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On this week’s NFL schedule of games, there is a contest to be played between the Los Angeles Chargers and Tennessee Titans. For our weekly Throwback Thursday feature, we settled on a game played between these two franchises when the Chargers were still in San Diego and the Titans were located in Houston as the Oilers. It was September 15, the opening day of the 1974 season and coach Tommy Prothro’s Chargers were visiting Houston’s Astrodome for a game against the Oilers, who were coached at the time by Sid Gillman. Gillman, of course, led the San Diego franchise to huge success in their American Football League years in the 1960s, and this was his first chance to take on the team that had let him go after the 1970 season. Gillman would hardly recognize the Charger team that came into the Astrodome to play that day. His star players from the AFL days like John Hadl, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln, Lance Alworth, Dave Kocourek, Ernie Ladd and Ron Mix were all either retired or dispersed across the league finishing out their careers with other teams.

Whether there was any sense of revenge or not, Gillman’s Oilers would take care of their coach on this day, as they ground out a 21-14 win over San Diego. The Oilers featured a balanced attack instead of Gillman’s usual vertical passing game. Their young quarterback, Lynn Dickey, was efficient, spreading the ball around among 6 different receivers. Ronnie Coleman was the bulwark of the running game, gaining 123 yards on 21 carries, although George Amundson stole his thunder by scoring 2 short rushing touchdowns and catching an 8 yard throw from Dickey to account for all of Houston’s scoring. Cid Edwards had 100 yards rushing for San Diego and Glen Bonner scored on a short TD run, while the other Charger touchdown came on a pass from the team’s young signal caller, Dan Fouts, to one of the few Charger players Gillman might recognize from his days as the team’s coach, receiver Gary Garrison. The Oilers, who had finished 1-13 the previous year, improved to 7-7 on the season under Gillman, but the future Hall of Famer stepped down to give his hand-picked choice as his replacement, Bum Phillips, a chance to take over in 1975. Prothro’s Chargers staggered to a 5-9 record and the franchise never worked their way out of mediocrity under his leadership. They finally fired him in 1978 and brought on Don Coryell, who would bring the team back to a level of respectability.

Oilers’ 1974 media guide prominently featured the bow-tie wearing Gillman

One of the most underrated things about pro football in the 1960s, which is the era I grew up with, is the quality of the television broadcasters who brought the games into our homes. Those memorable men are the subjects of this NFL 100 post. The National Football League broadcast their games regionally in the ’60s, and the team whose games were shown each week where I live were the Cleveland Browns. It was so great to hear the familiar voices of Ken Coleman and former Browns’ player Warren Lahr describing the action as my childhood idols, players like Frank Ryan, Jim Brown, Gary Collins, Leroy Kelly and Paul Warfield fought their way to victory each week. Coleman was also a long-time Boston Red Sox baseball announcer. Like many of the men we’ll feature here, he was equally good at being knowledgeable about multiple sports.  Jack Buck, whose son Joe is currently the lead play-by-play man for FOX, was another familiar early football broadcaster. He started doing American Football League games in the early 1960s on ABC, then became a regular on the CBS regional NFL games, first with the Chicago Bears and later for the Dallas Cowboys. He was part of the broadcast team for the famous “Ice Bowl” championship game between the Cowboys and Green Bay Packers. Like Coleman, Buck was also a long-time baseball announcer, doing St. Louis Cardinal games for decades. A couple of other familiar football voices belonged to Frank Glieber and Lindsey Nelson. Glieber split time during the decade among the Cowboys and Browns (after Coleman left) while Nelson, one of the all-time great voices of gridiron play-by-play men, worked games involving the Cowboys and later the Chicago Bears. Nelson was one of the most versatile sportscasters of his time, having done San Francisco Giants and New York Mets baseball, numerous college football bowl games, NBA and college basketball, golf and tennis. The New York market was a breeding ground for outstanding sportscasters of the era, and some of the best worked NFL games for CBS during the 1960s. Most notable was Chris Schenkel, who worked the New York Giant games for most of the decade. Two former players who were color analysts for Schenkel, Pat Summerall and Frank Gifford, eventually grew into major roles as play-by-play announcers, a transition that former players rarely are successful at. Summerall would go on to become the lead CBS announcer when the network went to national games, a role he would continue when the game rights moved to FOX. Gifford spent a single season as an analyst for Monday Night Football along with Howard Cosell before sliding into the play-by-play seat, where he would remain well into the 1980s.

