March 6, 2021: Molesworth Time

OK, back on the hunt for the greatest Bears QBs of all time. In my first attempt, I found out who Pard Pearce was: the 1st ever QB for the Bears, the QB of the 1921 Championship team. Next up, sticking to championship years, are 1932 & 1933. Yep, that’s right; the Bears went back to back. The title was decided in 1932 by a playoff game; it was actually a tie-breaker game. In 1933, this playoff game was actually called the NFL Championship game; the Bears won both of them. Looking for the QB during those years, and lo and behold, it’s another guy I never heard of: Keith Molesworth.

Shit, look it up if you don’t believe me; I ain’t making this stuff up. I claim to be such a die hard Bears fan, but I would have never guessed that this guy played for the Bears, let alone was the QB of back to back championship teams. I guess it really was Molesworth Time. He had 3 TD passes in 1932 and a whopping 4 in 1933; that’s the whole season, not just the last game. He did rush for 2 and catch 1 in 1932, while catching 1 in 1933. Remember, we’re still talking about almost a century ago; much different game back then. Still, what QB nowadays can say they threw, ran, AND caught a TD pass in a season. Yes, good old Keith Molesworth can; he was a jack of all trades if you may, although there were a couple other guys on the Bears those years that you may have heard of.

Those were the Bronko Nagurski & Red Grange years; talk about a one-two punch out of the backfield. They both threw for TDs too, and oh yeah, played defense as well. Yep, the great two way players… and guys complain about playing 16 games today only playing one side of the ball… bunch of pansies. It was a time when football was football; it’s a game at the end of the day. Tell me how you played it growing up. Did you go to the sideline after your team scored or gave up the ball? Heck no. We played both sides of the ball growing up as kids. Of course, when you start talking organized ball, you’ll need to pick a side, although there are still those 2 way athletes in High School. Yes, Bronko, who would go on to be a professional wrestling champion, and Red, the Galloping Ghost, would both end up in the Hall of Fame, as would the Bears coach at the time… guy named George Halas. It would not be the same result for Keith Molesworth. Funny thing though, reading through Wikipedia, the 1933 Bears offense was described as a high-octane passing attack, at least for that era; that’s wild. Maybe I have found the first great Bears QB? There were 11 TDs thrown that year, but Keith, although he was the leader, only had 4 of those passes. Like Pard, Keith surely has his place in Bears history, but I’m not going to go as far as claiming he or Pard were great by any stretch.

So the search continues… next up is the 1940s, the birth of the Monsters of the Midway; a decade of dominance with 4 NFL championships. We’d also be introduced to a little something called the T-Formation. Surely, we’ll find a great QB here, right? Stay tuned.