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.

Offseason

NFL Draft

Round Pick Player Position School/Club Team
3 58 George Farmer Wide Receiver UCLA

Roster

1970 Chicago Bears final roster
Quarterbacks

Running backs

Wide receivers

Tight ends

 Offensive linemen

Defensive linemen

 Linebackers

Defensive backs

Special teams

 Reserve lists


Practice squad



Rookies in italics
 Active, Inactive, Practice squad

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 National League Championship Series and World Series, and that Wrigley Field would be unavailable (at least for installation of temporary seating in right and center field) until well into October.[1] (The Cubs were in contention in the National League East until the final week of the 1970 season, thus rendering the anticipation moot.)[2][3]

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), stipulations of the AFL–NFL merger agreement. 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;[4] the Bears moved to Chicago's Soldier Field.[5]

  • Prior to the season on June 16, running back Brian Piccolo died of cancer at age 26.

Schedule

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

[6]

Week 7

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

[7]

Week 10

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

[8]

Week 13

Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears
1 234Total
Packers 3 0014 17
• Bears 14 777 35
  • Date: Sunday, December 13
  • Location: Wrigley Field, Chicago
  • Game start: 1:00 p.m. CST
  • Game weather: 32°F, wind 11 mph

Week 14

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

[9]

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. ↑ "Pennant race at a glance". Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington. September 16, 1970. p. 16.
  3. ↑ https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHC/1970-schedule-scores.shtml
  4. ↑ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1971/03/10/page/56/article/n-u-asks-special-big-10-meeting
  5. ↑ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1971/04/14/page/85/article/renovations-key-to-soldier-field
  6. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com
  7. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2014-Sep-14.
  8. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com
  9. ↑ Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2014-Sep-14.
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