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The Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles square off on this week’s NFL schedule, harkening back to another meeting between these two franchises that will be this week’s Throwback Thursday feature. That meeting was the National Football League championship game of the 1960 season, and was historic in the fact that it was the only post-season loss in the head coaching career of Packer legend Vince Lombardi. The decade of the 1950s had been dominated by the likes of the Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts, as those three clubs won 7 titles between them. So when the Packers and Eagles qualified for the title game in ’60, it was a matchup of “new blood”. Green Bay hadn’t played for a league title since 1944, while the Eagles were making their first championship appearance since 1949. There were some quirky things about the game – it was played on a Monday – December 26th, because the NFL didn’t want to play on Christmas, and was scheduled for a noon start time, because Philadelphia’s home stadium, Franklin Field, had no lights and the league was concerned that there could be sudden death overtime, which had happened two years previous in 1958. The Packers had been a losing franchise in the ’50s, and Lombardi took over as head coach in 1959 and produced a winning season, then got his club into the title game in 1960. The Packers were an unknown quantity at the time. Bart Starr was on the roster, but he shared quarterback duties with Lamar McHan. In fact, the Packers got to the title game with an 8-4 record, and were 4-0 in McHan’s starts and 4-4 in Starr’s. Other future Packer legends, like Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor and Ray Nitschke, were in the early stages of their careers. The Eagles, on the other hand, were pretty much a one-year wonder. They were led by veteran QB Norm Van Brocklin, who would retire after the title game, and coach Buck Shaw, who turned the Eagles from chronic losers into NFL champs in three seasons. The title game would be Shaw’s last with Philly also. Philadelphia wound up winning the game 17-13, and the game ended with Green Bay driving deep into Eagle territory. With only 22 seconds left and no timeouts, Starr threw a short pass to Taylor and he was tackled at the ten by Philly’s Chuck “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik. The rules were a lot different in that era, and Bednarik, after making the tackle, held Taylor down as the clock wound down. As the final gun sounded, Bednarik snarled “You can get up now, Taylor. This damn game’s over!” Winning the title was a bit of a crowning achievement for players like Bednarik, Van Brocklin and veteran receivers Tommy McDonald and Pete Retzlaff, who all played well. Ted Dean, an Eagle rookie phenom, scored what turned out to be the game-winning touchdown on a five yard run.

For Green Bay and Lombardi, the game was not their greatest moment. Lombardi, in fact, made some tactical mistakes, including going for it on fourth down (and failing) on several occasions deep in Eagle territory. The Packers outgained Philly 401 yards to 296, but couldn’t finish the job. In typical Lombardi fashion, the coach took the brunt of the blame, claiming afterward “When you get down there, you have to come out with something. I lost the game, not my players.” Lombardi also exhorted his players to remember the feeling they were experiencing in that losing locker room, and told them they wouldn’t ever feel it again. His words were prophetic, as the Packers grew into a dynasty that dominated the 1960s, winning the NFL championship 5 of the next 7 seasons, including the first two Super Bowls.

From left, Norm Van Brocklin, coach Buck Shaw and Chuck Bednarik celebrate winning the 1960 NFL title

The oldest rivalry in the National Football League will be renewed this weekend when the Chicago Bears take on the Green Bay Packers, and this week’s Throwback Thursday post will feature a game played between these two storied franchises. The game took place on September 13, 1964, and certainly wasn’t the most classic matchup of the many these two division rivals would play against each other over the years, but it included a play that caught a lot of people by surprise that day. First, let’s set up the recent history these clubs had against each other at the time. In 1962, on their way to their second consecutive NFL title, coach Vince Lombardi’s Packers had throttled the Bears twice in the regular season, by overwhelming scores of 49-0 and 38-7. The following year, Bears’ coach George Halas was on a mission to even the score, and he succeeded, as Chicago handed Green Bay their only two losses of the season. To add salt to Lombardi’s wound, the Bears would go on to win the title that year and unseat the Packers as champs. So, the September, 1964 matchup being featured this week here was somewhat of a “rubber match” between the teams. The stars of each team did their jobs in the game – Green Bay’s Bart Starr threw a pair of touchdown passes, and Chicago tight end Mike Ditka caught a scoring pass from Rudy Bukich. Bears’ kicker Bob Jencks booted a pair of field goals, one of them being an 8 yarder in the first half. That’s something that would be impossible to do in today’s game, as the goal posts are now located ten yards deep in the end zone, as opposed to directly on the goal line as they were at the time. The NFL eventually got tired of receivers running “post patterns” that ended with the player crashing into the goal post. The hero of the game was Packer star Paul Hornung, a versatile future Hall of Famer who had been a college quarterback, and was not only a triple threat as a passer, runner and receiver but was also his team’s placekicker. That was another oddity of the era – no specialists, each team’s placekicker and punter played other positions also. On this day, Hornung’s kicking ability was the difference in the game – he supplied 11 points with his foot in a 23-12 Green Bay victory, 3 field goals and a pair of extra points. Two of the field goals were short, routine kicks, but the third was the play that surprised both teams and all the people in the stands. As the first half was winding down, Green Bay forced a Bears’ punt, and the Packers’ Elijah Pitts called for a fair catch at the 48 yard line. Lombardi, to the surprise of everyone, invoked a little-known rule known as the “fair catch free kick rule”, which allows the receiving team to attempt a field goal, uncontested by the opponent, from the spot of the fair catch. Neither team had ever heard of, let alone practiced, a “free kick”, so there was a lot of confusion, but Lombardi, and luckily the officials, knew all about the rule. With Starr holding and the half nearing an end, Hornung calmly booted the 52 yard attempt, which was fairly long by 1960s standards, before the soccer-style specialists took over.

