rayonsports.com

This is the final week of the NFL’s regular season, and the final Throwback Thursday feature also. We are targeting September 21, 2008 for this week’s game, when 2 teams that are matched up in this season’s finale, the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots, took the field against each other. In 2008 the Patriots were in the middle of their dominant Tom Brady era, and came into the game riding a 21 game winning streak dating back to the previous season. Brady had been injured and knocked out for the season on opening day, however, but the Pats had still managed to win their first 2 games with Matt Cassel at the helm. Miami, on the other hand, entered the contest winless at 0-2.

Dolphin head coach Tony Sparano had a big surprise for Bill Belichick’s New England forces. He introduced a new formation, which the club named the “Wildcat”. It involved running back Ronnie Brown taking the snap from center and leading the charge on a rushing attack that caught New England unaware. The result was a dominating Miami performance. Brown scored the only touchdown of the first quarter on a 2 yard run, then sandwiched another pair of rushing TDs, of 15 and 5 yards, around a pair of Stephen Gostkowski field goals to give Miami a 21-6 halftime edge.

Brown unleashed another unexpected trick in this new Wildcat formation when he threw a 19 yard touchdown pass to Anthony Fasano in the third quarter. New England, with their defense spinning their wheels trying to slow down the Wildcat, got a little help from the other side of the ball when Cassel hit Jabar Gaffney for a 5 yard score. The Wildcat struck again to kill that momentum, as Brown scampered 62 yards to paydirt. Dan Carpenter tacked on a field goal to give the Dolphins a surprising but convincing 38-13 win. Brown’s banner day included 17 carries for 113 yards and the 4 touchdowns, in addition to the scoring pass. Miami’s other back, Ricky Williams, added 98 yards on 16 carries as the new Wildcat was successful for a total of 216 ground attack yards.

In the end both teams finished the season with 11-5 records. Miami won the AFC East title through tiebreakers, while the Patriots failed to qualify for the postseason.

Brown ready to chuck it for a 19 yard TD

It’s week 17 of this fast-moving NFL season, and one of the matchups pits the Chicago Bears versus the San Francisco 49ers. We’ll harken back to January 6, 1985, when these 2 franchises faced off in the NFC Championship game for the 1984 season. The Bears had snuck into the playoffs and held an 11-6 record, while Bill Walsh’s 49ers were a powerhouse at 16-1. Coach Mike Ditka’s club was on the verge of building something special, and 1985 would be a big year for them, but in this contest they were a year early in their development. Chicago’s defense, a solid unit, held the high-powered SF offense to 2 first half Ray Wersching field goals, and the Niners held a slim 6-0 lead.

Unfortunately the Bears’ offense never got untracked in the game, managing only 186 yards of total offense. They were also hampered by the fact that starting quarterback Jim McMahon was sidelined with a lacerated kidney, forcing backup Steve Fuller into action.  Although their offense was the centerpiece, the San Francisco defense was a solid unit also. They sacked Fuller 9 times in this game. In workmanlike style, the 49er offense took over in the second half. Wendell Tyler scored the only touchdown of the third quarter on a 9 yard run, while Joe Montana hit Freddie Solomon with a 10 yard fourth quarter scoring pass to wrap up a 23-0 49er shutout victory. Chicago’s lone bright spot was a 92 yard rushing day for Walter Payton, while Dwight Clark and Solomon garnered 83 and 73 yards receiving respectively for their team.

San Francisco’s unstoppable freight train motored into the Super Bowl and demolished Dan Marino’s Miami squad 38-16 in the Super Bowl. For the Bears, they would have to wait another year before they could dominate the league and record their famous “Super Bowl Shuffle” video, a cocky gesture that they backed up by going on to win the 1985 Super Bowl in a rout over the New England Patriots.

Bears’ Fuller turned head over heels by 49er defense

This week’s Throwback Thursday feature pits 2 teams that meet on the NFL slate of games in week 16, the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers. The game took place on September 16, 1962 at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. It marked the “homecoming “of a Lions’ legend, quarterback Bobby Layne. The combative signal caller had led the Motor City club to 3 NFL titles in the 1950s (although Tobin Rote started the last one in 1957). Layne was angered when the Lions traded him to Pittsburgh in the middle of the 1958 season, after an injury and amid gambling accusations that were never proven. Layne angrily proclaimed after the trade that the Lions “wouldn’t win again for another 50 years”, a proclamation that has held true since Detroit is one of the few NFL franchises that has never reached the Super Bowl. This was actually the second time that these 2 teams had met since the trade. In 1959 they battled to a 10-10 tie in a contest that saw Layne account for all 10 Steeler points with a field goal and a touchdown pass to Tom Tracy, but that game was played in the Steel City.

