NFL in the 1940s Trivia Quiz

Answer: Los Angeles Rams

Gehrke, a marginal halfback for the Rams, was an industrial design artist in the offseason. Intrigued by the possibility of injecting a little color into the team's drab uniforms, he took their helmets after the 1948 season and hand painted gold rams' horns onto them.

The design proved to be popular, but was a maintenance headache: the paint would chip off during games, and Gehrke would spend much of each week doing touchup work! When the team and league switched from leather helmets to plastic in the 1950s, and mass-production techniques were introduced, the maintenance problem went away, and soon, almost all teams had logos.

Answer: Steve Van Buren

Van Buren created a flock of rushing records during his 1944-51 career. He was the second 1,000-yard rusher in league history and the first to do it twice (1947 and 1949). His four rushing titles were twice as many as anyone else at the time had won.

His 5,860 career yards were an NFL best, 2,000 more than Clarke Hinkle, whose record he'd broken. And his 196 yards in 31 carries on a muddy field in the 1949 NFL title game set a championship game record that lasted almost 40 years.

Answer: Division ties would be settled with a one-game playoff; game ties would be settled with an overtime period

It was a timely rule: the 1941 Packers and Bears both finished at 10-1 in the NFL's western division, putting the new rule to the test in its first season, as the Bears beat the Packers 33-14 in the first-ever divisional playoff game. The overtime rule was not used in a championship game until 1958.

Answer: The Rams scored a safety without tackling anyone

Early in the game, Redskin quarterback Sammy Baugh dropped back into his own end zone to pass. His throw hit the crossbar (the goal posts were on the goal line in 1945) and bounced back into the end zone, resulting in a safety under rules at the time.

The safety gave the Rams a 2-0 lead, and they went on to win the game 15-14. The rules about safeties were changed just three weeks later; under the new rules, Baugh's pass would merely have been incomplete. The Redskins would not play for an NFL title again until 1973.

Answer: Chicago Cardinals

Novice sports fans can be forgiven for thinking that the Cardinals come from some place called "Lowly," as a half-century of sportswriters since have tended to call them the "Lowly Cardinals." The team returned in 1948 to defend their championship, but lost to the Eagles 7-0.

It wasn't until 1998 that they won another postseason game, and as the 20th century ended, they had still not come close to playing in another championship contest.

Answer: Led the Redskins to the NFL title

Only his Redskins' 41-21 loss to the Bears in the NFL title game spoiled what could have been the best individual season in NFL history. Baugh's 133 completions, 1,754 yards, and 23 touchdowns led the league in passing, his 45.9 yards per punt led all punters, and he intercepted 11 passes in 10 games to top the league in that category.

Answer: They were the first black players in the modern NFL

Although the NFL had some black players in its earliest days (including 2005 Hall of Fame inductee Fritz Pollard), the league was all-white after 1933, partially because of the efforts of Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, who considered his team the "team of the south" and thought nonwhite players would hurt the league's appeal. Kenny Washington was a UCLA teammate of Jackie Robinson's and re-integrated football a year before Robinson broke baseball's color line. Woody Strode went on to become an actor of some renown, appearing in roles in "The Ten Commandments," "Spartacus," and numerous other films until his death in 1994.

Answer: Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles won their first two NFL titles in some of the worst conditions in championship history. A blizzard made visibility poor (even the field markings were difficult to see) and attendance low (the snow was falling so hard that spectators could barely see the players) in 1948, as the Eagles beat the Cardinals 7-0.

The next year, a three-inch downpour in Los Angeles turned the field into a brown soup as the filthy Eagles splashed their way to a 14-0 win over the Rams.

Answer: Helmet

Although leather helmets were developed in the late 1800s and worn by a majority of players when the league began in 1920, they were not required until 1943. Two of the most prominent football players to shun helmets in the 1930s were future US President Gerald Ford, who played in college without one, and Bill Hewitt, an end for the Chicago Bears.

A famous picture exists of an unhelmeted Hewitt lateralling to Bill Karr to score the winning touchdown in the 1933 NFL championship. Dick Plasman, a Chicago Bears end, is widely regarded as the last NFL player to not use a helmet in games.

Answer: During the World War II player shortage, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles stayed afloat by merging for a season

A large number of able-bodied American men were drafted into World War II, leaving all major sports leagues short of both players and fans. To save money, the Steelers and Eagles merged for the 1943 season, combining their rosters and coaches, and playing half their home games in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

The following year, the Chicago Cardinals merged with the Steelers, forming the Chicago-Pittsburgh Carpets, who went 0-10 (yes, the "Carpets" got "beat every week!"). The NFL returned to its normal configuration in 1946.