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It’s week 7 of the NFL season, and one of the matchups this week finds the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Indianapolis Colts. Our Throwback Thursday feature travels back to the 1969 season for a game between these 2 teams played on October 26th of that year. Coach Don Shula’s Colts were coming off the huge disappointing loss in the Super Bowl the previous season to the New York Jets. They were battling inconsistency as they started the year with 2 straight losses, then rebounded with a pair of wins. The 49ers were a team they hadn’t lost to since 1962, so a third consecutive win looked like a sure thing, especially with Baltimore being at home. San Francisco was enduring a down period in their history at this point. They were in the midst of a decade of mediocrity and coach Dick Nolan was struggling to make any headway in his quest to turn the franchise around, as the Niners entered this game winless at 0-4-1.

After a scoreless first quarter, Tommy Davis opened the scoring with a short field goal for San Francisco, but the Colts answered that with a drive that ended with Tom Matte hauling in an 11 yard touchdown pass from John Unitas to take a 7-3 lead. Quarterback Steve Spurrier, a career backup getting a rare chance to start, then guided a drive before the half with Ken Willard running in from 5 yards out, giving the 49ers the lead back at the half. San Francisco came out in the third quarter on fire. Spurrier led another drive in which he cashed in for a touchdown with an 18 yard scoring toss to Dick Witcher, then the defense took command by pilfering a Unitas throw, courtesy of John Woitt, which he ran back 57 yards for a touchdown to give San Francisco a shocking 24-7 lead. The proud Colts rallied as Unitas found his favorite target on the day, Jimmy Orr (8 catches for 146 yards), for a short touchdown pass, then closed the gap again with a one yard touchdown run by Matte. That was the end of the scoring, however, and Baltimore found themselves on the short end of a 24-21 score at the final gun.

Nolan’s 49ers won only 4 games in the ’69 season, and ironically half of those wins came against the Colts, as they upset them again later in the season. He was building something for the future, and the team won 3 straight Western Division titles to start the 1970s. The Colts were underachievers at 8-5-1 for the year, and Shula departed for Miami after the season, where he would find great success on the way to becoming the winningest coach in NFL history. Shula’s departure didn’t initially hurt the Colts, as they won the Super Bowl under Don McCafferty in 1970.

Steve Spurrier shined in a rare starting performance

The Denver Broncos face off with their AFC West rivals, the Las Vegas Raiders, this Sunday in a week 6 game on the NFL schedule. For Throwback Thursday, we’ll go back to the high-flying early days of the American Football League, to a game played between these clubs on December 15, 1963. The Raiders were based in Oakland at the time and this contest was played at Frank Youell Field, a glorified high school stadium that was Oakland’s home then. Prior to 1963 the Raiders were one of the AFL’s weakest franchises. They had finished the 1962 season with a 1-13 record, and Buffalo Bills’ owner Ralph Wilson had to loan the club $400,000 just to keep them afloat at one point. The Raiders’ fortunes turned around that season, however, when they hired a brash young assistant from the San Diego Chargers’ staff, Al Davis. Of course, Denver was the ultimate sad sack franchise of the AFL for the entire 10 year existence of the league. This game was the penultimate regular season contest of the ’63 season, with the Raiders enjoying an 8-4 record while the Broncos wallowed in last place of the Western Division at 2-9-1.

The game started out as expected with the Raiders scoring twice, on touchdown passes of 32 yards from Tom Flores to Bo Roberson and 18 yards from Flores to Art Powell, one of the AFL’s brightest stars in it’s formative years. Denver rounded out the first quarter scoring when rookie fullback Billy Joe rambled in from 9 yards out to cut Oakland’s lead to 14-7. Flores answered that by hitting his running back, Clem Daniels, with a 26 yard touchdown pass. The Broncos mustered up a field goal from Gene Mingo, and the clubs went into halftime with the Raiders holding a 21-10 edge.  When Flores threw his fourth touchdown pass of the day, from 43 yards out to Daniels again, Oakland took a sizable 28-10 and it looked like the lowly Broncos were finished.

