Logo of another pro football team from the old Continental Football League, the Philadelphia Bulldogs. They played in the league in its’ first two seasons in 1965 and ’66, playing in the league title game both seasons, and winning it all in ’66, before folding shortly afterwards.
Courtesy of www.VintageCardPrices.com , a 1981 Topps football card of Hall of Fame wide receiver James Lofton. A football and track star in college at Stanford, Lofton entered the NFL as the top draft pick of the Green Bay Packers in 1978 and played nine seasons with the team. He wound up playing a total of 16 years in the league with 5 different teams, and was named to the Pro Bowl eight times. After his Green Bay days, Lofton had a couple of lost seasons in Oakland before being claimed off the waiver wire by Bill Polian in Buffalo, where he had great success hooking up with Jim Kelly, appearing in 3 Super Bowls with the Bills. He dabbled in coaching for awhile after retiring as a player, and currently serves as an analyst on the radio broadcasts of Sunday Night Football.
The scheduled game from the NFL for week seven that will be the Throwback Thursday feature for this week is between two old AFC East rivals, the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. There are many games to choose from over the years in this storied rivalry that were unforgettable – the first game ever played between the teams, in Miami’s first year in the AFL in 1966, the Bills’ first win over the Dolphins after going 0-for-the 1970s, in the first year of the Chuck Knox era, Joe Ferguson’s epic game in the Orange Bowl when he outdueled Dan Marino in his rookie year, Jim Kelly’s end zone dive to secure a win in 1989, or any of the many Bills’ wins in the Marv Levy era. Since the 2 teams meet twice a year every season, there will be other opportunities to feature those games.
Instead, I decided to feature a game from 1975 that included one of the most bizarre officiating calls in NFL history. The Bills, with O.J. Simpson leading the way, were a good team in the 1970s, but could never get over the hump when it came to competing with Don Shula’s Dolphin teams. Miami dominated the series, but that domination bordered on the ridiculous as Buffalo was completely swept for the entire decade, losing twice a year to the Fish every year from 1970 through 1979. But on December 8, 1975, the Dolphins got some unexpected help on their way to a 31-21 win over the Bills in the Orange Bowl. That old stadium was a house of horrors for Buffalo, but they left south Florida that day incensed over a call that left them out in the cold as far as having a chance to win the game, and put a major crimp in their playoff hopes. Considering the way they totally dominated the Bills for the whole decade, Miami didn’t need any help, but got some in a major way in this game. The Bills had staged a major comeback, from a 21-0 deficit, led by some stellar play from Simpson and Ferguson, and trailed by a mere field goal, 24-21, when Miami running back Mercury Morris fumbled the ball, and Bills’ lineman Pat Toomay ran over to attempt to recover the ball. He did, which appeared to give the Bills possession and a chance to take the lead. However, head linesman Jerry Bergman ruled that Morris had not fumbled, and Toomay was assessed a personal foul penalty for “roughing the official”, a call not heard of in the league before (or since), giving the ball back to the Dolphins with a first down. They proceeded to drive for a touchdown that sealed the win, a victory that the Bills felt was tainted. Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson may have been the most angry of anyone in the organization, as he called for Bergman to be fired and threatened to not send his team on the field for any future games that Bergman officiated. Wilson’s quote: “Anyone that incompetent should not be allowed to officiate and should be barred from football.”
Bergman became one of Buffalo sports fans’ most hated villains, and he received over 1,500 critical letters from fans. His wife said that one letter, addressed only to “Blind as a Bat Bergman, Allegheny County” managed to find its’ way to their mailbox. It didn’t help the situation that at the time, Dolphin coach Shula was head of the league’s competition committee, and the general assumption around the NFL was that he “owned” the officials.
Don Shula
Logo of the first professional football team located in Mexico – the Monterey Golden Aztecs, who played in the Continental Football League in its’ final season in 1969. The club, owned by San Antonio car dealer Red McCombs, ran into financial trouble and folded halfway through the season. McCombs went on to bigger and better things, as he owned two NBA teams at different junctures – Denver and San Antonio, and also the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
Courtesy of www.CheckOutMyCards.com , a 1976 Topps football card of former NFL defensive lineman Pat Toomay, who played ten years in the league for four different teams, most notably the Dallas Cowboys. He began his career in Dallas and played five seasons there, then was traded to Buffalo, where he played one year before being exposed in the expansion draft that stocked the new Tampa Bay and Seattle franchises. He finished his playing days in Tampa and Oakland. Toomay is an accomplished author, having written two books – The Crunch, an irreverent look at his playing days with Dallas under Tom Landry, and On Any Given Sunday, which the Oliver Stone film Any Given Sunday was loosely based on.
