2011 Topps football card of NFL running back Mark Ingram Jr., who is currently in his tenth year in the league, playing for the Baltimore Ravens. He started his career in 2011 with the New Orleans Saints and played there until signing with the Ravens as a free agent in 2019. The former Heisman Trophy winner from Alabama has been selected to the Pro Bowl 3 times so far in his career. His father, Mark Ingram Sr., was a wide receiver in the league for 10 years.
With the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens squaring off on this week’s NFL schedule, our Throwback Thursday feature remembers a game between these 2 teams played on January 22,2012, a contest to decide the AFC Championship and a trip to Super Bowl XLVI. Played at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, it was a back-and-forth battle between 2 proud teams trying to advance for a chance at pro football’s biggest prize. In the end, it was the Ravens who encountered a pair of hard luck plays that ultimately were the difference in the game.
Stephen Gostkowski kicked a field goal for the Patriots to open the scoring, the only points scored by either team in the first quarter. Baltimore’s Billy Cundiff tied the game early in the second stanza, and the teams then traded touchdowns. BenJarvus Green-Ellis scored from 7 yards out for New England, and quarterback Joe Flacco hit his tight end, Dennis Pitta, with a 6 yard scoring pass, tying the score at 10-10. Gostkowski closed out the first half and opened the second with field goals to put his club up 16-10, but the Ravens fought back. Flacco threw 29 yards to Torrey Smith for a touchdown, and Cundiff hit another field goal as Baltimore pulled ahead 20-16 headed into an eventful final quarter.
It was in this fourth quarter that Baltimore saw their chance to compete for the Lombardi Trophy fade into history. First, Tom Brady used his patented QB sneak to dive into the end zone from a yard out, giving the Patriots the lead at 23-20. Flacco didn’t flinch, however. With 1:44 left to play, he guided the Ravens on a drive deep into New England territory. That’s when the first twist of fate happened. Flacco tossed a perfect pass to the usually reliable Lee Evans. Evans snatched the pass and turned at the goal line into the end zone, only to have Sterling Moore, a journeyman Patriot cornerback, jar the ball loose at the last second. It was redemption for Moore, who had missed a tackle on Smith’s touchdown catch-and-run earlier. All was not lost, however. Despite failing to cross the goal line, Baltimore could still at least tie the game with a field goal. Fate, again, wouldn’t be kind to the Ravens. Cundiff’s 32 yard game-tying attempt with 11 seconds remaining inexplicably sailed wide left, and the Patriots escaped with the victory.
Ravens’ Lee Evans drops potential game-winning TD pass
Luck would run out for New England in the Super Bowl. They were matched up with an NFC team that had spoiled their attempt at a perfect season a few years earlier – Eli Manning and the New York Giants. Once again, the Giants spiked the Patriots’ dreams.
Logo of a small college football team that competes in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, the Ferris State Bulldogs. A Division II school, they have fielded teams since 1899. Bulldog alumni who have gone on to play pro football include Monty Brown, Ed Philion, Ricky Patton and current players Justin Zimmer, Malik Taylor and Zach Sieler.
2012 Score football card of a former pro football running back, BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Known as “The Law Firm” because of his extra-long name, Green-Ellis played 6 years in the NFL, splitting time between the New England Patriots and Cincinnati Bengals. His career was cut short by injury after the 2013 season, and he was released by the Bengals.
We’re on to week 9 of the 2020 NFL schedule, and one of the premier matchups this week pits the Green Bay Packers against the San Francisco 49ers. For Throwback Thursday this week, we look back at a contest between these 2 clubs that was played on December 10, 1961. It was the penultimate regular season game, played between a pair of Western Division rivals who were having excellent seasons. The Packers had throttled the Niners 30-10 at home earlier in the year, and this time traveled to the West Coast for a rematch at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium. Green Bay, beaten in the NFL title game a year earlier by the Philadelphia Eagles, was coasting along to another Western crown, entering this game at 10-2. The 49ers were a respectable 6-5-1, and eager for another shot at Vince Lombardi’s team.
After a scoreless first quarter, 49er quarterback John Brodie took charge and guided his forces on a pair of touchdown drives, hitting Bernie Casey on a 51 yard score and finding R.C. Owens with a patented “Alley Oop” toss from 10 yards out to open up a 14-0 lead. Lombardi then went to his bag of tricks to cut the lead in half. The halfback option pass, a staple of trick plays for basically all NFL teams at the time, was employed by the Packers with success using Paul Hornung regularly. This time, however, Lombardi doubled down on the trickery, as backup RB Tom Moore used the tactic to find Max McGee for a 22 yard score. Charlie Krueger, San Francisco’s old warhorse defensive tackle, trapped Packer signal caller Bart Starr for a safety, then McGee scored again, this time on a conventional pass from 12 yards from Starr. In the final stanza, 49er placekicker Tommy Davis hit on a 40 yard field goal to boost his team’s lead to 19-14. The ever-resilient Packers fought back and took the lead at 21-19 when fullback Jim Taylor, finishing a hard fought day at the office that saw him rush 22 times for 122 yards, burst through the San Francisco defense and scampered 40 yards for a touchdown.