So that set the stage for the legendary QB to return to the place he had led to glory the previous decade. Some of the excitement was let out of the return by the fact that Pittsburgh’s starting quarterback was actually Ed Brown for this 1962 season opener. After a scoreless first quarter Detroit’s Milt Plum, who had been acquired from Cleveland prior to the ’62 season, tossed a 1 yard touchdown pass to Gail Cogdill. Pittsburgh countered that when Brown connected with Preston Carpenter on a 43 yard bomb to tie the score. The Lions owned the rest of the first half, as fullback Nick Pietrosante rambled 22 yards for a touchdown, and Plum threw for another score to Cogdill, this one a 21 yarder. The Lions took a 21-7 lead into halftime.

Things didn’t change in the second half. Detroit’s Dan Lewis closed out the third quarter and opened the final one with 1 yard touchdown runs to up his club’s lead to 35-7. Layne eventually entered the game, replacing the ineffective Brown, but he didn’t have much luck either, completing 5 of 10 passes for 76 yards. A Wayne Walker field goal and another Plum touchdown pass, of 9 yards to Pat Studstill, finished the scoring as the Lions grabbed a convincing 45-7 win. No revenge was had by Layne, but he really couldn’t be faulted, as he was put in a hopeless situation, and also was at the tail end of his career, with 1962 being his last season.

Bobby Layne, one of the last of the no face mask players

In the past we have featured NFL preseason games on Throwback Thursday, mainly because in the 1960s after the merger, the exhibition contests between NFL and AFL teams were battles for pride. We are featuring another preseason contest this week, played on August 5, 1961, but for another reason. It was a match between the second year expansion Dallas Cowboys and the shiny new expansion Minnesota Vikings, 2 franchises who meet this week. This was the first time the Minnesota franchise took the field in their history, and the game was played in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was common in that era for NFL teams to play their exhibition games in non-NFL cities, as the league was still fighting for as much exposure as they could get. South Dakota was not necessarily a good choice however, as the game drew a little less than 5,000 fans, causing the promoters to lose money.The established NFL teams did the new expansion teams no favors in those days, as both the Cowboys in 1960 and Vikings in ’61 were forced to stock their rosters with aging castoffs from the other clubs. The rise of the AFL in 1960 drained the talent pool even more.

Game program from Vikings’ first ever contest

With a year’s head start on their opponent, Dallas was superior, scoring first on a touchdown run of 15 yards by L.G. Dupre, then adding another in the second quarter on a pass from Eddie LeBaron of 14 yards to flanker Frank Clarke. The Vikings then countered with an 80 yard drive culminating in the first touchdown (albeit a preseason one) in team history as a pair of castoff vets connected  on a 14 yard pass, with George Shaw finding back Hugh McElhenny. A 36 yard pass from Shaw to Paul Winslow highlighted the drive. Minnesota’s special teams apparently hadn’t been prepared yet, as the extra point try was blocked. As is common in exhibition contests, a second Cowboy quarterback, Don Meredith, took over and after a fumbled punt drove his team to another score, this time a 1 yard run by Amos Marsh. This gave Dallas a 21-6 halftime lead. Another lost Viking fumble set up the only score of the third quarter, a 15 yard field goal by Allen Green. Norris Stevenson caught a 32 yard touchdown pass from Meredith to open the final quarter, upping Dallas’ lead to 31-6.

A bright ray of hope for Minnesota’s future entered the game after that, as rookie QB Fran Tarkenton took the field. The scrambling signal caller produced immediate results, as he hit Don Ellersick for a 36 yard score. A Meredith to Clarke 7 yard TD toss ended the scoring, giving the Cowboys the win by the final 38-13 count. The Vikings, on opening day of the regular season that year, shocked the gridiron world by trouncing the Chicago Bears 37-13, but would lose to the Cowboys twice in the first 4 weeks on their way to a final record of 3-11. Dallas finished the year at 4-9-1, moving another year closer to respectability under coach Tom Landry.

Vikings’ Paul Winslow swarmed by Dallas defenders