Searching for the “Zest” of the 1931 Chicago Bears

Searching for the “Zest” of the 1931 Chicago Bears

From When Football Was Football by Sports History Network

December 17, 2025 · 16 min · Episode 96

About this episode

The episode explores the 1931 Chicago Bears, a talented team that underperformed despite having multiple Hall of Famers.

When Football Is Football is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear . WHEN FOOTBALL WAS FOOTBALL HOME PAGE EPISODE SUMMARY Throughout the history of professional football, every so often you might notice a club roster that is so strong, so impressive, and so very talented, that you just could not anticipate anything less than total success for that specific team. This may have been the case with the 1931 Chicago Bears, a squad that featured no less than four future Hall of Famers in Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Link Lyman, and George Trafton. Despite this wealth of talent, the Bears stumbled to a good, but not great, 8-5 record, finishing in just third place in the final standings of the National Football League. This was before the league was divided into two divisions and there was no playoff system in effect, so that last game was indeed the end of the season...... Read the entire episode blog post and check out some other cool info regarding this episode here . WHEN FOOTBALL WAS FOOTBALL BACKGROUND Each episode takes the listener back to the very early days of the National Football League. Author Joe Ziemba will share a forgotten or lost…

People in this episode

Host: Joe Ziemba

Topics covered

  • Chicago Bears
  • NFL history
  • Hall of Famers
  • 1931 season
  • football history

Keywords

  • Chicago Bears
  • Red Grange
  • Bronko Nagurski
  • NFL history
  • 1931 season
  • football
  • Hall of Famers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Chicago Bears, National Football League

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