The Buffalo Bills followed the same pattern on Sunday against Cincinnati that they’ve done in every game so far in 2013 – they played a close, exciting game that went down to the wire. This time, they were on the losing end, dropping a 27-24 decision in overtime to the Bengals. Going into the game, conventional wisdom said that the team’s defense needed to carry the day, or basically keep playing the way they have this season, in order to help out new quarterback Thad Lewis, who was promoted from the practice squad to start in place of injured starter EJ Manuel. Lewis did his part, throwing for a pair of highlight reel touchdowns in the second half to lead the Bills from a 24-10 deficit to a 24-24 tie to send the game into OT. The running game wasn’t spectacular but all three backs, C.J. Spiller (gutting it out on a bad ankle), Fred Jackson and Tashard Choice, took turns churning out good yardage to keep drives alive. Lewis wound up throwing for the 2 TDs and running for another – enough to get the win if the defense had been able to turn in even an average performance. Instead, Mike Pettine’s unit got schooled by the Bengals, who used quick passes and bubble screens to gash a poor-tackling Bills’ defense that didn’t look ready to play. Jairus Byrd and Stephon Gilmore returned to the lineup, but in retrospect both seemed like they could have used another week off. Gilmore especially played tentatively in coverage and seemed to want no part of any contact when it came to tackling runners. To their credit, the Bengals took full advantage of it. In the ultimate sign of disrespect for the Bills’ defense, the Bengals eschewed a punt to pin the Bills deep in their own territory, the conventional move, and instead went for it on a 4th and 15. Apparently they knew what they were doing, since they converted for a first down. The other turning point in the game that turned the defense into goats was giving up a 98 yard touchdown drive after coach Doug Marrone decided to go for a fourth and goal from the one yard line. The offense failed, but instead of stepping up and bailing out their coach for the decision by stopping the Bengals and keeping the field position advantage, they gave up the long touchdown drive. Those types of situations are what define whether a team is a winner or a loser, and right now the Bills are still a losing team. The fourth down conversion did seem to be enough of a slap in the defense’s collective faces that they woke up and played well the rest of the game as Lewis and the offense mounted the comeback. Then in overtime, the punt coverage team, for the second straight week, gave up a long return, this time setting up the Bengals for the winning field goal. One positive in the game was the return of punter Brian Moorman, who had a great game. His first punt was a classic coffin corner boot that went out of bounds at the one yard line.
Buffalo, with a banged up roster, now goes on the road to face the daunting task of playing Miami, with the Dolphins coming off a bye and having two weeks to prepare. After that, they go from the frying pan into the fire as they visit New Orleans, who will also be coming off their bye and be rested and prepared. That means the team will most likely be 2-6 at that point and will be hard-pressed to equal the back-to-back 6-10 finishes that Chan Gailey’s teams posted.
Logo of the San Antonio Toros, a minor league football team that played one season, 1969, in the old defunct Continental Football League. They played in the Texas Division for their lone season in the league, and finished with a 7-4 record. They made it all the way to the league championship game, but lost to the Indianapolis Capitols.
1965 Topps football card of former defensive lineman Roland “Ron” McDole, one of the defensive stalwarts on the Buffalo Bills’ American Football League championship teams of the 1960s. McDole played eight seasons with the Bills starting in 1962, and was a two-time AFL All Star. While the careers of many of his AFL contemporaries faded after the league merged with the more established NFL, McDole flourished, re-inventing himself with George Allen’s “Over The Hill Gang” Washington Redskin teams of the 1970s. He stretched his career out for another eight years in Washington, and was named one of the top 70 Redskin players of all time. Redskin teammate Sonny Jurgensen nicknamed him “The Dancing Bear”, after he showed off his moves at a local nightclub. He holds the pro football career record for interceptions by a defensive lineman with 12.
One of the games on this week’s NFL schedule is expected to be one of the most lopsided games in league history, matching the undefeated and seemingly unstoppable Denver Broncos, led by Peyton Manning, and the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars, who are winless and going nowhere. The point spread on the game has reached as high as 28 points. The Throwback Thursday game I’m highlighting this week was also played between these two franchises, and wound up being featured by NFL Films as one of the top ten in their “Greatest Games” series. They dubbed it the “Ambush at Mile High”, and going into the game the expected result was pretty much what the experts are counting on this week – a one-sided Bronco victory. The year was 1996 and the Broncos were the AFC’s top seed going into the playoffs, and behind star quarterback John Elway, were expected to breeze through the competition into the Super Bowl. When the first team they would face turned out to be the Jaguars, that path looked to be extremely easy. The Jaguars were a second year expansion team that finished the year with a 9-7 win/loss record, barely squeaking into the playoffs as a wild card team. They pulled what appeared to be a major surprise in the wild card round the previous week when they overcame an early 14-0 deficit to upset the Buffalo Bills 30-27. It wasn’t clear at the time, but it turned out the Bills were in decline at that point. In fact, the game turned out to be Jim Kelly’s final appearance, as he left the field with a head injury and wound up retiring in the off-season. Against the 13-3 Broncos, the Jaguars, under coach Tom Coughlin, were supposed to be an easy mark, especially at Mile High Stadium, where the team had a major home field advantage. The game followed the same pattern as the Jags’ wild card win the previous week, with Denver jumping out to a 12-0 lead in the first quarter. However, just as in the Buffalo game, Jacksonville stormed back behind the pinpoint passing of Mark Brunell, who played the game of his life, and the hard running of Natrone Means, who ground out 140 rushing yards. Jacksonville hung on for the win, again by a 30-27 score, but unfortunately they were eliminated the next week in the AFC Championship game by coach Bill Parcells’ New England Patriots. The upset may have lit a fire under Elway and the Broncos, however, as they went on to win back-to-back Super Bowls following the 1997 and ’98 seasons.
Natrone Means (photo courtesy of Bleacherreport.com)
This is a logo of the Texas A&M Aggies, used from 1964 until 1977. The school is currently home to the most recent Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Manziel, AKA “Johnny Football”. Although the school now plays in the Southeastern Conference, they were members of the old Southwest Conference during the era this logo was used. The Aggies had another Heisman winner in 1957 – running back John David Crow. Other A&M star players of the past include Jack Pardee, Yale Lary, Lester Hayes, Shane Lechler and Richmond Webb.