Brodie and the 49er offense didn’t flinch, however. His receivers, Casey and Owens, blistered Green Bay’s vaunted defense for over 100 yards receiving each on the day. As the game clock wound down, they drove downfield and with only 11 seconds left, Davis won the game with a play that is now impossible to accomplish in the NFL these days. He made good on a 14 yard field goal attempt to seal the upset win. At the time the goalposts were still located right on the goal line, as opposed to at the end line where they are today, making a 14 yard attempt impossible. The loss was just a slight bump in the road for Green Bay. They righted the ship the following week by beating the Los Angeles Rams to close out the regular season, then trounced the New York Giants 37-0 in the NFL Championship to give Lombardi the first of his 5 titles in the following 7 years.
Packers huddle up at Kezar against the 49ers
Logo of a small college (NAIA) football team that plays in the Frontier Conference, the College of Idaho ‘Yotes. The team mascot is a coyote, but the team has always been affectionately known to its’ fans as the ‘Yotes. As small as the school and as unknown as their program is, COI has had a former player make it to the NFL – former San Francisco 49er R.C. Owens. Owens’ roommate while at the school was former Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA legend Elgin Baylor.
1963 Topps football card of former pro football wide receiver Bernie Casey, who played 8 seasons in the NFL, split between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams. He was a Pro Bowler in 1967. He enjoyed a successful acting career when his playing days were over, appearing in numerous television episodes and hit movies such as Brian’s Song, Guns of The Magnificent Seven, Sharkey’s Machine, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Revenge of The Nerds. An avid poet and painter, Casey died of a stroke in 2017.
It’s the high-flying Kansas City Chiefs taking on the lowly New York Jets on this week’s NFL schedule, and for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature we’ll zero in on a time when both of these clubs were powerhouses. It’s December 20, 1969 at frigid Shea Stadium for a divisional playoff game to begin the chase to see who will be the last American Football League champion before the league merges into the NFL. The Jets are defending champions, having shocked the world by upsetting the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. The stage is set for the Jets – they are reigning champs, have home field advantage for the title game and most of all have their swashbuckling quarterback, Broadway Joe Namath, leading their offense. The Chiefs, however, enter the game with a better overall record, and, having beaten New York in the regular season, are installed as favorites to win.
The teams are both guided by future Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Namath and K.C.’s Len Dawson, but on this day, the cold weather and a pair of ferocious defensive units take command and dictate play. Scoring in the first three quarters is limited to field goals. Jim Turner boots one to give the Jets an early 3-0 lead, while Jan Stenerud answers with a three-pointer in each of the next 2 quarters to put his Chiefs ahead 6-3. New York gets a golden opportunity to crack the end zone when Kansas City cornerback Emmitt Thomas is called for pass interference in the end zone, setting up the Jets with first and goal at the one yard line. The Chiefs’ stout defense, particularly their linebacking corps, takes charge at that point. Future Hall of Famer Willie Lanier stuffs two running plays, while Jim Lynch and Bobby Bell combine to force Namath to throw the ball away on third down and inches, forcing another Turner field goal to tie the game. It was a dismal performance overall by Namath. He completed only 14 of 40 passes against the Chief defense and was intercepted 3 times, twice by Jim Marsalis.
Dawson finally musters up a drive that ends in 6 points when he hits Gloster Richardson from 19 yards out to supply the Chiefs with their final victorious margin of 13-6. The Chiefs, who were Western Division runnerups to Oakland, extract revenge on the Raiders the following week by beating them 17-7 to capture the final AFL title. They uphold the AFL pride that the Jets had gained the previous year a week later by upsetting the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.
It’s a cold, rough day for Joe Namath (12) and the Jets
Logo of a college football team, used from 1980 until 1993, the Jackson State Tigers. They play in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and have won 16 SWAC championships and 3 Black College National titles over the years. The school recently hired Deion Sanders as their head coach. The list of former JSU alumni who have played pro football is long and impressive. It includes 4 Hall of Famers – Walter Payton, Lem Barney, Jackie Slater and Robert Brazile, and also such notable players as Harold Jackson, Coy Bacon, Jimmy Smith, Jerome Barkum, Wilbert Montgomery, Leon Gray, Verlon Biggs, Rich Caster, Willie Richardson and Speedy Duncan.
1972 Topps football card of former pro football cornerback Jim Marsalis, who played 8 seasons in the AFL and NFL, almost exclusively for the Kansas City Chiefs. He was a two-time Pro Bowler, AFL Defensive Rookie of The Year in 1969, and a key member of the Chiefs’ NFL championship team that won Super Bowl IV. After retiring as a player Marsalis became a banker along with his wife, and helped coach a local high school football team.