1970 Chicago Bears season

1970 Chicago Bears season
Head coach Jim Dooley
Owner George Halas
Home field Wrigley Field
Dyche Stadium
Results
Record 6–8
Division place 4th NFC Central
Playoff finish did not qualify

The 1970 Chicago Bears season was their 51st regular season completed in the National Football League. The club posted a 6–8 record, another below .500 showing, but a significant improvement over their 1–13 record of the previous season.

Regular season

The Bears hosted their first home game of the season at Northwestern University's Dyche Stadium as an experiment. The Bears anticipated that their Wrigley Field landlord, the Chicago Cubs, might play in the 1970 National League Championship Series and World Series, and that Wrigley Field would be unavailable (at least for installation of temporary seating in right field) until well into October. [1] (In fact, the Cubs were in contention in the National League East until the final week of the 1970 season.[2]) In addition, the NFL was pressuring the Bears to move out of Wrigley Field, because it had no lights and its seating capacity was under 50,000 (even with additional seating in right field for football games). The Bears planned to move to Evanston for the 1971 season, but Evanston residents petitioned city officials to block the move, and the Big Ten Conference ultimately barred the Bears from using Dyche Stadium.[3] The Bears ultimately moved to Chicago's Soldier Field,[4]

Schedule

Week Date Opponent Result Attendance
1 September 19, 1970 at New York Giants W 24–16
62,936
2 September 27, 1970 Philadelphia Eagles W 20–16
53,463
3 October 5, 1970 at Detroit Lions L 28–14
58,210
4 October 11, 1970 Minnesota Vikings L 24–0
45,485
5 October 18, 1970 San Diego Chargers L 20–7
45,278
6 October 25, 1970 Detroit Lions L 16–10
45,632
7 November 1, 1970 at Atlanta Falcons W 23–14
58,850
8 November 8, 1970 San Francisco 49ers L 37–16
45,607
9 November 15, 1970 at Green Bay Packers L 20–19
56,263
10 November 22, 1970 Buffalo Bills W 31–13
41,015
11 November 29, 1970 at Baltimore Colts L 21–20
60,240
12 December 5, 1970 at Minnesota Vikings L 16–13
47,900
13 December 13, 1970 Green Bay Packers W 35–17
44,957
14 December 20, 1970 at New Orleans Saints W 24–3
63,518

Season summary

Week 1

1 234Total
• Bears 7 377 24
Giants 10 303 16

Week 2

1 234Total
Eagles 6 307 16
• Bears 7 1003 20

[5]


Week 7

1 234Total
• Bears 10 373 23
Falcons 0 770 14

[6]

Week 10

1 234Total
Bills 6 007 13
• Bears 0 14710 31

[7]

Week 13

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears
1 234Total
Packers 3 0014 17
• Bears 14 777 35

Week 14

1 234Total
• Bears 0 7314 24
Saints 0 300 3

[8]

Standings

NFC Central
W L T PCT DIV CONF PF PA STK
Minnesota Vikings 12 2 0 .857 5–1 10–1 335 143 W3
Detroit Lions 10 4 0 .714 4–2 7–4 347 202 W5
Green Bay Packers 6 8 0 .429 2–4 4–7 196 293 L2
Chicago Bears 6 8 0 .429 1–5 5–6 256 261 W2

Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.

References

  1. ↑ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1970/07/22/page/49/article/bears-over-sue-evanston-n-u-over-use-of-dyche-stadium
  2. ↑ http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/1970-schedule-scores.shtml
  3. ↑ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1971/03/10/page/56/article/n-u-asks-special-big-10-meeting
  4. ↑ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1971/04/14/page/85/article/renovations-key-to-soldier-field
  5. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com
  6. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2014-Sep-14.
  7. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com
  8. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2014-Sep-14.
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