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The Washington Redskins and St. Louis Rams meet on this week’s NFL schedule, and that matchup harkens back to a meeting between these 2 franchises that was played way back on December 11, 1949, a game that will be today’s Throwback Thursday feature. It was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, as the Rams were located in L.A. back then, and even though it took place 65 years ago, it could be considered a look into the future of the sport. The final score was one-sided, as the Rams, an offensive powerhouse of that era, won handily 53-27, but it was a game that, if you scanned the final statistics, looked like a game that could’ve been played today. The two teams combined for 725 yards passing and 962 total yards,  unheard of totals for the time. The Redskins were quarterbacked by the player who basically invented the forward pass in the pro game, Hall of Famer “Slingin” Sammy Baugh, while the Rams’ QB situation was a two-headed monster, as a pair of future Hall of Famers, Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield, shared playing time at the position. Van Brocklin threw 4 touchdown passes, and Waterfield added 2 more. Another future Hall of Famer, split end Tom Fears, caught a pair of scoring throws, but on this day, his less-heralded teammate, Bob Shaw, caught 4 touchdown throws. Baugh was valiant in a losing cause for Washington, completing 29 of 48 passes for 308 yards, and was responsible for all 4 of his team’s touchdowns, throwing 3 TD passes and scoring on a one yard run. Unfortunately, he also was responsible for “slinging” 2 of his team’s 4 interceptions on the day, which most quarterbacks who are put in a position of having to try to bring their team from behind can relate to, as the ‘Skins trailed 53-14 at one point in the fourth quarter. Baugh’s backup, Harry Gilmer (who would one day coach the Detroit Lions in the 1960s), threw the other two. Washington had a total of six turnovers in the game, and in another similarity to today’s game, the two clubs combined for a total of 20 penalty calls. For the Rams, Waterfield hit on 14 of 22 throws for 253 yards and his 2 scores, while Van Brocklin, amazingly, got his 4 TD throws on only 6 completions (on 10 attempts for 152 yards). In another rarity for what is known as the “three yards and a cloud of dust” era, Shaw and Fears both had over 100 yards receiving. The Rams would go on to advance to the NFL Championship game in 1949, but their offensive powerhouse would meet a fearsome opponent the day of the title game – Mother Nature. The game was played in a driving rainstorm at the L.A. Coliseum, which turned the field into a mud pit, slowing down the Ram attack to the point where they were shut out by the Philadelphia Eagles, 14-0.

Slingin’ Sammy Baugh looks downfield for a receiver

The game from this week’s NFL schedule that we’ll feature in this week’s Throwback Thursday post is a contest between the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills. The game was played in January of 1990 and was an AFC divisional playoff game. It featured a classic shootout between two of that era’s top quarterbacks, Buffalo’s Jim Kelly and the Browns’ Bernie Kosar.  The backdrop to the game was this: the Browns had lost a pair of heartbreaking games to John Elway and the Denver Broncos in the playoffs in previous seasons, and Buffalo, coming off an appearance in the AFC championship game the prior year, had regressed in the 1989 season. They ended the regular season with a couple of losses that almost cost them a playoff berth altogether, and those losses caused some infighting in a very competitive Bills’ locker room that earned the team the nickname “The Bickering Bills”.

The game itself was exciting and included some memorable plays, including a 90 yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Cleveland’s Eric Metcalf and a pass to Buffalo’s Don Beebe in which he was flipped by a Cleveland defender and landed squarely on his head. After falling behind late in the game, Buffalo’s coaches made the decision to go to a fast-paced no-huddle offense to save time, and it turned out to be highly successful. Kelly led his team on a couple of late scoring drives to bring the Bills to within four points at 34-30, hitting Thurman Thomas with a short scoring toss. Unfortunately, Scott Norwood slipped on the icy turf on the extra point attempt and kicked the ball into the backs of his offensive linemen, keeping the score at 34-30 and forcing the Bills to go for a touchdown rather than a tying field goal later on. After that drive, the Bills defense held Kosar to a three-and -out, and after the Browns punted, Kelly proceeded to lead his club downfield with a quick passing attack featuring short throws to his backs, mainly Thomas. The drive included a pair of fourth down conversions, and reached the Cleveland 11 yard line with 14 seconds left. Then came a controversial play in which Kelly found a wide open Ronnie Harmon in the corner of the end zone, and tossed him a pass that he got both hands on, but promptly dropped. There was controversy among fans and in the locker room afterwards about the play, with Harmon claiming the pass was overthrown but fans and some teammates accusing Harmon of having “alligator arms” and not going all out to make the catch. On the next play, Kelly tried to hit Thomas in the end zone but the ball was intercepted by Cleveland linebacker Clay Matthews, father of the current Packer legend.

