Logo of a Division II college football team that plays in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, the Hillsdale College Chargers. They play their home games at Frank “Muddy” Waters Stadium, named after the man who coached the team from 1954 until 1973. Despite their small school status, the Chargers have sent a number of players on to pro careers, including Chester Marcol, Andre Holmes, Jared Veldheer and Howard Mudd.
1974 Topps football card of former pro football quarterback Scott Hunter, who played for 4 different teams in an 8 year career in the NFL. He had the unenviable task of replacing the legendary Bart Starr as Green Bay’s quarterback in 1972 when Starr was hurt, and never lived up to those standards. He was a journeyman backup for most of his pro football time. After his playing days ended, Hunter has worked as an investment broker and a sportscaster for nearly 2 decades. He is also a commercial pilot with over 4,000 flying hours to his credit.
This week on the NFL schedule, the Dallas Cowboys meet the New Orleans Saints, and we’ll feature these 2 teams as our Throwback Thursday game. They met on October 17, 1971 at Tulane Stadium, the Saints’ home field at the time. The Saints, who entered the league as an expansion team in 1967, hadn’t gotten off the ground in the first 4 years of their existence, but in 1971 were ready to finally find some success behind their shiny new rookie quarterback, Archie Manning. The ’71 season started slowly for the Saints, as they entered this contest with a 1-2-1 mark, while Dallas, having endured a crushing last-second Super Bowl loss in 1970, won 3 of their first 4 games. Cowboys’ coach Tom Landry, trying to get his club past the “can’t win the big one” curse, brought in seasoned veterans for the ’71 campaign who had won titles with other clubs, players like Mike Ditka, Herb Adderley, Lance Alworth and Gloster Richardson. New Orleans had at least shown some respectability and competitiveness so far this season, but this was a chance to show they were ready to emerge as a rising team.
They did just that as they came out playing inspired football, dominating the first half. Manning threw a 29 yard touchdown pass to Tony Baker for the only scoring in the first quarter. In the second quarter, Charlie Durkee connected on a field goal and Manning finished a drive by taking matters into his own hands, scrambling 13 yards for a score to give his team a shocking 17-0 lead at halftime over the defending NFC champs. Landry made the decision at the half to replace ineffective starter Craig Morton, who had been intercepted twice, at QB with the dangerous Roger Staubach, who was a scrambler that could create some offense. The move worked, as Staubach fired a 41 yard touchdown pass to Richardson for the only score of the third quarter, then hit “Bullet” Bob Hayes from 16 yards out to bring the Cowboys to within 3 at 17-14. However, when Manning ran in from 2 yards out for another score, the Saints secured a 24-14 win and sent their fans home happy and with hope for a winning season.
It didn’t work out that way, as New Orleans stumbled to a last place 4-8-2 record. Dallas, on the other hand, took some positives from the loss. Landry, who had foolishly entered the year with a plan of alternating quarterbacks with Morton and Staubach, eventually settled on Roger the Dodger as the starter, and he led the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl title that season, a resounding victory over the young Miami Dolphins. The club’s first championship win, exorcising the losing demons at last, took place right back at the site of this game, Tulane Stadium.
Saints’ Archie Manning challenges the Doomsday Defense
An alternate logo, used from their inaugural season of 1967 through 1984, of the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints. The franchise failed to complete a winning season in any of those years, with a pair of 8-8 records being the best they could do. Despite all the losing, the Saints of the early years included some Hall of Famers, (although they all earned the honor playing for other teams) like Jim Taylor, Doug Atkins, Ken Stabler and coach Hank Stram. Other notable early Saints’ players are Danny Abramowicz, Archie Manning, Tom Dempsey, Bill Kilmer, Dave Whitsell, John Gilliam, Joe Scarpati, Elijah Pitts, Joe Federspiel and Chuck Muncie.
1969 Topps football card of former pro football quarterback Craig Morton, who played a long and storied 18 years in the NFL for 3 different teams. He appeared in 3 Super Bowls, in losing efforts with Dallas and Denver and also as a member of the Cowboys’ championship team in 1971. He won both the AFC Offensive Player of The Year and Comeback Player of The Year awards in 1977 with the Broncos. After retiring as a player, Morton served as head coach of the USFL’s Denver Gold.
It’s Thanksgiving week, and the NFL celebrates the holiday with a trio of games. However, this week’s Throwback Thursday feature is a somber one. It involves an event that happened on October 24, 1971 in a game between the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, who clash this week on the 2021 NFL schedule. The game was basically just your average NFL contest of the era, although both clubs were off to good starts for the season, with the Lions a game ahead of Chicago in the standings after 5 weeks of play. Don Shy’s 21 yard touchdown run for the Bears was sandwiched between a pair of Errol Mann field goals in the first quarter to give the Bears a 7-6 lead. In the second stanza Bobby Douglass completed a 54 yard scoring pass to George Farmer to add to Chicago’s lead, but when Ron Jessie returned the ensuing kickoff 102 yards for a touchdown, the momentum swung back to Detroit. Greg Landry then led the Lions on another scoring drive that he completed with a 16 yard TD throw to Larry Walton, giving the Motor City club the lead for the first time at 20-14. Douglass hit Bob Wallace from 15 yards out to finish the first half scoring, and Chicago went into halftime back in the lead at 21-20.
