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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

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

The Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears face off on this week’s NFL schedule, which leads us to travel back to November 2, 1958 for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature. It was a wild game in L.A.’s Coliseum between these 2 clubs that saw an offensive explosion that wasn’t a common sight in those days, as the Rams won 41-35. Actually, the Rams were noted for high-flying offense in those days but on this day the usually defensive-minded Bears joined the show too. Chicago’s defense started the scoring onslaught when Erich Barnes intercepted a Bill Wade pass and returned it 40 yards for a touchdown. Wade and the Rams took control from there. The L.A. signal caller led drives that produced 4 touchdowns and a field goal, as he ran 3 yards for one score, hit Tommy Wilson and Leon Clarke with touchdown throws and saw Wilson run 9 yards to the end zone for another six-pointer. Those 4 TDs and a field goal gave the Rams a resounding 31-7 lead, and it looked like they were on there way to a one-sided victory. When Chicago QB Zeke Bratkowski hit Bill McColl from 10 yards out to cut the score to 31-14 at halftime, it was a harbinger of things to come. He hit Willie Galimore for a 12 yard score early in the second half, but the Rams got the momentum back with another Wilson touchdown run and a field goal to finish up the third quarter with what appeared to be a comfortable 41-21 lead. The proud Bears weren’t about to lay down, however. Rick Casares, who had 23 carries for 113 yards on the day, ran in from 5 yards out and Bratkowski found McColl open again for a 25 yard scoring connection. The clock ran out on the visitors from the Windy City from that point and the Rams escaped with the win.

One Ram player who had an outstanding afternoon that day, although he never reached the end zone, was halfback Jon Arnett, who carried the ball, caught passes and returned kicks for a massive 298 total yards from scrimmage. Wade’s performance must have gotten the attention of Chicago owner/coach George “Papa Bear” Halas. He later traded for Wade and was rewarded when the signal caller guided his Bears to the NFL championship in 1963. The offensive display the Rams put on was somewhat of a look into the future. Their coach, future Hall of Famer Sid Gillman, became the first head coach of the fledgling American Football League’s Los Angeles Chargers in 1960, where he was the architect of some unstoppable offensive attacks that were a large part of the high-scoring attraction that the new league’s fans enjoyed. Gillman’s Chargers, who moved to San Diego in 1961, reached the AFL title game 5 times in the league’s first 6 years and won it all in 1963 behind stars like Jack Kemp, John Hadl, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln and Lance Alworth.

Rams’ Tommy Wilson had a huge day (Daryl Norenberg photo)

For this week’s NFL Throwback Thursday feature we’ll go back to 2002 for a clash between the Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans, who meet on this week’s schedule. Being one of the youngest franchises in the NFL, this is the first time the Texans have been featured in a weekly TBT post here. The importance of the game lies in the fact that the Titans, formerly the Houston Oilers prior to abandoning the city to move to Tennessee, were returning to their old home for the first time since leaving in 1997. The Texans, the newly minted expansion franchise, were closing out their first season against their division rivals and were hungry to give their fans some measure of revenge in the game. The Titans had beaten them earlier in the season at Memphis in a relatively close 17-10 battle, so there was reason for optimism.

As far as how the game went, it was pretty forgettable. The Texans had valiantly played most of their opponents closely all year, an accomplishment for a new team, and also racked up 4 wins along the way. This game was no different, but Houston, led by prize rookie quarterback David Carr, couldn’t muster any kind of offense at all against the tough Tennessee defense. The Texans’ defense played strong also, and the only first half scoring was a pair of Joe Nedney field goals to give the Titans a 6-0 lead. Houston managed a third quarter field goal to pull with 3, but in the final quarter, the only player to have any success for either team, running back Eddie George, scored on a 4 yard touchdown run to give the Titans a 13-3 lead that wound up being the final score. George managed 102 yards rushing on 25 carries on the day.

Because the two clubs were placed in the same division, the AFC South, they had to play each other twice a year. Still, maybe because of the 5 years that Houston went without a team and the rebranding of their old team as the Titans in Tennessee (they remained the “Tennessee Oilers” for 2 seasons), there wasn’t a great deal of hatred generated by the rivals or their fans. Tennessee dominated play for the first 2 seasons, but the Texans finally did capture a measure of pride in the 2004 season by sweeping both games from the Titans.

Titans’ stars RB Eddie George, QB Steve “Air” McNair