The 1938 NFL season was the 19th regular season of the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

. The season ended when the New York Giants

New York Giants

The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

 defeated the Green Bay Packers

Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...

 in the NFL Championship Game.

Major rule changes

• A new 15-yard penalty for roughing the passer is enacted.
• If a kickoff goes out of bounds, the receiving team may opt to take possession of the ball at their own 45-yard line.
• The penalty for a second forward pass during a play is changed from 5 yards and a loss of down to just 5 yards.

Division races

In Week Seven, the Bears lost at home to the Rams, 23–21, while the Packers beat the Pirates (the future Steelers) 20–0, giving Green Bay the lead for the first time. The Packers won their next three games to clinch the Western Division.

In the Eastern Division, the Redskins led until Week Ten, when they fell to the Bears, 31–7; the Giants' 28–0 win over the Rams gave New York the division lead on November 13. The division title still came down to the last day of the regular season, December 4, when 57,461 turned out at the Polo Grounds in New York to watch the 7–2–1 Giants host the 6–2–2 Redskins. A Washington win would have made them 7–2–2 and New York 7–3–1, with the Skins as division champs. New York needed only to win or tie, and did the former, five touchdowns en route to a 36–0 victory.

Four neutral-site games were held: two at Civic Stadium

War Memorial Stadium (Buffalo)

War Memorial Stadium is the name of a stadium that formerly stood in Buffalo, New York. The stadium was on a rectangular block near the downtown area. Its main entrance was at Jefferson Avenue to the east and Best Street to the south...

 in Buffalo, New York

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

, one in Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie, Pennsylvania

Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...

 and one in Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers in Kanawha County. As of the 2010 census, it has a population of 51,400, and its metropolitan area 304,214. It is the county seat of Kanawha County.Early...

. The Buffalo games marked the league's first return to Buffalo since the folding of the Bisons

Buffalo (NFL)

Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under three different names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s...

 in 1929.

Final standings

W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT= Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against

Note: The NFL did not officially count tie games in the standings until 1972

NFL Championship Game

N.Y. Giants 23, Green Bay 17, at Polo Grounds

Polo Grounds

The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, December 11, 1938

After the game, the Giants faced a team of "Pro All-Stars," an all-star team consisting mostly of NFL players but also including three players from the Los Angeles Bulldogs

Los Angeles Bulldogs

The Los Angeles Bulldogs were a professional American football team that competed from 1936 to 1948...

, at Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field (Los Angeles)

Wrigley Field was a ballpark in Los Angeles, California which served as host to minor league baseball teams in the region for over 30 years, and was the home park for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League as well as a current major league team, the later Los Angeles Angels, in their...

 in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 on January 15, 1939. The game, which the Giants won 13–10, was the first of five annual NFL all-star games held under the format (but the only one to include non-NFL players) prior to the creation of the Pro Bowl

Pro Bowl

In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League . Since the merger with the rival American Football League in 1970, it has been officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference against those...

 in 1951.

Awards

Joe F. Carr Trophy (Most Valuable Player) NFL Most Valuable Player Award The National Football League Most Valuable Player Award is given by various entities, most notably the Associated Press , to the player who is considered most valuable in the league. When the award is referred to without mentioning the organization, it generally means the AP award. The AP NFL MVP...

Mel Hein Mel Hein Melvin Jack Hein was an American Professional Football player for the New York Giants. Hein played fifteen seasons for the Giants and never missed a down due to injury... , Center Center (American football) Center is a position in American football and Canadian football . The center is the innermost lineman of the offensive line on a football team's offense... , N.Y. Giants

See also

1938 NFL Draft

1938 NFL Draft

The 1938 National Football League Draft was held on December 12, 1937. The draft consisting of 12 rounds and 110 player selections, began with the leagues newest expansion team the Cleveland Rams taking Corbett Davis and ended with the Mr...

1938 Pro All-Star Game