Despite the loss, some good came out of the game for Buffalo. On the plane ride back home, the coaches, after seeing the success of the fast-paced offensive attack guided by Kelly, decided to make it their base offense the following season, and it was the impetus for the team’s four consecutive trips to the Super Bowl in the early 1990s. Named the “K-Gun” (supposedly after tight end Keith McKeller), it played a major role in making Hall of Famers out of players like Kelly, Thomas, Andre Reed and James Lofton.

Did Bills’ RB Ronnie Harmon have “Alligator Arms” on this potential game-winning pass?

The NFL schedule this week includes an AFC West battle between two old enemies, the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs, so a past game between these two clubs will be our Throwback Thursday feature. When the merger took place that joined together the National Football League with the American Football League, it stipulated that the leagues would begin to exist as the “new” NFL beginning in 1970, with the teams divided into the National and American Conferences. Great care was taken to try to preserve the rivalries built up among teams in each league. One of those was the AFL Western Division rivalry between the Raiders and Chiefs. It wasn’t a rivalry that existed when the AFL was founded in 1960 – the Raiders were a bad team with financial problems in the league’s first couple of years, while the Chiefs began their life as the Dallas Texans, one of the league’s better clubs on the field behind the coaching of Hank Stram. Unable to compete with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, owner Lamar Hunt moved his franchise to K.C. where it enjoyed even more success. When the Raiders hired Al Davis to be their head coach in 1963, they soon shunned their loser label and became an AFL powerhouse. Both clubs developed into flagship franchises for the new league, and being in the same division it was inevitable that they would become bitter rivals. The two teams won 3 of the final 4 AFL titles as the league wound down, and their rivalry continued on into the NFL in the ’70s, and thrives even today. There have been many classics played between these two teams – including an AFL title game in 1969, a season that saw the Raiders sweep the 2 regular season meetings, only to have the underdog Chiefs come into Oakland and upset the Raiders in the title match. The Chiefs had a mascot, a live horse named Warpaint, that would circle the field after every K.C. touchdown. In a 1975 clash, the Chiefs blew out the Raiders 42-10, prompting Oakland coach John Madden to utter: “We couldn’t beat the Chiefs, but we damn near killed their horse!”

The game we highlight for Throwback Thursday is the first encounter they had as members of the NFL, played on November 1 1970. As usual, they were locked in a battle for the division lead, only now it was for the NFL’s AFC West lead, not the AFL Western Division. The Chiefs scored first on a short run by Wendell Hayes, then Raider QB Daryle Lamonica hit his tight end, Raymond Chester, on a pair of short touchdown tosses, to give Oakland a 14-10 lead. Kansas City scored the next 10 points, on a field goal by Jan Stenerud and a TD throw from Len Dawson to his star wideout, Otis Taylor. The Chiefs now led 17-14 and appeared to be on their way to the win, until Taylor became involved in another play. On this play, Dawson scrambled for first down yardage, and on his way down to the ground, got speared in the head by Raider defensive end Ben Davidson. Taylor immediately came to his quarterback’s defense, jumping Davidson and igniting a bench-clearing brawl. Both Davidson and Taylor were ejected but under the rules at the time, Taylor’s penalty nullified the first down and the Chiefs were forced to punt. This allowed Lamonica to drive his team down the field to set up a tying field goal by Oakland’s old reliable, George Blanda. Blanda nailed the kick and the game ended in a 17-17 tie (there was no overtime in the NFL then). That tie eventually cost the Chiefs the division title, as Oakland won the rematch on their home field later in the year to win the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Oakland’s menacing defensive end Ben Davidson 

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)