15: Steve Van Buren of the Eagles. 67: Corwin Clatt of the Cardinals.
76: Bucko Kilroy of the Eagles. 24: Red Cochran of the Cardinals.
December 19, 1948, 75 years ago: The snowiest game in football history was played. The timing couldn't have been worse: It was the day of the NFL Championship Game.
It was a rematch of the previous season's title game: The Philadelphia Eagles won the NFL Eastern Division, while the Chicago Cardinals won the Western Division. The year before, since it was an odd-numbered year, the Western Champion hosted, and the Cardinals won, 28-21 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Both teams were arguably better than they were the season before. Coached by former pro quarterback Jimmy Conzelman, the Cardinals had improved from 9-3 to 11-1, their lone loss being in Week 2, 28-17 at home to the crosstown Bears.
They achieved this with their "Dream Backfield" of quarterback Paul Christman, halfbacks Charley Trippi and Elmer Angsman, and fullbacks Marshall Goldberg and Pat Harder. Christman was injured, and replaced at quarterback by Ray Mallouf. And Goldberg was limited to defensive duty. But each of the others had a better season, statistically speaking, in '48 than he did in '47.
The Cardinals achieved this despite losing two-way tackle Stan Mauldin in their opening game, a 21-14 win over the Eagles at Comiskey. Mauldin, a 28-year-old Texan, was starting his 3rd season in the NFL, when he had a heart attack during the game, and died. The Cardinals retired his Number 77.
Coached by Earle "Greasy" Neale, who had played in both the NFL and what would later be called Major League Baseball, the Eagles went 8-4 in 1947, and improved to 9-2-1 in '48. They followed their opening loss to the Cardinals with a 28-28 tie away to the Los Angeles Rams, then won 8 straight before dropping a 37-14 decision to the Boston Yanks (yes, a team with that name actually existed) at Fenway Park -- just 3 weeks after beating them 45-0 at home at Shibe Park.
They were led by NFL rushing champion Steve Van Buren, end Pete Pihos, and quarterback Tommy Thompson. They also had two-way tackle Frank "Bucko" Kilroy, who may have been the dirtiest player ever. He even took cheap shots at his teammates in practice. Chuck Bednarik, the Hall of Fame center-linebacker who joined the Eagles the next season, was one of the toughest, hardest-hitting players in the game's history, but was so offended by Kilroy that he later said he wouldn't even speak to him off the field.
The Cardinals were listed as 3 1/2-point favorites for the Championship Game, until a weather forecast suggested rain or snow for game day, and bookmakers stopped taking bets. Conzelman said, "We are a tired club that has been going at top speed since July. The Eagles have been able to coast for the last couple of weeks, and they will have the advantage of playing on their home grounds, which should be worth one touchdown, at least. Statistics lean to them, too, and I just can't see how we have been installed as favorites."
Neale was not predicting victory, either: "I believe we are as strong as the Cardinals, along the ground and in the air. The weather might force the breaks."
ABC, which had just started in the television business that year, and had only been founded as a radio network in 1943, made this the 1st NFL Championship Game to be televised, but only their Northeastern affiliates would see it, including WJZ-Channel 7 in New York and WFIL-Channel 6 in Philadelphia. (WJZ would become WABC in 1953. The WJZ call letters would be given to Channel 13 in Baltimore. WFIL would become WPVI in 1971.) Harry Wismer was the play-by-play announcer, and would later be the disastrous 1st owner of the team that became the New York Jets. His color commentator was one of the greatest players of all time, Red Grange.
If home-field advantage made a difference, then the Eagles were glad that they would be hosting this time, at Shibe Park, which they shared with baseball's Athletics from 1944 to 1954, and with baseball's Phillies from 1944 to 1957. (The ballpark was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1953.) A total of 36,309 people paid for tickets.
$5.25 in 1948 = roughly $66.47 in 2023.
A very fair price, given regular-season ticket prices
in today's NFL.
But it started snowing at 7:00 AM, and by 12:00 Noon, there were 10 inches of snow on the field. The temperature was 27 degrees, not as cold as the year before, but the snow was going to be an issue. Neale remembered how the field at Comiskey was frozen the year before, and wanted to postpone the game.
Fortunately, the Commissioner of the NFL was Bert Bell, who had been the founding owner of the Eagles in 1933, and still kept the NFL's offices in Philadelphia. (His successor, Pete Rozelle, moved them to New York in 1960.) Fortunately, Bell was willing to listen to both Neale and Conzelman.
Neale said it was foolish to work for a championship all season long, only to have it decided partly by the weather. But he was sporting enough to say that, if the Cardinals insisted on playing, the Eagles would play.
Conzelman said his team was ready, and made the point that the conditions would be the same for both sides. After all, both teams were used to cold weather in their hometowns. But no NFL team had ever played in this much snow.
Bell was born and raised in Philadelphia. He had played quarterback in the city at the University of Pennsylvania. He had founded and coached the Eagles. But he had to be impartial. He thought of the people who had taken the trouble to get to the game: The fans, the stadium workers, and the broadcasters. He said the game would go on. Neale told his players, "Can you believe it? They want to play. Let's go beat the hell out of them."
Two concessions were made. The game was supposed to start at 1:30 PM, but kickoff was pushed back to 2:00, to give the maintenance crew time to clear the field and the seats of snow. And the lights were turned on.
(Shibe Park was the 1st ballpark in the American League with lights. Interestingly, the next time the Eagles hosted the Championship Game, it was at Penn's Franklin Field, which didn't have lights, and still doesn't, so, to account for overtime and to keep it out of darkness, the starting time was moved up, from 1:00 PM to 12:00 noon.)