The Packers and Bears may have spent a little too much energy trying to outdo each other, as neither team won the championship that year – the Cleveland Browns did. It took five years, but the Bears extracted a bit of revenge in 1968, as their kicker that year, Mac Percival, used the same “free kick” rule to boot a game-winning 48 yard field goal to knock off the Packers, 13-10.

Green Bay’s versatile star, Paul Hornung, splits the uprights

The matchup on this week’s NFL schedule that will give us the Throwback Thursday post is the Monday night game between the New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts. These two franchises played a game on December 28, 1958, that became known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played”. A decade later, the Colts, located in Baltimore back then, would be locked in a historic game with a different New York team, the Jets, and that game changed the course of pro football history as Joe Namath guaranteed a victory for his club and then delivered it. In this Colts-Giants clash in ’58, however, history was also made. It was a game that propelled the sport into the modern era and sent pro football on it’s course to becoming the nation’s most popular sport. It was that season’s NFL championship game, televised across the country on NBC, and turned out to be the first “sudden death” overtime game in league history. Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas became a national hero that day, as he thrilled the TV audience by guiding what today is routinely known as the “two minute” drill, in leading the Colts down the field on a 62 yard drive to set up a game-tying field goal by Steve Myhra to send the game into overtime. Prior to that last drive, the game was actually somewhat sloppy, as both teams turned the ball over multiple times. In all, the teams combined for 7 turnovers, and one Giant touchdown came on a one yard run following a play that saw Kyle Rote fumble, with teammate Alex Webster picking up the ball and running it down to the one yard line. Baltimore defensive back Milt Davis, playing with two broken bones in his right foot, forced a pair of New York fumbles. Colt defensive end Gino Marchetti suffered a broken ankle and refused to be taken to the locker room for treatment. He spent the rest of the game after the injury sitting on a stretcher on the sideline watching the action. Once the game reached overtime, there was a lot of confusion about what to do to begin the extra session, even among the officials. The “sudden death” rule had just been implemented for the game by then-commissioner Bert Bell. They eventually figured it out, and after the Giants went three-and-out on their first drive, Unitas engineered another classic drive down the field, culminating in a one yard scoring plunge by back Alan “The Horse” Ameche, his second TD of the day, to win the game for the Colts. Unitas was brilliant, as was his future Hall of Fame teammate Raymond Berry, who finished the game with 12 receptions for 178 yards and a touchdown. As the Colts drove down the field toward the winning score, there was an incident that delayed the game when a fan ran out on the field. Rumor has it that a television cable had become unplugged causing the game feed to go dead, and an NBC employee was ordered to cause the distraction to buy time to fix the problem. An estimated 45 million people watched the telecast, and that number would have been higher, but the game, played in Yankee Stadium, was blacked out in the New York area. The impact of this game was far-reaching, as pro football became tremendously popular. That spike in popularity is the reason Lamar Hunt and his “Foolish Cub” of fellow owners decided to launch the American Football League in 1960. The game featured 17 people who would go on to become Hall of Famers, including Colt coach Weeb Ewbank, who would also be the winning coach in that Jets-Colts Super Bowl a decade later, and Giant offensive and defensive assistants Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry.

