman for several teams, mainly the 1970s Detroit Tigers, was born on this day.

Baseball was out of season. In the Basketball Association of America, the league that would rename itself the NBA in 1949, there was 1 game: The St. Louis Bombers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 67-63 at the St. Louis Arena.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 3-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

November 29, 1928: Providence, NFL Champions

Jimmy Conzelman

November 29, 1928: On this Thanksgiving Day, the people of Rhode Island have something to be thankful for: For the 1st time since the Providence Grays were baseball's World Champions in 1884, 44 years earlier, they have a World Championship team.

NOTE: Until 1939, America celebrated Thanksgiving Day on the last Thursday in November, regardless of whether it was the 4th Thursday or the 5th. From 1940 onward, it's been the 4th Thursday in November, whether it's the last one or not.

The Providence Steam Roller were established in 1916, by men working for the Providence Journal newspaper: Sports editor Charles Coppen and sportswriter Pearce Johnson. Three men shared in the ownership and management of the team: Coppen, Judge James Dooley, and sports promoter Peter Laudati. Johnson served as what would now be called the general manager.

The team soon became a regional power. In 1924, its schedule featured several NFL teams. The Steam Rollers posted a 3–2–1 record against those teams. The 1924 Steam Roller then went on to win the mythical "undisputed championship of the Northeast." The team's success that season was enough to make Steam Rollers management and fans start thinking about playing in the NFL.

They joined for the 1925 season, moving from their former home of Kinsley Park to a 10,000-seat cycling stadium called the Cycledrome, which wasn't quite big enough to hold a regulation football field, and so the corners of one end zone were cut off. Laudrati had both of these stadiums built. They went 6-5-1, then 5-7-1 in 1926.

The Providence Cycledrome

They hired star back Jimmy Conzelman, still only 29 years old and still playing, as head coach for 1927, and he improved the team to 8-5-1. Their other players included back Gus Sonnenberg, who went on to greater fame as a professional wrestler; and back George "Wildcat" Wilson, who had starred at the University of Washington.

They began the 1928 season by beating the football team named the New York Yankees, 20-7 at the Cycledrome. They lost at home to the Frankford Yellow Jackets, 10-6. They did not lose again that season: They beat the Dayton Triangles at home, 28-0; the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, 12-6; the Pottsville Maroons at home, 13-6; and the Detroit Wolverines at home, 7-0.

With Pennsylvania having "blue laws" prohibiting the playing of professional sports on Sundays, the Yellow Jackets would often schedule home-and-home series on back-to-back days: In Philadelphia on a Saturday, and then against the same team, at their stadium, on Sunday. On November 17, the Steam Roller went into Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philadelphia, and came away with a 6-6 tie. On November 18, at the Cycledrome, they beat the Yellow Jackets 6-0.

The following Sunday, they beat the football version of the New York Giants at home, 16-0. They were set to play the Maroons at Minersville Park in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Jack Cronin rushed for a touchdown in the 2nd quarter, and that was it: Providence 7, Pottsville 0. With the Yellow Jackets already having lost 3 games, this game the Steam Roller the NFL Championship.

They closed the season on December 2, at home, playing the Green Bay Packers to a 7-7 tie. They finished 8-1-2, for a winning percentage of .889. The Yellow Jackets were 11-3-2, at .786; while the Wolverines were 7-2-1, at .778. (At the time, ties were not counted in winning percentage. If they had been, it would have been Providence .818, Frankford .750, Detroit .750, so it wouldn't have made a difference.)

Under the rules that began in 1933, Providence would have won the Eastern Division, and Detroit the Western Division, and they would have played each other in the NFL Championship Game. This being an even-numbered year, the Eastern Division winners would have hosted, so the Steam Roller would have done so. But this was still the pre-title game, single-division NFL, so the Steam Roller won the title outright.

But they couldn't hold it together. Conzelman could only guide them to 4-6-2 in 1929, and 6-4-1 in 1930. He left, and they finished 4-4-3 in 1931. Their last home game came on another Thanksgiving, November 26, a 38-7 loss to the Packers; and their last game, on November 29, was a 0-0 tie against the Giants at the Polo Grounds. The owners then turned the franchise back over to the NFL.