Denver quarterback Mickey Slaughter rallied the troops, however. He threw a 9 yard touchdown pass to Gene Prebola, and then led a drive that ended in a short scoring run by Hewritt Dixon, and suddenly Denver entered the final quarter down by only 28-24. The Broncos’ defense was their Achilles heel in 1963, as they allowed a total of 473 points overall for the season, by far the highest total in the AFL’s history. So it was easy pickings again for Flores, and he found Powell again for his fifth TD toss of the day. Slaughter didn’t give up easily. He engineered another drive and hit his All-AFL split end, Lionel Taylor, with a 29 yard scoring throw to pull his club to within 4 points again at 35-31. That would be all the scoring for the day, and Oakland held on to improve to 9-4. They finished the regular season the following week by outscoring the Houston Oilers in a 52-49 barnburner to end their season at 10-4, a miraculous climb from the previous year. It was only good enough for second place in the West as San Diego won their third division crown in 4 years. The Broncos put up a game effort on this day, and Taylor and Prebola both garnered over 100 receiving yards, but their reward for the “moral victory” was a date with the mighty Chargers in the regular season’s final week. The Chargers demolished them 58-20.

Al Davis transformed the Raiders’ franchise in 1963

The New England Patriots meet the Houston Texans on this week’s NFL schedule, and for our Throwback Thursday post we’ll go back just a few years to find a contest between these 2 clubs that turned out to be a wild shootout between the G.O.A.T. and a fresh young upstart, those players being the Patriots’ Tom Brady and Houston rookie DeShaun Watson. It was early in the 2017 season, in week 3 on September 24, when the Texans invaded Gillette Stadium to take on the mighty Patriots. New England was a heavy favorite, having won the Super Bowl the previous season, while the Texans were AFC South Division champs in a mediocre year for the division in 2016. Watson hadn’t done much to this point, although he did scamper 49 yards for the only touchdown of the game the prior week to give his team a win over Cincinnati.

This turned out to be a breakout performance for the young rookie as he battled Brady for 4 quarters. New England opened the scoring with Brady hitting Rob Gronkowski with a 5 yard touchdown pass. Then Watson led his team on a pair of scoring drives that ended with a field goal and a 29 yard scoring toss from Watson to Bruce Ellington. Brady answered with a touchdown throw of 7 yards to Chris Hogan. Houston added another field goal, then suddenly took a 20-14 lead when Jadeveon Clowney scooped up a fumble and ran 22 yards for a defensive score. As he has done his whole career, Brady never flinched. He found Hogan again from 47 yards out to regain the lead for his club at 21-20 at the half. Brady increased the lead to 28-20 in the third quarter when he hooked up with Brandin Cooks, who ironically now plays for the Texans, on a 42 yard scoring throw.

Not to be outdone, Watson pulled his team to within a point by finding Ryan Griffin for a 12 yard TD, then engineered a pair of field goal drives to give Houston a 33-28 lead. Houston made the mistake of leaving time on the clock for Brady, and he took advantage. He led the Pats downfield and finished the drive with a controversial touchdown pass to Cooks. Replays seemed to show that Cooks bobbled the ball, and that it hit the ground, after he landed out of bounds. However, the catch was upheld, Brady hit Cooks for a 2 point conversion and New England hung on for a 36-33 win.

Brandin Cooks’ controversial touchdown catch

In all, Brady threw for 5 touchdowns on the day, and his team needed every one of them to squeeze out the victory over the young buck. Cooks and Hogan had great statistical days, with Cooks grabbing 5 passes for 131 yards and Hogan adding 4 receptions for 68 yards, with both receivers scoring twice each. Watson, a tremendous talent, threw for over 300 yards and 2 TDs and added 41 yards on the ground in the losing cause. It should have been the breakout game that launched him to All Pro status, but his career has taken a turn for the worse today due to off the field issues, and the Texans are actively trying to trade him in 2021, with no takers so far.

Brady, Watson shake hands after epic battle