Alan “The Horse” Ameche scores to end “The Greatest Game Ever Played”

There is a contest slated this week on the NFL schedule between two of the league’s high-flying “bird” teams in the first half of this season – the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals. For this week’s edition of Throwback Thursday, we travel back a long way in time, further back than any Throwback Thursday post ever – to the 1948 NFL Championship game played between these two franchises. The Cardinals were two cities removed from their current  Glendale, Arizona location. They hadn’t even moved to their St. Louis home yet (they did that in 1960). These Cardinals played in Chicago, while the Eagles, although belonging to the city of Brotherly Love as they do today, played at old Shibe Park. The title game, a rematch of the previous year’s championship matchup, was played on December 19, 1948. There were no “extended” playoffs back then, with wild cards and divisional rounds, just a title game between the Eastern and Western Division champions, and the game was actually played in the same year as the regular season, prior to Christmas even. The Eagles were the home team, and on the morning of the game Philadelphia was hit with a massive snowstorm of blizzard proportions that continued throughout the game. The stadium grounds crew needed help from players from both teams to remove the tarp, buried under the heavy snow, from the field prior to the game. This title game was significant for another reason – it was to be the first NFL Championship game to be televised. ABC Network would broadcast the game, and the broadcasters themselves were important NFL figures – Harry Wismer, who would go on to found and own the New York Titans (later to become the Jets) in the American Football League, and former Chicago Bear standout Red Grange. In those days, “snow” was a problem with all TV broadcasts, but in this case the problem would be real snow threatening to postpone the contest. In fact, league commissioner Bert Bell considered a postponement, but decided to allow the game to go on because both clubs wanted to play it.  A few minutes into the contest, the yard markings on the field disappeared under the heavy cover of snow, and Bell ordered the head referee to make all first down and touchdown calls by his own observation. The Eagles’ star player, halfback Steve Van Buren, almost missed the game. He stayed home thinking it surely would be canceled, and Eagle coach Greasy Neale called him to let him know it was still on. Van Buren had to catch 3 trolleys and walk 6 blocks to reach the stadium in time, and it’s lucky he did, as he scored the game’s only touchdown in the fourth quarter on a five yard run. The blizzard conditions made for a sloppy, scoreless contest through three quarters, and when Chicago fumbled in their own territory in the final stanza, it set up Van Buren for what turned out to be the winning points.  The 7-0 win by the Eagles avenged a 28-21 Cardinal victory in 1947’s title game, and Philly went on to win again in 1949, shutting out the Los Angeles Rams 14-0.

Players help remove tarp during the “Philly Blizzard” 1948 NFL title game

With the Detroit Lions facing the New Orleans Saints on this week’s NFL schedule, the “Throwback Thursday” feature harkens back to November 8, 1970, to a game played between these 2 franchises in which Saints’ kicker Tom Dempsey booted a record-breaking 63 yard field goal in the dying seconds to give his team a 19-17 win. Dempsey wasn’t your average run-of-the mill NFL placekicker. He not only was a straight-ahead style kicker in a era when soccer-style kickers were becoming more prevalent, he also was born with no toes on his right foot and no fingers on his right hand, and wore a quirky flat-surfaced shoe on his right kicking foot. In the early 1970s, the Lions were an elite team in the NFC, while the Saints were only four years removed from being an expansion franchise, so Detroit was a heavy favorite in the game. The Lions got touchdowns from Charlie Sanders, their All Pro tight end, on a throw from Bill Munson, and on a ten yard run by Mel Farr, while the Saints attack settled for Dempsey field goals. He kicked a total of four in the game, including the record-breaking game winner. As the fourth quarter was winding down, Dempsey kicked his third three-pointer to put New Orleans ahead and looking to be on their way to the huge upset. Then Munson led the Lions downfield and set up Erroll Mann for a short field goal to put his club ahead. It may have been total desperation that caused the Saints to even attempt the winning try. The team had fired their original coach, Tom Fears, and this matchup was the replacement coach J.D. Roberts’ first game at the helm. With pretty much nothing to lose, Roberts sent Dempsey out for the unimaginable record attempt, and Dempsey came through. On the kick, holder Joe Scarpati handled a perfect snap from the long snapper, Jackie Burkett. Amazingly, and in stark contrast to today’s era of specialization, Scarpati and Burkett also made huge contributions that day to New Orleans’ defensive effort, with Scarpati snagging an interception and Burkett contributing a pair of picks. The win, which was one of only two games the Saints would win that year, cost the team the top college draft pick in 1971, but they did alright with the second pick, selecting quarterback Archie Manning, who would be a lone bright spot of their losing franchise in the coming years. Dempsey’s record broke the old mark, held by Baltimore’s Bert Rechichar, by seven yards, and the record would stand until the Broncos’ Matt Prater, kicking in the high altitude of Denver, hit a 64 yarder in 2013.

