Category Archives: 1940s

The one and only Jimmy Conzelman

“[Light-heavyweight champ] Philadelphia Jack O’Brien thought I had a future as a fighter, but I’m glad I didn’t follow up on that. As for music, I had an expert opinion from the late Eddy Duchin. We were good friends, and I used to pretend to him that I seriously thought I was in his league as a piano player.

Eddy never caught on, he couldn’t see anything funny in the idea. So I began to get people to ask him just where he would rate me among the 10 best piano players of the country. Eddy used to blow his top. He’d yell, ‘Conzelman! He’s no piano player! Look at his left hand! As a piano player Conzelman is a bum!'”

— JImmy Conzelman

If you could invite any five people from pro football history to dinner, who would you choose? My first draft pick — playing the position of: Life of the Party — would be Hall of Famer Jimmy Conzelman. Conzelman was a man of many talents. A fine quarterback in the 1920s with the Rock Island Independents and other clubs, he also coached two teams to NFL titles (the single-wing Providence Steam Roller in 1928 and the T-formation Chicago Cardinals in ’47), was perhaps the most sought-after after-dinner speaker of his time and could even play the piano.

Sports Illustrated’s Gerald Holland wrote this piece about Conzelman in 1961, one that captures him in all his multifaceted glory. Hope you like it as much as I did. To me, Jimmy was a combination of John Madden and Art Donovan — with some Victor Borge, perhaps, mixed in. Of course, Jimmy always said his primary influence as a speaker was humorist Robert Benchley, who had a seat at the Algonquin Round Table.

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Meyer Luckman’s file card at Sing Sing prison

Sid Luckman, the Bears’ Hall of Fame quarterback, was a senior at Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High when his father Meyer was arrested for murder in 1934. His dad wound up spending the last eight years of his life in Sing Sing prison, and never saw Sid play at Columbia or in the NFL. It was one of the great unwritten sports stories of the ’40s.

Somebody at the New York Department of Corrections was good enough to send me a copy of Meyer’s Sing Sing file card. As you can see, he was serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for Murder 2, and was eligible for parole March 6, 1949 — Sid’s next-to-last season. His heart gave out, though, in January 1944.

One last thing: His “S.S.#” — 91674 — obviously isn’t his Social Security number; there aren’t enough digits. It must be his Sing Sing number. Lucky Luciano, who was at the prison at the same time, was number 92163.

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The Patriots’ run

We all know how good the Patriots have been since Bill Belichick turned the quarterbacking over to Tom Brady in 2001: three championships, five Super Bowls, eight AFC title games. Enough for ya? And this is in an era, mind you, when such sustained excellence is supposed to be more difficult because of free-agent flight. It’s one of the best runs the NFL has seen.

But where exactly does it rank? Right near the top if you go by this chart. I looked at the best 13-year stretches in league history, based on won-loss record — figuring the championships would take care of themselves (which they mostly did). The Pats’ .752 winning percentage, playoffs included, is second only to the .772 compiled by the 1932-44 Bears, George Halas’ famed Monsters of the Midway.

Only one team on the list didn’t win multiple titles: the forever-falling-short 1967-79 Rams. Other than that, there should be few surprises.

Be advised: In some cases, a club was dominant for an even longer period and had more than one great 13-year run. The Cowboys, for example, were a machine from 1966 to ’85, with eight different 13-year stretches in which they won more than 70 percent of their games. In these overlapping instances, I took the best 13 years, reasoning that we were talking about many of the same players (and wanting to avoid duplication). Or to put it another way: only one to a customer.

Also, I’ve listed the most significant coaches and quarterbacks for each team, not every last one. (So, apologies to Tommy Prothro and Matt Cassel, among others.)

Some will say the championships are all that matter, and certainly they’re what matter most. But every week we hear a coach say “how hard it is to win a game” in the NFL. These clubs did that historically well.

THE COMPANY THE 2001-13 PATRIOTS KEEP

Seasons Team (Titles) Coaches Quarterbacks W-L-T Pct
1932-44 Bears (5) Jones/Halas Sid Luckman 116-30-12 .772
2001-13 Patriots (3) Bill Belichick Tom Brady 176-58-0 .752
1984-96 49ers (4) Walsh/Seifert Montana/Young 172-58-1 .747
1965-77 Raiders (1+1) Rauch/Madden Lamonica/Stabler 146-47-9 .745
1968-80 Cowboys (2) Tom Landry Roger Staubach 156-57-1 .731
1929-41 Packers (5) Curly Lambeau Herber/Isbell 116-42-6 .726
1958-70 Colts (3 + 1) Ewbank/Shula Unitas/Morrall 128-53-5 .702
1950-62 Browns (3) Paul Brown Otto Graham 115-49-5 .695
1967-79 Rams (0) Allen/Knox Roman Gabriel 136-58-7 .694
1972-84 Steelers (4) Chuck Noll Terry Bradshaw 145-65-1 .690

Note: the ’67 Raiders and ’68 Colts won the league championship but lost the Super Bowl. Thus the “+1.”)

Now . . . if you threw in the Browns’ four seasons in the All-America Conference, before they joined the NFL, you’d have to move them up to No. 1. From 1946 to ’58 they were 137-34-5, a .793 winning percentage. But that’s a judgment call. The AAC didn’t offer them much competition, as their 52-4-3 record in the league attests.

Finally, the Vince Lombardi Packers just missed making the list, topping out at .673 for their best 13 years (1960-72). Of course, during the nine seasons Vince coached them (1959-67) they were even better, posting a 98-30-4 record and a .758 winning percentage.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, The Official NFL Record and Fact Book

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