When the grounds crew pulled the tarp off the field, they discovered that the chalk used to mark the yard lines had stuck to the tarp. In those days, every NFL game had 5 officials: A referee, an umpire, a head linesman, a back judge and a field judge, plus 3 alternates on hand in case of emergency. (The back judge had been added only in 1947. The line judge was instituted in 1965, and the side judge in 1978.) For the 1st time in NFL history, all 3 alternates were called into service. Bell talked Neale and Conzelman into not questioning referee Ron Gibbs on matters of down and distance.
As if all this wasn't enough, with an hour to go -- before the originally-scheduled 1:30 kickoff, that is -- Steve Van Buren still wasn't inside Shibe Park. He woke up that morning, saw the snow, guessed that the game would be postponed, and went back to sleep.
An hour later, he was awakened by a phone call. It was Neale, telling him the game was on. But he couldn't get his car out of his driveway. He took a bus, a trolley, and finally the Broad Street Line subway to Lehigh Avenue, and walked the last 7 blocks (through the snow, mind you) to 21st Street and the ballpark. He got there a little after 1:00.
There were 28,864 clicks of the turnstile, suggesting that 7,445 people had tickets but didn't go because of the weather.
Just after 2:00, the game began. In the 1st quarter, on the Eagles' 35-yard line, defying the still-falling snow, Thompson threw a bomb that Jack Ferrante caught at the Cardinal 20. He went down, but, since he hadn't been touched, he was allowed to get up again, and keep going, and he crossed the goal line. Touchdown.
No, not a touchdown. Ferrante recalled: "The play was called back because of an offside penalty. I was really steaming about that. I went up to the ref and said, 'Who the hell was offside?' You know, I was really going to line out the guy that cost us the six points. The ref said, 'You.' That shut me up!"
Later in the 1st quarter, the Eagles threatened again, but not much. Cliff Patton attempted a 44-yard field goal. On that playing surface, in that weather, from that distance, a field goal attempt was folly, and it was missed. The Cardinals got close enough for Harder to attempt a field goal from 37 yards. It had the distance, but it was wide left.
Early in the 2nd quarter, the Eagles got to the Cardinals' 5-yard line, but Chicago's defense held. Patton had a much closer field goal attempt, but he missed that one, too. The Cardinals drove to the Philadelphia 39 as the half wound down, but could get no closer. It was still 0-0.
With the choice for the 2nd half, the Cardinals chose to have the wind at their backs for the 4th quarter, in case the game came down to a field goal (or perhaps a mishandled long punt), and kicked off. The Eagles drove, but Van Buren fumbled and Goldberg recovered. The Cards drove to the Eagle 31, but on 4th and 2, their "Dream Backfield" failed to get the 1st down.
Near the end of the 3rd quarter, Mallouf fumbled a snap, and Kilroy recovered on the Cardinal 17. As the quarter ended, the Eagles had advanced the ball to the 11. Two plays into the 4th quarter, they got to the 5. The Eagle fans chanted, "Give it to Steve!" (In 2012, Philadelphia-based writer Will Bunch would publish a biography of Van Buren, with Give It to Steve! as the title.) Kilroy and Joe Muha opened a big hole in the Cardinal defensive line, and Van Buren got into the end zone untouched, nonetheless slipping on the snow. Patton kicked the extra point, and the Eagles led, 7-0 with 14:07 left to play.
The Cardinals could do little thereafter. Patton attempted another field goal, from 34 yards out, with 5 minutes to play, but missed. The last Cardinal drive ended in an interception, and the Eagles managed to reach the Cardinal 2 as time expired.
For the 1st time in their 15 seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles were World Champions. It was the 1st NFL Championship for Philadelphia since the 1926 Frankford Yellow Jackets, who folded due to the Great Depression in 1931, which, along with Pennsylvania eliminating the "blue law" that prevented professional sports on Sundays, made the Eagles' 1933 debut possible (and also did the same for the Pittsburgh Steelers).
The Championship Game of the All-America Football Conference was played the same day, in considerably better weather. The Cleveland Browns beat the Buffalo Bills, 49-7 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Browns joined the NFL in 1950. The Bills didn't, and the name would be used on the American Football League team that began play in 1960. That team did join the NFL, in 1970.
The Eagles returned to the NFL Championship Game the next year, and, for the 3rd straight season, were hit by bad weather: First cold, then cold and snow, and now, in 1949, pouring rain. This was odd, because it was in Los Angeles. They beat the Rams for back-to-back titles.
In contrast, the Cardinals didn't reach the Playoffs again until 1974, by which point they were in St. Louis; and didn't reach another NFL Championship Game under any name until Super Bowl XLIII in 2008, by which point they were in Arizona.
From the Eagles: Steve Van Buren, Pete Pihos Alex Wojciechowicz and coach Greasy Neale would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. From the Cardinals, Charley Trippi was the only player who would be elected, although coach Jimmy Conzelman also was.
Trippi turned out to be the last living player from the 1947 and 1948 NFL Championship Games. Jack Myers was the last surviving Eagle, living until December 24, 2020. Van Buren lived until 2012, dying just after Bunch's book was published.
Although there have been many colder games in NFL history, the 10 inches of snow has been topped only once: On December 1, 1985, 15 inches fell on Lambeau Field. The Green Bay Packers were used to cold and snow, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were not. The Packers won, 21-0.