Tom Dempsey boots record 63 yard field goal

The Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots tangle in an AFC East rivalry game this weekend on the NFL schedule, and that takes our weekly Throwback Thursday feature back to November 29, 1998, to a game with a very controversial ending. The Patriots, guided by Drew Bledsoe, had jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead in the game before the Bills rallied back behind the season’s Comeback Player of The Year, their QB and New England native Doug Flutie, to pull ahead 21-17. This set up a final Patriot drive with just under 2 minutes remaining in the game, and Bledsoe led his team down field with crisp passes, reaching the Bills’ 37 yard line. Buffalo’s defense stiffened, giving up only a single yard on three separate downs to set up a crucial fourth and nine play with only 11 seconds left on the clock. Bledsoe then fired a pass to Shawn Jefferson, who caught the ball at the sideline and was brought down. The Bills disputed that the receiver had first down yardage and was even in bounds, but the officials awarded the Pats a first down. In postgame interviews, both Flutie and receiver Andre Reed, who were standing on the sideline near where the play took place, claimed they overheard the refs say, “just give it to them.” With only six seconds now left, and the ball at Buffalo’s 26, Bledsoe threw to the end zone to Terry Glenn, and the ball bounced out of his hands. However, a controversial interference call was made on Bills’ safety Henry Jones, and with no time left on the clock, New England was awarded one more play at the one yard line. Bledsoe took advantage of the gift and hit his fine tight end, Ben Coates, in the back of the end zone for the winning score. The Bills were so incensed with the game’s ending that coach Wade Phillips took his team off the field and into the locker room prior to the extra point try, so Patriot kicker Adam Vinatieri took the snap directly and ran the ball into the end zone for a two point conversion, giving his club a 25-21 victory that left an extremely bad taste in the mouths of Buffalo players in the locker room. Flutie commented afterwards, “The refs gave them the game, so we decided we might as well give them the extra point.” It was an especially disappointing afternoon for Flutie, who was robbed of what should have been a rousing homecoming comeback win.

The Bills’ cantankerous owner, Ralph Wilson, barbecued the officials in interviews after the game and basically dared commissioner Paul Tagliabue to fine him, which he did. Of his meeting with the commissioner in the league’s New York office to decide his punishment, Wilson proclaimed, “the commissioner lecturing to me as if I were a novice, instead of one who has been involved in football infinitely longer than he has, contends that criticizing a call has ‘destructive and corrosive effects on the game’. What is more destructive and corrosive — errant calls in front of millions of viewers, or my statements of opinion? People all over the country registered shock at the way the officials, however honorable their purpose, took the game away from us. Even the league has admitted to us that the calls near the conclusion of the game were incorrect.”  Wilson added: ”I do know I don’t need pompous lectures from the commissioner and I feel that the $50,000 is not only unwarranted, but punitive in nature. The next time he may ask me to sit in the corner.” To that memory of this Throwback Thursday game, I can only say – God bless you, Mr. Wilson, and rest in peace. As the new Pegula era of Bills’ ownership begins officially this week, that’s a terrific remembrance of ol’ Ralph. He was truly one of a kind.

Patriots’ QB Drew Bledsoe

On the week five National Football League schedule is a game between two NFC clubs, the Philadelphia Eagles and St. Louis Rams. “Throwback Thursday” for this week will be a contest played on a Monday night – Monday, November 5, 1975 to be exact, between these two franchises. It was a lop-sided game played between 2 teams headed in opposite directions at the time. It was in the relatively early years of Monday Night Football, when each week’s game was a nationally televised spectacle with the broadcasting team of Frank Gifford, “Dandy” Don Meredith and Howard Cosell providing as much entertainment as the game at times. At a prior appearance in Philly in 1973, Cosell was supposedly drunk during the broadcast (he had been drinking in an attempt to stay warm) and disappeared from the broadcast booth late in the game after he apparently threw up on Meredith’s cowboy boots. The Ram franchise was still located in Los Angeles, and the team was a powerhouse in the NFL, as they wound up losing only 2 regular season games that year. The Eagles, on the other hand, were mired in a miserable year under coach Mike McCormack, and coming into this prime time clash had lost 5 of their previous 6 games. In an interview prior to the game, McCormack made a comment to the media that his roster contained “some dogs”, and the notorious Philadelphia fans came to the game loaded for bear that night. The fan base in Cleveland, nowadays, has all but copyrighted the title of “Dawg Pound” at their home games, with an end zone section of the stadium nicknamed that, as fans come dressed in dog masks and pelt the field with dog biscuits. It’s become a tradition in the city.

