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It was a Wild Card playoff game played on January 10, 2010 between the Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals, that is the Throwback Thursday feature this week, with those 2 clubs battling on this week’s NFL slate of contests. Arizona sported a 10-6 record entering the game, while the Packers stood at 11-5. It was a quarterback duel for the ages between a Hall of Famer, Kurt Warner, and a certain future one, Aaron Rodgers.

Making full use of their home field advantage at University of Phoenix Stadium, the Cardinals dominated the opening quarter. Tim Hightower plunged a yard for the first score, then Warner found Early Doucet on a 15 yard touchdown toss. Neil Rackers’ field goal completed the first quarter scoring with Arizona holding a comfortable 17-0 lead. Green Bay rebounded somewhat in the second stanza, sandwiching a 1 yard Rodgers QB sneak touchdown and a Mason Crosby field goal around another 15 yard Warner to Doucet touchdown connection. The second half exploded into an aerial showdown between the 2 signal callers. First it was Warner to Larry Fitzgerald for 33 yards to build Arizona’s lead to 31-10. Rodgers battled back, bringing the Packers to with 7 points with touchdown passes of 6 yards to Greg Jennings and 11 to Jordy Nelson. Warner countered that with another touchdown connection with Fitzgerald of 11 yards, ending the wild third quarter with a 38-24 Cardinal advantage.

The scoring barrage continued in the final quarter. Rodgers rallied the Packers back to a 38-38 tie with a scoring toss of 30 yards to James Jones, while another drive ended with a 1 yard touchdown run by fullback John Kuhn. Warner and Rodgers then traded touchdown passes to a couple of their lesser known weapons. Arizona took the lead as Warner connected with Steve Breaston from 17 yards out, while Rodgers followed that with an 11 yarder to Spencer Hayner to tie the contest once again. The game now would have to be settled in overtime. With the day’s aerial battle that proceeded the extra period, of course a majestic touchdown pass would surely finish it, right? That was not to be. Instead, the Cardinals’ defense, ravaged all game by Rodgers, took matters into their own hands. They blitzed the Packer QB, causing a strip sack that Karlos Dansby scooped up and returned 17 yards to the end zone to secure a wild 51-45 win. Arizona rode the momentum of this victory all the way to the Super Bowl, where they lost a heartbreaker to the Steelers.

In this game, Warner’s final numbers were 29 of 33 completions for 379 yards and 5 touchdowns, while Rodgers accumulated 423 yards and 4 scores on 28 of 42 passes.

Cardinals’ playoff hero Karlos Dansby

This week’s Throwback Thursday feature lands on the date of October 17, 1954 for a contest played between 2 clubs that meet on this week’s NFL schedule – the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns. The Browns, under legendary coach Paul Brown, were an NFL powerhouse at the time. After winning all 4 championships in the defunct AAFC from 1946 to 1949, they joined the NFL in 1950 when the established league absorbed them and others into the fold. The Browns immediately won the league title in ’50, and also reached the title game in all of the next 3 seasons. The Steelers were sad sacks at the time, although they had begun the 1954 season with wins in 2 of their first 3 games. But the fact remained that since the 2 teams began facing each other in 1950, the Browns had won all 8 games, beating Pittsburgh twice a year for 4 straight years.

Billy Reynolds opened the scoring for Cleveland with a 5 yard touchdown run, but starting what was to be a huge day, Steeler end Ray Mathews tied the game when he gathered in a 7 yard touchdown pass from Jim Finks. The Browns didn’t flinch, and their star quarterback, Otto Graham, regained the lead with a 37 yard scoring pass to Dub Jones. Then the second quarter happened, and it hit the Browns like a tsunami. Finks hit Fran Rogel with a 14 yard TD toss, future Hall of Famer Jack Butler picked off a Graham pass and returned it 41 yards for a score and Johnny Lattner scampered 12 yards for a touchdown to put the Steelers up by a surprising 27-14 margin. Graham gathered his troops and cut the score to 27-20 with a TD throw to Dante Lavelli, but the Steelers ended the first half with a shocking 78 yard bomb from Finks to Mathews to lead 34-20.

Browns guard Chuck Noll, a future Steeler legend

The third quarter was the Ray Mathews show again. He scored twice, on an 8 yard pass from Finks and a 3 yard run, to cap off a 4 touchdown day and raise the Steelers’ lead to an insurmountable 48-20. Graham, being the extreme competitor that he was, didn’t give up. He opened the fourth quarter scoring with a 24 yard TD pass to Lavelli. In what was probably the worst day of his distinguished NFL career, Graham threw his second pick six of the game, as Russ Craft pilfered the ball and raced 81 yards to paydirt, capping off a rousing 55-27 rout. In all Graham threw 5 interceptions on the day, while the Browns had a total of 8 turnovers. This was a very satisfying win for Pittsburgh, their first ever against the Browns. Looking ahead though, the joy didn’t last long. Cleveland got revenge later in the season with a 42-7 romp over the Steelers, on their way to victories in the next 4 contests against them in the coming years, and 8 of the next 9.

Hall of Fame QB Otto Graham

On October 7, 1956 the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers, 2 west coast NFL rivals, met at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium in a week 3 contest. They are also facing each other on this week’s league slate so that matchup was chosen for the Throwback feature. The 49ers entered the NFL as one of the merged franchises from the All American Football Conference in 1950, and in the 6 years prior to ’56 the Rams dominated the series, with San Fran only managing 3 wins and a tie in 12 tries.

The Rams were an offensive powerhouse in those days, but in this contest the first half played out rather strangely. L.A. quarterback Billy Wade scored the only touchdown of the half on an 8 yard run, with teammate Les Richter adding a field goal. On the San Francisco side, Gordy Soltau, known as a “Ram killer”, provided the only points with 4 field goals, giving his club a 12-10 lead. The scoring opened up in the third quarter. Wade hit Bob Boyd with a 24 yard TD pass, and the 49ers countered as Joe “The Jet” Perry scampered 28 yards to the end zone. The Rams continued the see-saw battle to retake the lead at 23-19 when Wade found future Hall of Famer Elroy “Crazy Legs”Hirsch open for a 57 yard scoring bomb.

San Francisco added a pair of 2 yard touchdown runs by Hugh McElhenny in the final quarter to jump out to a 10 point advantage at 33-23. For various reasons in that era, teams regularly changed signal callers, and in this case the Rams went with veteran Norm Van Brocklin, who connected with Hirsch for a short 3 yard touchdown. That was all that L.A. could manage, and they fell 33-30. The strange part about this game? Los Angeles almost doubled the amount of total yardage gained with 432 compared to the 219 by the 49ers. Those totals included 382 passing yards for the Rams to only 52 for San Fran. Ram ends Hirsch and Boyd collected 150 and 119 yards receiving respectively, with back Tank Younger adding 86.

The culprit in the defeat? Seven turnovers by the Rams in a sloppy display that cost them. They did exact revenge later that season, however, routing the Niners 30-6 at the Coliseum.

Game program from 10/7/1956