Both defenses stiffened in the third quarter, with the only scoring coming on another Mann field goal for Detroit, giving the Lions the lead back. Douglass, a swashbuckler of a signal caller, rallied his team to another score and did the honors himself by plunging in for the touchdown to put the Bears back ahead 28-23. Landry and the Lions didn’t give up the fight. With under 2 minutes to play, Detroit began a drive to retake the lead. The Lions’ QB found receiver Chuck Hughes for a 32 yard gain. Hughes jumped up and raced back to the huddle, knowing time was working against his club. That reception was the 15th and final catch for Hughes. A couple of plays later, both of which were incompletions, Hughes grabbed his chest and fell to the ground. In the confusion, the Bears’ bench thought he was faking an injury to get the clock stopped, and the Lions thought Bears’ linebacker Dick Butkus had leveled Hughes with a dirty hit. But when Butkus, who noticed the fallen player was convulsing, began frantically waving to the Lions’ bench for the trainers to come out, it became obvious there was a problem. Detroit’s team doctors worked to try to revive the Lions’ player, and an ambulance was brought out, transporting him to the hospital. It wasn’t known to anyone in the stadium at the time, but Hughes was already dead from a heart attack. The last minute of the game was played in a hushed silence as the stunned crowd looked on. Chicago hung on to win but almost nobody cared. The tragedy of this day remains the only time a player has died on the field in an NFL game, and Hughes left behind a wife and a not-quite 2 year old son. Ironically, earlier in the season Hughes had complained of chest pains, and was checked out by doctors and eventually cleared to play. The Detroit franchise to this day does not issue Hughes’ number 85 jersey to any player unless permission is given by the Hughes family.
Lions’ Chuck Hughes lies prone on the field
This is a logo used in 2014 commemorating the anniversary of the 75th game of NFL football being played in the city of Detroit on Thanksgiving. The Lions franchise began the tradition in 1934 and the league has allowed them to continue the tradition with a game scheduled on the holiday every year. The Lions have unfortunately fielded a lot of bad teams to play in the game, but in 1962 they routed the Green Bay Packers 26-14, harassing Bart Starr all day to hand the Packers their only loss of the season as they went on to win their second straight NFL title.
1974 Topps football card of former pro football wide receiver Ron Jessie, who played for 3 different teams in an 11-year career in the NFL. In addition to football, he was a long jump champion in college. Jessie made the Pro Bowl in 1976 while playing for the Los Angeles Rams, and after retiring as a player served as a scout for them. He died of a heart attack at home in 2006.
It’s time for another Throwback Thursday feature, and this week we’ll look back on a game from just a few years ago, played in a blizzard in Orchard Park, NY between 2 teams that meet this week on the NFL schedule, the Buffalo Bills and Indianapolis Colts. It was December 10, 2017 when this contest for the ages took place, and the weather conditions were indeed blizzard-like, leading it to be dubbed “The Snow Globe Game”. In all, 17 inches of lake effect snow fell during the day, including 8 inches while the game was played. The Colts were dressed in their all-white uniforms and were barely visible on the field or on television, while the Bills stood out in their all-red alternate “color rush” uniforms.
Hearty Bills Mafia fans enjoying the weather
Obviously, the conditions were not conducive to either offense, and the first quarter went scoreless as both teams tried to establish some sort of footing on the snow covered field. Bills’ quarterback Nathan Peterman finally was able to steer his club to the end zone in the second stanza, finding Kelvin Benjamin on an 8 yard scoring toss to put his team ahead. The third quarter was scoreless also. Despite rushing attacks dominating the day for both teams due to the weather and lack of visibility, the Colts managed to tie the game in the final quarter just as the Bills had scored the game’s first TD, on a short pass. Jacoby Brissett found his tight end, Jack Doyle, from 3 yards out and kicker Adam Vinatieri booted the extra point. In the third quarter, Peterman had left the game with a concussion, leaving the Bills’ fate in the hands of little-used backup Joe Webb III, who was on the roster mainly as a special teams contributor. Buffalo struggled to mount any attack with Webb as their signal caller, and late in the final period the Colts intercepted him to set up a potential game winning field goal from Vinatieri. He missed the kick in the swirling winds, however, and the Bills had life as the contest went into overtime.
In the extra session neither team could find any footing, and they traded punts until Webb suddenly completed an improbable pass of 34 yards to Deonte Thompson, setting up a 25 yard scamper to the end zone by LeSean McCoy to win the game for Buffalo 13-7. McCoy, a notorious bad weather runner who had excelled in similar conditions while playing for Philadelphia, wound up with an incredible 156 yards on 32 carries for the day. Similarly, the Colts’ offense was almost exclusively rushing yards from their workhorse back, Frank Gore. He dashed his way through the snow for 130 yards on 36 carries. It turned out to be an important win for Buffalo, as they snuck into the playoffs a few weeks later on the season’s final day, ending a 17 year postseason drought. The feat would not have happened without this hard-fought winter battle victory.
LeSean McCoy rambles to the winning TD in overtime
This is a logo from a long ago past of a college football team that disbanded it’s gridiron program in 1951, the St. Bonaventure Brown Indians. The school has since rebranded it’s sports teams as the “Bonnies”, bowing to political pressure. As for the football program, they competed from 1895 until ’51, and resurrected a club football team for 3 seasons in the late 1960s. Despite it’s humble gridiron history, the school produced a couple of notable pro football players – Hall of Famer Jack Butler and former quarterback and coach Ted Marchibroda.