What in the world was up with Johnny Lujack?

[racepug]

A little more on Lujack: https://www.thegamebeforethemoney.com/a ... ny-lujack/

[Brian wolf]

Hindsight is 20/20 but I still cant believe Halas gave up on Layne ...

[racepug]

Hindsight is 20/20 but I still cant believe Halas gave up on Layne ...

Huh. I thought that was a mistake. I had no idea that Bobby Layne ever spent any time on the Bears' roster.

[Brian wolf]

Due to Lujack, Chicago sent Layne to the New York Bulldogs in 1949. Since they were a bad team, they traded Layne to Detroit but Papa Bear could have gotten Layne back but the Lions agreed to pay the remaining debt owed to Halas from the New York team. Third team was the charm for Layne who retired from football in early 1963, having never worn a facemask ...

[RichardBak]

Layne reportedly wore one of those plastic Lucite masks in the 1954 regular-season finale at Cleveland to protect a broken nose. That was the only time I could find that he'd ever worn one.

[conace21]

Hindsight is 20/20 but I still cant believe Halas gave up on Layne ...

At the time, Lujack seemed to have established himself as the Bears QB of the future. Just bad luck that injuries ruined his career.

[GameBeforeTheMoney]

I thankfully got to interview Mr. Lujack for The Game Before the Money: Voices of the Men Who Built the NFL oral history book.

In regards to leaving pro football after 1951, he told me that Notre Dame's head coach Frank Leahy asked him to be an assistant. Lujack felt that was a great way to pay back Notre Dame and Coach Leahy for giving him an opportunity to attend Notre Dame, play football, and other sports (he lettered in four sports!). So he basically left pro football after his original 4 yr contract was up to work for Leahy. He also opened up an auto dealership.

In terms of defense -- he had an excellent college career on defense. You might recall he made the scoreless-tie saving tackle in the Army/Notre Dame Game of the Century. Yes, Sid Luckman was the qb in Chicago when Lujack arrived. They also had Bobby Layne and George Blanda during his tenure! Pretty amazing. Halas apparently originally thought Layne would replace Luckman but then chose Lujack and traded Layne.

Johnny Lujack was a tremendous athlete. Again, he lettered in four sports -- football, baseball, basketball, and track. Also, remember that Lujack set the single-game passing yards record before Van Brocklin. That was in 1949 I believe.

His "career arc" so to speak? That might be explained by the fact he was a superb athlete that excelled at both quarterback and defensive back that played in an era where if you led the league in passing you weren't going to enough money to do anything but kind of make it by. I can't remember the exact salary he told me off the top of my head, but for some reason I remember the 2014 equvialent -- it was about $74,000 in 2014 dollars. So, a lot of retirement decisions back then weren't based on football and what one could do in the NFL as far as winning championships and setting a career legacy.

Here is a short piece I wrote a few years ago, if anyone's interested.

https://www.thegamebeforethemoney.com/a ... ny-lujack/