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The Battle of Pennsylvania takes place on this week’s NFL schedule as the Pittsburgh Steelers face the Philadelphia Eagles. The two clubs also took each other on in the penultimate game of their respective 1960 seasons on December 11th of that year, and that is the contest we feature for this week’s Throwback Thursday post. The Eagles were enjoying one of their best seasons in a long time, while Pittsburgh was slogging along to another in a line of mediocre to bad years. It was unknown at the time of course, but Philly would go on to win the league’s championship later that year as they caught lightning in a bottle behind the quarterback play of aging veteran Norm Van Brocklin. With a 9-1 record they entered Forbes Field on this day as heavy favorites over the Steelers, sporting a losing 4-5-1 mark. In a shocking turn of events, Pittsburgh rode a spectacular performance from future Hall of Fame running back John Henry Johnson to jump out to a 27-0 lead by halftime in the game. Johnson, who rushed for 182 yards on 19 carries on the afternoon, scored on scampers of 7 and 87 yards and added a halfback option touchdown pass of 15 yards to flanker Buddy Dial, all after quarterback Bobby Layne had opened the scoring with a 6 yard rushing touchdown.

The stunned Eagles replaced Van Brocklin with Sonny Jurgensen in the second half and after a scoreless third quarter the young red-headed signal caller restored some pride in his club in the final stanza. He led drives that saw him complete scoring tosses of 53 yards to Timmy Brown and 19 yards to Tommy McDonald, while Brown also ran 7 yards to paydirt to bring Philly to within 27-21. Brown would finish with 3 catches for 112 yards to lead all receivers on the day but the Eagle comeback fell short and the 27-21 score held up. Johnson’s big day was the highlight of the winning effort for the Steelers, but he wasn’t alone in contributing to the win. Tom Tracy added 95 yards on 22 carries and Dial totaled 6 grabs for 85 yards and his TD, while Layne, although he was intercepted 3 times, was responsible for a pair of scores. Van Brocklin would come back to eventually lead the Eagles over Green Bay in the title game, then go out on top as he retired after the season to take the head coaching job of the NFL’s new expansion team, the Minnesota Vikings, in 1961.

 Steeler QB Bobby Layne, sans face mask, sails a pass over Eagle defenders (Getty Images/Neil Leifer)

The Dallas Cowboys and Cleveland Browns lock horns on this week’s NFL schedule, and we’ll travel back to a game played between these 2 clubs on December 28, 1969 for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature. It was a divisional round playoff game between the Browns, the Century Division champs, and the Capitol Division titlist Cowboys. The NFL, in it’s last couple of seasons prior to the merger with the AFL, was divided into 4 divisions – Century, Capitol, Coastal and Central. Both clubs were perennial winners in the decade of the 1960s, although Dallas was beginning to gain the reputation as a team that “couldn’t win the big one”. Despite being molded into a perennial winning franchise by coach Tom Landry, the Cowboys had suffered crushing defeats in the prior 3 years’ playoffs. Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers beat them twice in the NFL championship game and the Browns upset them in a divisional playoff game in 1968. The rematch in this 1969 clash would be a repeat of the previous season, and a certain nemesis that haunted the Cowboys was to be a major factor again. That nemesis was Browns’ wide receiver Paul Warfield. He had been a thorn in Landry’s side in the clubs’ two prior meetings – catching 7 passes for 170 yards and 2 touchdowns in Cleveland victories. Warfield again burned the Cowboy defense in this game. Although he didn’t reach the end zone, he racked up 99 yards on 8 receptions to lead all receivers in a resounding 38-14 win by the Browns.

