Throwback Thursday: When Gamblers Tried to Fix the NFL Championship

Each week, VICE Sports takes a look back at an important event from sports history for Throwback Thursday, or #TBT for all you cool kids. You can read previous installments here.

Imagine this: the day before the 2017 Super Bowl, news breaks that New England Patriots players Tom Brady and Julian Edelman have been offered large bribes by a sports gambler to throw the contest. Both players deny any wrongdoing, but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspends Edelman for the game anyway—and later suspends both players indefinitely, following a police investigation and subsequent related trial that produces neither charges against nor convictions of either man.

Crazy, right? Only 70 years ago, that's essentially what happened. On December 15, 1946, the New York Giants hosted the Chicago Bears in a NFL Championship Game that is best remembered for a murky scandal, one that in some ways foreshadowed contemporary debates over commissioner power, player punishment, and just how far the league should go to protect itself against perceived threats to its public image.

Heading into the game, the top story was New York's star back, Frank Filchock. Filchock was a two-time Pro Bowler, and one of the league's better arms; he had thrown the first 99-yard touchdown pass in NFL history for Washington in 1939. The Giants signed Filchock before the 1946 season, and the three-year contract, for a reported $35,000 (equivalent to about $433,872 today), was not only large by 1940s standards; it was the first multi-year deal signed by any New York player, according the Professional Football Researchers Association. He quickly became the Giants' leading rusher, totaling 371 yards in 91 carries so far that season; he also passed for 1,262 yards and 12 touchdowns.

During the buildup to the championship game, Giants head coach Steve Owen let it slip that Filchock had played hurt all season: "He was alright on Sundays," Owen told the press two days before the game, as quoted by the New York Times, "but we never let him pass during the week. I wish I had a few more cripples like him."

It was perfect. A Navy veteran who had served in World War II, Filchock was carrying the warrior spirit from the battlefield to the gridiron. Had NFL Films existed at the time, it couldn't have written a better script.

Hours before kickoff, however, news broke that Filchock and another Giants star, Merle Hapes, were offered $2,500 each by a gambler named Alvin J. Paris to throw the game. If they succeeded, they'd also receive the winnings of a $1,000 bet placed for each of them on the Bears, as well as lucrative off-season jobs.

Suspicious movement on the Bears' odds the week before the game tipped off the police; wiretaps on Paris's phone recorded mentions of Filchock and Hapes. The Saturday before the championship game, New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer was informed of the police's findings. He reportedly was deeply troubled and summoned both players to his mansion, presenting police evidence of the attempted fix and grilling them late into the night. Initial news reports said that both players admitted a bribe attempt had occurred but swore they declined the money—they were stupid, in other words, but not crooks. Filchock, however, would later testify under oath that he had lied to the Mayor and denied that any attempt took place that night.

The Mayor was apparently comfortable with the word of the two players, but the NFL commissioner Bert Bell considered Hapes' failure to report the bribe attempt a punishable offense. Bell suspended Hapes for the championship game and allowed Filchock to play, which led to rampant pre-game speculation about what Hapes had done, and whether Filchock was also involved.

Filchock and Hapes' teammates found out over breakfast on game day. The Giants' unofficial chaplain, a Franciscan friar named Rev. Benedict J. Dudley, broke the news following morning mass, as recounted by the Times' Alexander Feinberg:

"I have been a good friend of the club for many years, and there has never been a finger of suspicion lifted against any man. You will see one of our boys is missing, Merle Hapes—at the moment under a cloud. Apparently some gamblers had made an attempt to bribe him. No matter what happens I know you will go in and play the game for all it is worth."

Amen.

The stunned Giants players, the Times wrote, soon "gave way to indignation and cold rage by game time and they came out fighting mad."

New York failed to channel those emotions into their game, however. They lost 24-14. Filchock suffered a broken nose and went 9 for 26 with two touchdowns and six interceptions. The score was ironic: a ten-point loss was exactly what the fixers wanted. But there had apparently been too much action on Chicago, because by the time the game started, the Bears were ten-point favorites, and most sportsbooks at the time didn't pay out if you equaled the spread. You had to beat it.

The man who had attempted to bribe the players, Paris, had been arrested prior to the game, along with two accomplices. As more details of the case emerged, the three received a number of death threats. It came out that Paris had socialized with both players and their families, and had tried at least six times to bribe his way into a fixed game. The players declined every time. Nevertheless, Paris felt so confident he would succeed with the NFL championship that he told his associates to place their bets, only to tell them at the 11th hour to "hedge," in Feinberg's words.

Paris was tried and convicted of bribery the following spring. He testified against his two associates in a separate trial, explaining under oath that, much as he had done before the Bears game, he had also tried to get Filchock and Hapes to throw their last regular-season game against Washington. When they refused that offer, Paris placed a $500 bet on the Giants to win, which they did. He said he then gave the winnings to the players. Both players, also under oath, denied they ever received money from Paris.

Despite the players' protestations of innocence and the lack of any police charges against them, Commissioner Bell responded in what you might call Goodellian fashion. In a statement, he said that Filchock and Hapes were "guilty of actions detrimental to the welfare of the National Football League and of professional football." Bell suspended them both indefinitely. The owners backed Bell. Elliot Kalb, author of The 25 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All Time, later summed up the scandal like this:

"The conspiracy in this case is not the fixing of the championship game, it's the conspiracy by the two players and their families to keep quiet about the bribery, and the nature of their sudden friendship with the shady Paris."

If Kalb's assessment sounds a bit like some recent NFL controversies—in which seeming cover-ups and appearances of impropriety overwhelm whatever actual transgression may or may not have taken place—well, the past is often prologue. Filchock continued his playing career in Canada before he was reinstated into the NFL in 1950. He played one final NFL game, for the Baltimore Colts, before retiring, and later became the Denver Broncos' first head coach. Hapes spent a year playing in Canada as well before hanging up his cleats.

Neither player ever admitted guilt. Of the two, Hapes was the louder voice when it came to decrying what both perceived as an injustice by Bell. "It's a bunch of baloney about hurting the league," Hapes said of Bell's decision. "All that they got against us is just not reporting the attempt. I don't think we did anything to hurt the league, but I'm through with professional football anyway."

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