On this November 1975 night in Philly, however, the Eagle fan base pre-dated Cleveland with their own version of the pound, as they picked up on coach McCormack’s remarks by wearing dog masks, parading around Veteran’s Stadium carrying a giant Alpo dog bone and tossing biscuits at the team’s bench. With their home fans turning against them, the Eagles didn’t show much fight. Ram quarterback James Harris had a great night, throwing for 207 yards and 3 touchdowns, 2 of them to former Eagle Harold Jackson. Roman Gabriel, a legend when he played for the Rams in the late 1960s, had been traded to Philly for Jackson and had a terrible night, throwing 2 interceptions before backup Mike Boryla came in and threw 2 more. The Ram defense polished off the night by returning 2 of the picks for scores in the final quarter, with Fred Dryer and Isiah Robertson doing the honors. The Rams walked away with a 42-3 victory, and that type of blowout usually ended with the Monday Night broadcast team filling the airwaves with whatever nonsense they could come up with. I’m sure Cosell was his usual obnoxious self, and Dandy Don probably sang his trademark “turn out the lights, the party’s over” very early that night.

 Coach McCormack with Harold Carmichael, Roman Gabriel (photo courtesy of philly.com)

The National Football League’s week four schedule includes a match between the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons, and so this week’s edition of Throwback Thursday returns to 1998, one of the most successful seasons in Vikings’ history. That is, right up until January 17, 1999, the date of the NFC title game that season between the Vikings and Falcons. The game was a match between the conference’s 2 best teams, with the Vikings finishing 15-1 and the Falcons 14-2. In a fact that made it perhaps a true “modern era” title game, it was the first conference championship game in NFL history played between two teams who played their home games in domed stadiums. Coach Dennis Green’s Viking squad featured a high-scoring passing attack led by quarterback Randall Cunningham throwing to his dynamic receivers – Chris Carter and Randy Moss. Their offense set an NFL record by scoring 556 points, and the team was undefeated at home. The Falcons, under coach Dan Reeves, were led by a journeyman QB, Chris Chandler, and behind young running back Jamal Anderson, were affectionately known to their fans as the “Dirty Birds”, after a winged touchdown dance the players did when they scored. The Vikings had been so dominant that year, with 10 Pro Bowlers on their roster and having won their home games by an average of 23 points, that Atlanta came into the title game as 11-point underdogs despite losing only twice all season.   It turned out to be one of the league’s most exciting title games of all time, as Minnesota, as expected, jumped out to an early lead only to see the Falcons rally to overcome a 13 point deficit. Still, the Vikings pulled ahead 27-20 and drove into field goal position with the chance to go ahead by a pretty much insurmountable 10 points. Old pro Gary Anderson was the Vikings’ kicker, and had completed a “perfect” regular season, having made all his extra point and field goal attempts. However, he sent a 38 yard attempt wide left, his first miss of the year, leaving an opening for Atlanta with just over 2 minutes left. Chandler drove his club down the field and hit Terance Mathis on a 16 yard TD pass to tie the game and send it into overtime.   The teams traded punts in the extra session before Atlanta’s kicker,Morten Andersen, another seasoned vet, hit the game winning field goal from 38 yards to send the underdog Falcons on to the Super Bowl. Chandler’s performance was memorable, as he threw for 340 yards and 3 touchdowns while limping around on an injured ankle. It was an unfortunate ending to a sensational season for the Vikings, but it should be noted that they lost 5 starters to injury during the game. The bottom line was that the franchise that had four Super Bowl losses on its’ resume, this time found a way to come up short in the conference championship, with probably the most talented roster in team history.

