It's been a long time since Sid Luckman flung the ball around the field for the Chicago Bears. It's been a long time since the Bears had even one quality quarterback.
But believe it or not, at one time the Bears depth at Quarterback was the envy of the league. The Three Ls: Luckman, Lujack, and Layne. A legendary depth chart seldom rivaled...but soon gone.
Luckman was wrapping up a Hall of Fame career in which the Bears dominated the NFL during the war years. Johnny Lujack was one of the best young football players in the land. The first of the great quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania, Lujack had won the Heisman at Notre Dame and three national championships in a career interrupted by service in World War II. The third L was the lanky, tough Texan Bobby Layne who Halas had lured away from the Baltimore Colts with promises of a great future in Chicago.
It was 1948.
It had been an incredibly successful but brutal run through the 1940s for Luckman: four championships, an MVP, the NFL's first 400 yard passing game coupled with a seven TD passing game.
But Luckman was beaten up by the physical game of the forties. It was soon time to go play punchball on the streets of Brooklyn with a young, chattering Al Michaels. The pipeline providing Brooklyn-born, Columbia-educated, German Jewish quarterbacks slammed shut when Luckman retired in 1950. But the Bears had depth didn't they?
Johnny Lujack was tough and played defense too. His open field tackle of Army's "Doc" Blanchard had preserved Notre Dame's national title. So sitting behind Luckman, Lujack played defense his first year in the pros and he played it well making All-Pro as a rookie. But it was hard on his battered body, which had held up playing several sports at Notre Dame and through his Navy stint. It was whispered he had taken a bad shot on his throwing shoulder and damaged his knees playing recklessly on defense.
Taking over for the aging Luckman, Lujack had good years in '49 and '50. In '49 he threw for 23 TD passes, but the next year the shoulder still wasn't right and the knees were injured as he scrambled more to make up for his hurting throwing arm. The arm would never be the same and then the knees went.
And then Lujack went.
Johnny Lujack was done way too soon, his brusied, battered body only lasting four years in the NFL. But Bobby Layne the brash, boozing Texan still lingered. Didn't he?
All-SWC for four years and the hero of the massacre of Missouri in the '46 Cotton Bowl where he had scored all of Texas's points (two passing, four rushing, and four extra points), Layne was a legend in Texas. Halas, who Mike Ditka famously said threw nickels around like man holecovers, opened his pockets to pry Layne from the Colts and the grizzled owner promised a no-trade clause in the Texas star's contract.
But Halas liked Lujack and thought Luckman still had some gas in the tank. Plus, Papa Bear especially liked money.
And it looked like a lot of his money was being spent on a wild Texas boy who loved the night life and was only going to sit behind the legendary Lujack. So the Papa Bear shipped Layne off to the New York Bulldogs, who soon were put to sleep, which sent Layne to the Bears' division rival the Detroit Lions and into Lion legend.
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