John Victor McNally, nicknamed Johnny Blood, was an American football player and coach. McNally was named a member of the NFL 1930s All-Decade Team and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1963, as one of the Hall of Fame's 17 charter members. McNally played for six different teams between 1925 and 1941, with his longest tenure being with the Green Bay Packers, first from 1929–33 and then from 1935–36. McNally served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Following the war he attempted to return to football in 1945, but an injury ended his playing career.
In 1922, while working for a newspaper in Minneapolis and still answering to the name John McNally, he and a friend, Ralph Hanson, heard they could make extra money by playing football for a semipro football team in the city. They decided to try out under fake names, which would protect McNally's amateur standing in case Notre Dame agreed to take McNally back someday after having been kicked out. They headed over to the team's practice field on McNally's motorcycle. "On the way there", McNally said, "we passed a theater on Hennepin Avenue, and up on the marquee I saw the name of the movie that was playing, Blood and Sand with Rudolph Valentino. Ralph was behind me on the motorcycle, and I turned my head and shouted, 'That's it. I'll be Blood and you be Sand.'" McNally made the team, but it was a few years before he made football history while playing with the Green Bay Packers and five other NFL teams.
Starting in 1925, McNally made a tour of pro football franchises with the Milwaukee Badgers for 1925–26, Duluth Eskimos for 1926–27, Pottsville Maroons for 1928, Green Bay Packers for 1929–33, Pittsburgh Pirates for 1934, the Packers again for 1935–36, and the Pirates again as player-coach for 1937–39 seasons.
McNally played in the National Football League for 14 seasons, with five different teams. In his prime, McNally was 6'1" and 188 lbs., known for his speed, agility, and pass-catching ability. He got his professional start in 1925 with the Milwaukee Badgers, where he became famous as the "Vagabond Halfback" for his off-the-field behavior and spontaneity. In 1926 and 1927 he played for the Duluth Eskimos, with fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer, Ernie Nevers, and in 1928 he played with the Pottsville Maroons.
In 1928 McNally switched teams and came to Pottsville along with Walt Kiesling, another future Pro Football Hall of Famer. On November 25, 1928, the NFL's Pottsville Maroons played the visiting Green Bay Packers at Minersville Park in a driving snow storm. In a 26-0 lopsided win over the Packers, McNally scored the last two touchdowns of the game; his second coming on a 65-yard run after an interception. Although no one at Minersville Park knew it at the time, that touchdown would be the last Pottsville would ever score in the NFL.
After the Maroons folded in 1928, McNally went to the team against which he scored Pottsville's last NFL touchdowns: the Green Bay Packers. Between 1929–1933, 1935–1936, he played with the Packers where he helped them win four championships. He helped lead the Packers to three Championships in a row: 1929–1931, as well as in 1936.
In 1937, McNally moved on to the Pittsburgh Steelers (then called the Pirates), where on his first play he ran back a kick 92 yards for a touchdown. He ended his NFL career in 1939 as the head coach of the Pirates. One day in 1941, McNally took a day off from his coaching duties for the Kenosha Cardinals minor league football team and played one game with the Buffalo Tigers of the third American Football League.
When coach Curly Lambeau first negotiated a contract with McNally to play for the Green Bay Packers he offered him a $110 a week if he wouldn't drink after Wednesday and $100 a week if he did. McNally allegedly took the $100, although a later story said Lambeau said he would give him the $110 and let him drink on Wednesday for being so honest about it.
The Pittsburgh's President Art Rooney hired McNally for the 1937 season to be both a player and a coach for the NFL's Pirates. In his first season as coach, McNally's team was able to muster only a 4–7 record, which was still good enough for 3rd place in the NFL Eastern conference. McNally and his squad fared worse in 1938, however, posting only a 2–9 record. They finished 5th out of six teams in the NFL Eastern conference.
During the 1938 season, which would be McNally's last full season as coach, the Pirates were set to play the rival Philadelphia Eagles at Laidley Field in Charleston, West Virginia on November 20, but McNally was nowhere to be seen. As the story is often told, McNally was instead attending a football game at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles. Friends in the press box questioned McNally as to why he was on the West Coast and he replied that the Pirates had an open date. The scoreboard, however, proved otherwise. Pittsburgh was on the road playing without its boss present. "I was going to fire him", Rooney later said, "But the players loved him. So I told him, 'John, you have to make the games.'"
McNally began the Pirates' 1939 season as head coach, but following a 32–0 loss to the Chicago Bears at Forbes Field, and the third consecutive loss to start the season, McNally tendered his resignation to Rooney. The Pirates went 7–25–1 (.318) in his three seasons before being replaced by Walt Kiesling in 1939.
Rooney later called McNally the most memorable character he knew during his career. "Nobody would even believe some of the things he did", said Rooney. "As one of our veterans once said, 'This is the only team I've been on where the players worry about the coach instead of the other way around.'"
For the 1940 and 1941 seasons, McNally took over the coaching position with the Kenosha Cardinals, an independent pro team that had formerly played in the American Professional Football Association of 1939. For two games, he and two of his players loaned themselves to the Buffalo Tigers of the American Football League (1940), with McNally playing in one of the games. (By doing so, McNally became the only alumnus of the 1940 AFL to eventually reach the Hall of Fame.)
McNally coached football again at St. John's University (Minnesota) from 1950 to 1952 where he amassed 13–9 record during his three-year stint.
He would be inducted into the inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 1963.
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