Falcons’ kicker Morten Andersen celebrates his game-winning kick (photo courtesy of petemyersrules.com)

The Kansas City Chiefs meet the Miami Dolphins in one of the week 3 matchups on the NFL schedule, and that will make the “Throwback Thursday” feature for this week a game played between these two franchises on Christmas Day, December 25, 1971, that became the longest game played in league history. The game was played in the era prior to regular season overtime being implemented, but because it was a playoff game it had to be played until a winner was determined, and wound up going into double overtime. The Chiefs, under coach Hank Stram, had won the Super Bowl 2 seasons earlier, having shocked the Minnesota Vikings to give the upstart AFL their second straight title before the merger took full effect and the AFL was dissolved. It was the last game played at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, as the Chiefs would move into their new home, Arrowhead Stadium, the following year. Both coaches, Stram and Miami’s Don Shula, would go on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as would 12 other players involved in the game. The game was a see-saw affair, as K.C. jumped out to a 10-0 lead, only to see the Dolphins come back to tie. The teams traded scores and Chief quarterback Len Dawson then engineered a classic 91 yard scoring drive, with unsung back Ed Podolak supplying much of the yardage and capping off the drive with a three yard TD run. Miami’s Bob Griese then matched Dawson by guiding the Fish to a tying score, hitting tight end Marv Fleming with a short touchdown pass to cap it off. When Podolak returned the ensuing kickoff 78 yards to the Dolphins 22 yard line, it looked like the Chiefs were a lock to win, especially since their field goal kicker was Jan Stenerud, arguably the best kicker of the era and still the only pure placekicker to make it into the Hall of Fame. Stenerud, however, sent his game-winning 31 yard attempt sailing wide right, and suffered his own personal Scott Norwood moment 20 years before the Bills’ kicker’s failed attempt. The game then went on long into the night, before the Dolphins’ Garo Yepremian finally won it with a field goal after 82 minutes and 40 seconds of playing time. It became the longest game in pro football history, surpassing the 1962 AFL title game between the Houston Oilers and Dallas Texans. The Texans won that game, and ironically the coach and quarterback of that Texan team were Stram and Dawson, as the Chiefs began their AFL lives in Dallas as the Texans before moving to Kansas City.

Podolak had a game for the ages in a losing cause for the Chiefs. He rushed for 85 yards on 17 carries, caught 8 passes for another 110 yards, returned 3 kickoffs for an amazing 153 yards, and with an additional few yards on punt returns, set an NFL record with 350 all-purpose yards in a single game, a mark that still stands today, some 40+ years later. Miami fullback Larry Csonka was quoted as saying afterwards that the game was going to be played until “somebody won, or died.” The win was the first playoff victory in Miami franchise history, and they would go on to advance to the Super Bowl, where they lost to Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys.

 Chiefs’ LB Willie Lanier takes on Miami FB Larry Csonka (photo courtesy of Spokeo.com)

This week’s Throwback Thursday featured story was an easy one to pick, once I saw that the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers were scheduled to meet. That matchup immediately brought me back to a game etched in the memory of any NFL fan who followed the game in the 1960s. It happened on a muddy field, on December 12, 1965, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, where the Bears played their home games at that time. The Bears had three first round draft picks in the college draft of 1965, and two of their choices, linebacker Dick Butkus and halfback Gale Sayers, were destined to become Hall of Famers. On this particular day, Sayers put an exclamation point on a sensational, record-breaking rookie season, scoring six touchdowns to lead his team to a 61-20 rout of the 49ers. My apologies to the San Francisco franchise, since I’ve now started this year’s “Throwback Thursday” posts by featuring two of the most crushing losses in the team’s history, but this game was memorable. Sayers was spectacular, scoring four rushing TDs, from 1, 7, 21 and 50 yards out, on an 80 yard pass from quarterback Rudy Bukich, and also on an 85 yard punt return. His record-breaking day overshadowed a terrific performance by Bukich, who threw for 347 yards (a huge single-game amount in the NFL of the 1960s) and three TDs on only 16 completions. Sayers would end the 1965 season with an NFL rookie record 22 touchdowns, and although knee injuries shortened his brilliant career, he still managed to do enough in the six seasons he played to become the youngest player ever inducted into Canton when he was voted in, in his first year of eligibility in 1977.  Having played his college ball at Kansas, Sayers would come to be known, as his career progressed, as the “Kansas Comet”, a moniker that described his speed and ability to elude defenders, but having only played full time for a little under five seasons, it might also be fitting to say that, like a comet, he flashed across the NFL landscape for a short period, yet his likes will never be seen again.

Bears RB Gale Sayers torments the 49er defense