Windy City Gridiron
Caleb Williams has thrown eight touchdown passes this season, a total that has led some reporters, writers and Bears fans to ask a great question: what is the franchise record for touchdown passes through the first four weeks of the season?
To answer that question, many Bears media members will turn to Pro Football Reference (PFR) and its search tool Stathead, which offers this answer:
That nine-touchdown start for Luckman in 1943 was his record-setting season, a then franchise-record 28 touchdowns. Yet a curious thing happens if you check the Bears game page on PFR for Oct. 10, 1943: you see what seems to be a 29th Luckman touchdown pass.
The scoring log shows that in the 20-0 win over the crosstown Cardinals, Luckman threw two touchdowns: 40 yards to Bill Geyer and 21 yards to Connie Mack Berry.
In the box score though, Luckman is credited with only one touchdown pass. Same as on his 1943 gamelog. Though the newspaper reporting initially credited Luckman with two TDs, that was a snafu, quickly corrected, and for the rest of the season, the Geyer play did not count for Luckman, giving him an NFL-record 28, but not 29, touchdown passes. The 1944 Chicago Bears media guide showed the same: 28 for Luckman.
The source of the confusion — perhaps in the initial reporting in 1943 and definitely for me in 2025 — was the nature of the Geyer touchdown itself, a gimmick today that was a staple of football in the 1940s: the lateral.
The Geyer touchdown is listed on PFR as a 40-yard touchdown pass from Luckman, but the play began as a pass from Luckman to John Siegal. Siegal gained seven yards, and as described by the Tribune, pitched to Geyer as he was being tackled. Geyer then went 40 yards for the score:
While we still see players lateral while being tackled today, it’s rare compared to the 1940s, especially on offense. The lateral was a regular part of football back then; as NFL historian Timothy Brown details, teams designed double- or even triple-lateral plays.
With the heavy use of the lateral and the still burgeoning forward pass, the NFL’s early stat days included a “lateral pass” yardage category that was separate from regular passes. Here, for instance, is the yardage from the 1933 NFL championship game, in which the Bears scored the winning touchdown on a halfback pass turned hook-and-lateral, with the final ball carrier catching the lateral at the 19 and running it in for the touchdown.
“Yards gained on lateral passes” shows the Bears with 19:
Okay, back to Luckman.
If the Geyer play happened today, Luckman would be credited with a passing touchdown. Picture the famous Dolphins walkoff lateral play that beat the Patriots in 2018: Ryan Tannehill passed...
