History of the football helmet gridiron until 1939 and were not made mandatory in the National Football League until 1943 As a side note, "the last NFL player to play in a game without a helmet was Dick Plasman an end for the Chicago Bears in 1940." There is a photograph of him without one taken during the 1940 NFL Championship Game in which Chicago defeated the Washington Redskins 73–0. Before the invention of the football helmet, players would often grow their hair long, because they believed it would protect their heads. The man largely credited with inventing the first helmet was George Barclay. In
History of the Chicago Bears brought on for the second straight season a rookie who made an immediate impact with the team as Ron Bull won the NFL Rookie of the Year Award as the Bears finished in 3rd place in the Conference with a solid 9–5 record. The Bears' rookie success hit a pinnacle in 1963 as the Bears broke the Green Bay Packers three-year stranglehold on the Western Division and the NFL by posting an 11–1–2 record. In the NFL Championship Game at Wrigley Field the Bears battled the New York Giants in front of 45,801 fans on a bone-chilling afternoon. The Bears