A Chicago Bears Super Bowl Sunday

The Bears don’t play in many Super Bowls (2), and they’re not playing today, but there would be no NFL without George Halas. With that in mind, here are some NFL Championship facts that pertain to the league’s charter franchise.

• The Bears have made 28 playoff appearances since the format started in 1932, and team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, who passed away earlier this week, saw every game.
• The Bears won eight NFL championships before the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. The first was in 1921 when they finished the season with the league’s best record. The team was known as the Chicago Staleys then, but that championship did not come without controversy.
• The Staleys finished the season with a 9-1-1 record, their only loss coming to the Buffalo All-Americans. The two teams agreed to a rematch on December 4, one day after Buffalo had beaten the Akron Pros. The All-Americans agreed to a post-season exhibition match only and lost 10-7 to Chicago, ending their undefeated season. The league, whose decisions were influenced by Halas, counted the game in the standings, resulting in Buffalo (9–1–2) and Chicago (9–1–1) being tied atop the standings. The league then implemented the first-ever tiebreaker: a rule, now considered archaic and removed from league rulebooks, that states that if two teams play multiple times in a season, the last game between the two teams carries more weight. Thus, the Staleys won the championship. Buffalonians still call that game the “Staley Swindle.”
• The Bears are 1-1 in two Super Bowl appearances. Chicago beat the Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX, 30 months after Halas died. The Bears lost to the Colts 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI. Chicago’s defense led the team in their win, but the offense was potent, too. The Bears outscored their 1985 opponents by a staggering margin of 456-198. They shut out the Giants and the Rams in the playoffs to win the NFC Championship.

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— Jim McMahon (@JimMcMahon) February 9, 2025

• The Patriots took the then-quickest lead in Super Bowl history after linebacker Larry McGrew recovered a fumble by running back Walter Payton at the Bears 19-yard line on the second play of the game. New England kicked a field goal to take a 3-0 lead before Chicago scored 44 straight points.
• New England’s lone touchdown came on an eight-yard pass from Steve Grogan to Irving Fryar.
• Henry Waechter sacked Grogan in the end zone to give the Bears a 46-10 lead.
• Chicago’s touchdowns were scored by Matt Suhey, Jim McMahon (2), Reggie Phillips, and William Perry. Kevin Butler kicked two field goals. The two teams set or tied 27 Super Bowl records in the game, most by Chicago’s defense. The Bears held the Patriots to seven net rushing yards, a scant 0.64 YPC.
• Devin Hester broke McGrew’s record in Super Bowl XLI. Hester returned the opening kickoff 92 yards 14 seconds into the game. Cliff Avril of the Seahawks broke Hester’s record six years later, recording a safety 12 seconds into the game.

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• The franchise owns nine league championships: 1921, 1932, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1943, 1946, 1963, and 1985.
• It has been 40 seasons since the Bears won a Super Bowl. That’s the second-longest streak in the league, trailing the Jets, who won Super Bowl III in 1969. Three teams have never been to a Super Bowl: The Lions, the Jaguars, and the Texans. The re-enfranchised Browns have also yet to play for an NFL Championship.
• In 1924, the Bears claimed the Championship after defeating the Cleveland Bulldogs on December 7, even putting the title “World’s Champions” on their 1924 team photo. But the NFL ruled that games played after November 30 did not count towards league standings, and the Bears had to settle for second place behind Cleveland.
• The Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the unofficial 1932 championship game. That tilt was played inside the Chicago stadium due to blizzard conditions, making it the NFL’s first indoor game. The Bears were coached by Ralph Jones that season and won 9-0, finishing with a record of 6-1-6. The Packers finished 10-3 and would have been declared champions by today’s pure win-loss standards.
• The success of the 1932 playoff game led the NFL to institute an annual championship game.
• The Bears beat the Giants 23-21 in the first NFL Championship Game (1933). They lost 30-13 to New York in the ’34 Championship Game.
• Thanks to Sid Luckman, the Bears won four titles in five appearances between 1940-47. Chicago beat Washington 73-0 in the 1940 championship game, still the NFL’s largest margin of victory in a title tilt. Luckman is considered Chicago’s only franchise quarterback and held team records in several passing categories until Jay Cutler broke them in 2014-15.
• Halas won one last championship as a head coach, winning the 1963 contest 14-10 over the Giants at Wrigley Field. The NFL wanted to play that game in Soldier Field because it had lights, but Halas refused. Commissioner Pete Rozelle feared the game could be called due to darkness, so the NFL changed the game time from 3:05 to 12:05 PM. It seems that no Bears pre-Super Bowl championship came without its share of controversy.
• Halas retired as head coach in 1967. League owners elected Halas as the first president of the NFC once the NFL and AFL emerged. The NFC championship trophy was named after Halas after he died in 1983.

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• All told, 32 Bears players and coaches are enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame. Of the original 17 individuals inducted when the Hall was established in 1963, three – Halas, Bronko Nagurski, and Red Grange – spent most of their careers with Chicago. Twenty of these 32 inductees played for Halas, including Luckman, Bulldog Turner, George McAfee, Doug Atkins, Mike Ditka, Dick Butkus, and Gale Sayers.
• Payton, Hester, Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, Jimbo Covert, Brian Urlacher, and Steve McMichael are the only players to have played in a Super Bowl for the Bears and be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Jim Finks, who built that ’85 team, is also enshrined.
• Ditka is the only person in Bears history to win a championship as a player and head coach. Halas did play for the Staleys when they won the de facto 1921 championship. He was also the organization’s head coach, general manager, team owner, and marketing director.