The absolute clusterf*ck that was the first ever NFL Championship Game...

In honor of the build-up to Super Bowl LVIII, I present to you the story of the NFL's first attempt to crown a champion using a playoff game.

I stumbled upon a 16-minute long video detailing the events that led up to the 1932 NFL Championship Game between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans. For those of you who don't feel like watching, here's the cliff notes version:

- In 1932, the NFL did not yet have a playoff system in place, instead opting to declare the team with the best winning percentage as its league champion. If two teams finished with the same win percentage, the NFL took the head-to-head winner.

- That season, the Green Bay Packers had won the most games (10-3-1) of any team in the NFL, but the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans had eached finished with just one loss (6-1-6) and (6-1-4) respectively. As ties did not count toward the overall winning percentage in those days, Chicago and Portsmouth finished tied atop the standings.

- Head-to-head couldn't be used because Chicago and Portsmouth had tied one another in each of their two meetings that season. So instead of wanting to share the crown with Portsmouth, Chicago's George Halas proposed the idea of having a playoff game to decide the league's champion for 1932.

- The game was set to be played at Chicago's Wrigley Field but a blizzard put a damper on those plans. Wanting as many people in the stands as possible to maximize profits (because that's what it's about), the NFL moved the event into the indoor arena known as Chicago Stadium. One problem though: the arena wasn't big enough to house a regulation football field. This didn't deter the event's organizers, however, as the field was reduced from the standard length of 120-53.333 yards to just 80-45 yards.

- The Chicago Stadium floor being concrete, with only a week to organize the game, event planners decided to use leftover dirt and bark from the circus that had been in town just a few weeks earlier. Inside this leftover dirt, however, was an amalgamation of various kinds of trash and animal shite. All those who attended the game would go on to remember until their dying day the pungent odor which permeated throughout the arena.

- The starting QB for Portsmouth ended up not being able to play as he was also the head coach of the Colorado College basketball team. The school had a game that day and was unwilling to release him for this championship game. This likely contributed heavily to Portsmouth's poor showing, as they went on to lose to Chicago by the score of 9-0.

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