73-0. Just look at that number for a second. It feels fake, doesn't it? Like a typo in a high school yearbook or a glitch in a video game. But on December 8, 1940, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., that score was very real. It remains the most lopsided victory in the history of professional football. The Chicago Bears didn't just beat the Washington Redskins; they dismantled them, humiliated them, and in the process, they basically invented the modern version of the sport we watch every Sunday.
Football was different then. Most teams ran the "Single Wing," a grinding, physical formation where the tailback took a direct snap. It was a game of inches and dust. Then came George Halas and his "Monsters of the Midway." They showed up with something called the T-formation. People thought it was a gimmick. Washington owner George Preston Marshall even called the Bears "crybabies" and "quitters" after a close regular-season game weeks earlier.
Big mistake.
The Revenge of the "Crybabies"
The lead-up to the 1940 NFL Championship Game was fueled by pure, unadulterated spite. A few weeks prior, Washington had beaten Chicago 7-3. It was a gritty, controversial game where the Bears felt they’d been robbed by a missed pass interference call. When reporters asked Marshall about it, he laughed it off, calling the Bears front-runners who folded when things got tough.
Halas didn’t scream. He didn't write a manifesto. He just took those newspaper clippings and taped them to the locker room walls. He let his players simmer in that disrespect. By the time they kicked off in D.C., the Bears weren't just looking for a trophy; they were looking for a soul.
It took 55 seconds for the rout to start. Bill Osmanski took a handoff and sprinted 68 yards for a touchdown. On the sidelines, the Washington players probably thought, Okay, big play, we can recover. They couldn't. By the end of the first quarter, it was 7-0. By halftime, 28-0.
The T-formation was the culprit. In this setup, the quarterback stands directly behind the center—revolutionary at the time—and uses man-in-motion sets to confuse the defense. Washington’s defense, coached by Ray Flaherty, stood frozen. They had no idea who had the ball. Chicago was using misdirection and speed in a way that made the standard 1940s defense look like it was stuck in wet cement. Sid Luckman, the Bears' legendary quarterback, wasn't just throwing the ball; he was conducting an orchestra of destruction.
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Why 73-0 Happened (And Why It’ll Never Happen Again)
You might wonder how a professional team allows 73 points. Honestly, it was a perfect storm of tactical brilliance and a total psychological collapse. After the Bears went up by three scores, Washington tried to air it out to get back in the game. It backfired. Spectactularly.
Chicago intercepted the ball eight times. Eight. Three of those were returned for touchdowns. Every time Washington tried to breathe, a guy in a navy jersey was there to snatch the air out of the stadium.
Here is a breakdown of how that scoring madness actually looked as the game spiraled out of control:
The first half was actually "competitive" by comparison, ending at 28-0. Then the third quarter happened. The Bears put up 26 points in that frame alone. By the fourth quarter, Halas started subbing in his reserves. It didn't matter. The backups were just as hungry. They added another 19 points.
Actually, the score could have been higher. No, really.
Near the end of the game, the officials literally asked George Halas to stop kicking extra points. They were running out of footballs. In 1940, they didn't have a massive net behind the uprights, and fans in the bleachers were keeping the balls that landed in the stands. The NFL didn't want to lose its entire inventory to a blowout. So, the Bears started passing for PATs or just running them in.
The T-Formation Revolution
We can't talk about the 1940 NFL Championship Game without talking about the math. Clark Shaughnessy, a coach at Stanford, had been tinkering with the T-formation and helped Halas implement it. Before this game, the T was considered a "finesse" system. Old-school football men thought it was too complicated and not "tough" enough for the NFL.
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That afternoon changed the minds of every scout and coach in the country.
The Bears used a man-in-motion—usually a halfback or end moving parallel to the line before the snap. This forced the Washington defenders to shift their eyes and their weight. If they shifted too far, Luckman handed it off inside. If they stayed home, he tossed it to the flat. It was the birth of the "option" and the "pro-style" offense.
Within a few years of this game, almost every team in the league abandoned the Single Wing. If you watch a game today, whether it's the Chiefs or a local high school, you are seeing the DNA of the 1940 Chicago Bears. They moved the quarterback under center, they used the "man in motion," and they prioritized speed over raw bulk.
Beyond the Scoreboard: The Aftermath
What's crazy is that Washington wasn't even a bad team. They finished the regular season 9-2. They had Sammy Baugh! "Slingin' Sammy" is arguably the greatest athlete of that era—a punter, defensive back, and quarterback who revolutionized the forward pass.
After the game, a reporter asked Baugh if the outcome would have been different if Washington had scored early when they had a chance near the goal line. Baugh, always blunt, supposedly replied, "Yeah. It would have been 73-7."
He knew. Everyone knew. They hadn't just lost a game; they had witnessed an evolution.
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The 1940 NFL Championship Game also served as a massive cultural moment. It was played just a year before the United States entered World War II. Many of the men on that field—including Sid Luckman and several Washington players—would soon be trading their jerseys for military uniforms. For many fans, this game represented the peak of the "Golden Era" of pre-war pro football. It was the last moment of pure, uninterrupted sporting dominance before the world shifted on its axis.
Facts That Sound Like Fiction
- The Bears didn't even have 500 yards of offense. They "only" had 452. They just had incredible field position because of the turnovers.
- The game only took about two and a half hours to play. Nowadays, a 73-0 game would take four hours just because of the commercial breaks.
- Ten different Bears players scored touchdowns. It wasn't just one guy having a career day; it was an entire roster executing perfectly.
- The gate receipts showed a crowd of about 36,000 people. Imagine being one of the Washington fans who paid hard-earned Depression-era money to watch your team lose by 73.
Why the 1940 NFL Championship Game Still Matters
Most sports records are meant to be broken. We see passing records fall every season because the rules change to favor the offense. But 73-0 is safe. In the modern NFL, with its parity, salary caps, and "mercy" mentalities in the coaching ranks, nobody is running up a score like that.
The legacy of this game isn't just the score, though. It’s the tactical shift. It’s the moment the NFL stopped being a "tough man" contest and started being a chess match played at full speed.
If you're a football history buff or just someone who loves a good "revenge" story, there are a few ways to really dig deeper into this specific era.
Actionable Steps for the Football Historian:
- Watch the footage: There is actually high-quality (for the time) newsreel footage of the 1940 NFL Championship Game available in the NFL Films archives and on YouTube. Seeing the T-formation in motion against a static 1940s defense explains the blowout better than any words can.
- Read "The Monsters of the Midway": Look for books by Jeff Snook or specific biographies of George Halas. The level of detail Halas went into for game preparation—from scouting to psychological warfare—is the blueprint for modern coaches like Belichick.
- Visit the Hall of Fame: If you’re ever in Canton, Ohio, look for the 1940 Bears display. They have artifacts from the game that put the sheer physicality of the era into perspective. Those leather helmets didn't offer much protection against a team looking to score 73 points.
- Analyze the Stats: Compare the 1940 Bears' offensive stats to the 1939 season. You’ll see the exact moment the T-formation clicked and changed the league's scoring averages across the board.
The 1940 NFL Championship Game stands as a monolith. It’s a reminder that in sports, being offended is a great motivator, but having a better scheme is what actually wins the ring. Washington called them crybabies; the Bears responded by rewriting the rulebook of American football.