Chicago had won easily in the summer exhibition game with Washington, but the teams had not met during the 1942 regular season. The Bears were aiming for their third consecutive league title and were favored by three touchdowns,[6][7][8][9] but were upset 14–6 by the home underdog Redskins.[3][4][10][11]
Tickets were sold out three weeks in advance, and some were being resold for up to fifty dollars.[8]
This was the second and final NFL title game played at Griffith Stadium and in the city of Washington. The two teams met on the same site two years earlier with a very different result, as the visiting Bears won in a 73–0 rout.
Scoring summary
Sunday, December 13, 1942
Kickoff: 2 p.m. EWT (EDT)
First quarter
no scoring
Second quarter
CHI – Lee Artoe, 52-yard fumble return (kick failed), 6–0 CHI
The NFL had only four game officials in 1942; the back judge was added in 1947, the line judge in 1965, and the side judge in 1978.
Players' shares
The gate receipts from the sellout were over $113,000, a record, and each Redskin player received about $976 while each Bear saw about $639.[4]
Next year
At the time, an owners' winter meeting and the annual draft of college players was held around the title game. A year into World War II for the United States and with much of the talent in or entering the military, the meeting focused on whether or not to operate the league in 1943; the decision was to continue, with the 1943 NFL draft postponed until April.[4][13][14]
1 – Dates in the list denote the season, not necessarily the calendar year in which the championship game was played. For instance, Super Bowl LIV was played in 2020, but was the championship for the 2019 season.
2 – From 1966 to 1969, the first four Super Bowls were "World Championship" games played between two independent professional football leagues, AFL and NFL, and when the league merged in 1970 the Super Bowl became the NFL Championship Game.