Cleveland had control of this contest from the opening whistle as quarterback Bill Nelsen engineered drives that resulted in a pair of short rushing touchdowns from fullback Bo Scott, a scoring throw to tight end Milt Morin and a Don Cockroft field goal as the Cotton Bowl visitors built a 24-0 lead in the third quarter. Craig Morton, battling to get Dallas’ offense moving, finally got his club on the scoreboard with a 2 yard QB sneak, but after Leroy Kelly scored on a short run, his struggles reached the point of no return as Cleveland cornerback Walt Sumner intercepted him and ran it back 88 yards for a gut-punching touchdown to open up a 38-7 Browns’ lead. In what was to become an omen for the future, Landry turned to his backup signal caller, Roger Staubach, to salvage some dignity in the game. Roger the Dodger guided the Cowboys on a scoring drive that culminated with a touchdown pass to Lance Rentzel to complete the game’s scoring.

It took a few years and a couple more cringeworthy postseason losses before Dallas finally overcame the “can’t win the big one” stigma. In Super Bowl VI in 1971, they routed the young Miami Dolphins 24-3 to give Landry his first championship. To finally end their postseason failure string was one thing, but it also came with a cherry on top. Warfield, now a member of the Dolphins, was held to a pedestrian 4 catches for 39 yards in the win.

Browns’ QB Bill Nelsen surveys the defense (Getty Images)

The NFL is on to week 3 of their schedule, and a matchup on the slate of games has the Detroit Lions taking on the Arizona Cardinals. Our Throwback Thursday feature is a game between these 2 franchises that was played on December 6, 1959, as both teams were winding down on seasons they couldn’t wait to get to the end of. Both were once proud NFL powerhouses that had fallen on hard times lately. Detroit, a club that won 3 titles in the 1950s and could be realistically put on a pedestal as the team of the decade, entered this contest with a lowly 2-7-1 record. The Cardinals were in even worse shape. Based in Chicago at the time, they were finishing off a dismal final season in the Windy City. Unable to compete with their neighboring team, the Bears, the Cards were slated to move to St. Louis for the 1960 season. Their 2-8 record entering the game was indicative of a franchise that was going nowhere. So basically this week’s TBT featured game is a contest with little historic significance between a couple of late ’50s bottom feeders.

The Lions, whose championship pedigree was much more recent than the Cardinals, reached back into that winning history to club their soon-to-be-leaving Chicago opponents, 45-21. Lion quarterback Tobin Rote, who had led his team to an NFL title just 2 years prior in 1957 and would later guide the San Diego Chargers to an AFL title in 1963, opened the scoring with a 9 yard touchdown run. They added a field goal, and in the second quarter the defense pitched in when Yale Lary scooped up a fumble and rambled 28 yards to paydirt to widen Detroit’s lead to 17-0. One Cardinal who refused to be disheartened was halfback John David Crow. He scored from a yard out to get his team on the board, but Rote got the points back with a 13 yard TD pass to Dave Middleton, giving the Lions a 24-7 lead going into the half. The Lions went to backup QB Earl Morrall in the second half, and he responded by hitting Jim Gibbons for a 33 yard score. When Terry Barr scampered 32 yards for a touchdown early in the final quarter, the game was all but over as Detroit took a commanding 38-7 lead. With John Roach being ineffective most of the day, Chicago turned to M.C. Reynolds to try to salvage some dignity. Reynolds hit Crow for a 36 yard touchdown and Woodley Lewis for another score from 20 yards out, but it was too little too late. Jim Doran recovered a fumble in the end zone for Detroit between the 2 Cardinal TDs, and the 45-21 final score was cemented. Crow’s 103 yards of total offense was tops for both teams, and Reynolds completing 8 of 10 throws for 170 yards and the 2 touchdowns in a relief role was impressive, but the Lions dug into their winning past to claim the victory, giving them a temporary respite from the doldrums they were mired in all year. Both teams lost the following week, which back then was the final week of a 12 game regular season. Little did either franchise know that their doldrums would continue to this day. The 1957 championship was Detroit’s last, and the Cardinals haven’t won one since 1947.

Detroit QB Tobin Rote (18) dodges Cardinal defenders