Providence has never gotten another NFL team. In 1971, the Boston Patriots changed their name to the New England Patriots, and moved to Foxborough, Massachusetts. It's almost exactly halfway between downtown Boston and downtown Providence. The Patriots have won 6 Super Bowls, but they do not claim New England's 1st NFL Championship, that of the 1928 Providence Steam Roller, as their own.

The Providence Journal, a.k.a. the ProJo, remains the largest-circulating newspaper in Rhode Island. A Peter Pan Bus Terminal now stands on the site of the Cycledrome.

*

November 29, 1928, being Thanksgiving, was a Thursday. There were 3 other NFL games that Thanksgiving Day:

* The Frankford Yellow Jackets beat the Green Bay Packers, 2-0 at Frankford Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Detroit Wolverines beat the Dayton Triangles, 33-0 at Navin Field (the eventual Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Bears beat the Chicago Cardinals, 34-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

There were also 24 college football games on this day, but most of them were not the more familiar rivalries that would develop:

* Brown beat Colgate, 16-13 at Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island.

* New York University (NYU) welcomed Oregon State to Yankee Stadium, and lost, 25-13 in front of a crowd of 40,000.

* Syracuse beat Columbia, 14-6 at Baker Field in Manhattan.

* The University of Pennsylvania beat Cornell, 49-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The University of Pittsburgh beat Penn State, 26-0 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Maryland beat Johns Hopkins, 26-6 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore.

* West Virginia beat Washington & Jefferson, 14-0 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* Virginia Military Institute (VMI) beat Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI, now usually called Virginia Tech), 16-6 at Maher Field in Roanoke, Virginia.

* North Carolina beat Virginia, 24-20 at Lambeth Field in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* North Carolina State beat South Carolina, 18-7 at Riddick Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina.

* Mercer beat Wake Forest, 14-12 at Memorial Stadium in Asheville, North Carolina.

* Clemson beat Furman, 27-12 at Manly Field in Greenville, South Carolina. I guess Furman's home field wasn't manly enough.

* Georgia Tech beat Alabama Polytechnic (now Auburn University), 51-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Florida beat Washington & Lee University, 60-6 at Fairfield Stadium in Jacksonville.

* Alabama beat Georgia, 19-0 at Denny Stadium (now Bryant-Denny Stadium) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

* Kentucky and Tennessee played to a tie, 0-0 at Shields-Watkins Field (now Neyland Stadium) in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Arkansas beat Southwestern College, 73-0 at Russwood Park in Memphis. Southwestern, in Memphis, is now known as Rhodes College, and competes at the NCAA Division III level.

* Mississippi (Ole Miss) beat Mississippi State, 20-19 at Scott Field (now Davis Wade Stadium) in Starkville, Mississippi.

* Louisiana State University (LSU) and Tulane played to a tie, 0-0 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

* Oklahoma beat Missouri, 14-0 at Owen Field (now Gaylord Family Memorial Stadium) in Norman, Oklahoma.

* The University of Tulsa beat Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), 31-0 at McNulty Park in Tulsa, 

Oklahoma.

* Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 15-6 at Ownby Stadium in Dallas.

* Texas beat Texas A&M, 19-0 at Memorial Stadium in Austin.

* Baylor beat Rice, 25-14 at Rice Field in Houston.

* The University of Detroit beat Georgetown, 33-13 at Titan Stadium in Detroit.

* Marquette beat Iowa State, 6-0 at Marquette Stadium in Milwaukee.

* Drake beat Creighton, 6-0 at Creighton Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.

* Nebraska beat Kansas State, 8-0 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.

* The University of Colorado beat the University of Denver, 7-0 at Hilltop Stadium in Denver.

* New Mexico beat Colorado Mines, 32-13 at University Field in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

* Utah beat Utah A&M (now Utah State), 20-0 at Ute Stadium in Salt Lake City.

* Oregon beat UCLA, 26-6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Montana beat Gonzaga, 7-0 at Gonzaga Stadium in Spokane, Washington.

* And Washington beat Washington State, 6-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

The NBA hadn't been founded yet, but there were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the old Madison Square Garden, which was then new.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Pirates played to a tie, 1-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Pirates folded in 1930.

* And the Montreal Maroons and the Detroit Cougars played to a tie, 1-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Cougars became the Falcons in 1930, and the Red Wings in 1932. The Maroons folded in 1938.