Ken Coleman interviews coach Paul Brown

Other former players who found success in the booth as analysts were Red Grange, who called Bear games from the 1950s until CBS scrapped the regional teams in 1968, and Tom Brookshier, who analyzed games for his former team, the Philadelphia Eagles, throughout the decade before hooking up with Summerall as a permanent team in 1974. I mostly remember Jack Whitaker from later decades but he also was the Eagles’ CBS play-by-play man in the early ’60s. Don Criqui, another announcer who remained active well into the 1990s, got his start in the play-by-play seat with the expansion New Orleans Saints in 1967, and became a regular when the network scrapped the regional game pairings and assigned games by merit. Last but not least among the 1960s NFL on CBS broadcasters was Ray Scott. He was the Green Bay Packers’ regional broadcaster throughout the Vince Lombardi Green Bay dynasty years, so he became a well known voice across the country with the Packers being involved in so many postseason games. His philosophy of less is more was legendary – he didn’t talk for the sake of talking but just reported the action on the field with limited conversation and with his trademark smooth voice. “Starr….to Dowler…for the touchdown.” was a call one might hear during a Packer game. When CBS went to their merit system to assign broadcasters, Scott remained mostly doing Packer contests.

Ray Scott, flanked by Jack Buck and Frank Gifford, preview the “Ice Bowl”

The American Football League had it’s own brand of broadcasters in the ’60s, and the main play-by-play man was Curt Gowdy, who teamed with former player Paul Christman, and later with former Giant Al DeRogatis, who was controversial and in a way, was Howard Cosell before Cosell himself, an analyst you either loved or hated. Jim Simpson and Charley Jones were also familiar AFL play-by-play voices, and some of the analysts they teamed up with were Kyle Rote, another former New York player who made the move to the broadcast booth, George Ratterman, Elmer Angsman, Andy Robustelli and Lee Grosscup. All in all, they did a great job of bringing professionalism and excitement to fans of the new league, and were a big reason that the AFL was able to succeed.

Al DeRogatis (left) and Curt Gowdy

We seem to be on a run of legendary coaches in our latest NFL 100 posts, and this week is no exception as we feature a coach who many consider to be the father of the modern passing game, Hall of Fame legend Sid Gillman. Gillman cut his teeth as a coach in college as an assistant at Denison, Ohio State and Army before landing  head coaching jobs at Miami of Ohio and the University of Cincinnati. An 81-19-2 record as a college head coach got him noticed by the pros and in 1955 he was hired to guide the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. The club was known for wide open offense and Gillman enhanced that reputation during his tenure there. They reached the league championship game in his first season but lost to the Cleveland Browns. It was a roller coaster ride for the coach for the remainder of his Ram career, although the offense was always capable. After finishing 2-10 in 1959, he was released but landed on his feet by being hired as the head coach of the new team in town, the American Football League’s Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers, with their new coach roaming the sidelines wearing his trademark bow tie, were an immediate success and the type of team the new league was looking for – featuring an exciting wide open offense that stretched the field with a vertical passing game. The Chargers, who moved to San Diego in 1961 after a single season in L.A., won the Western Division title 5 times in the AFL’s first 6 seasons and captured the league title in 1963 with a rousing 51-10 rout of the Boston Patriots. Al Davis, a football icon who began his pro football career as an assistant on Gillman’s early Charger teams, once said “Sid Gillman brought class to the AFL. Being part of Sid’s organization was like going to a laboratory for the highly developed science of professional football.” Another Hall of Fame coach, Chuck Noll, was also on Gillman’s Charger staff in the AFL’s early years. Gillman left the Chargers when the AFL and NFL officially merged into one league in 1970, but returned for a short stint with the Houston Oilers in 1973 and ’74. His Oiler teams didn’t qualify for the postseason but he lifted the franchise out of the doldrums they had been in before leaving.

Besides Davis and Noll, many coaches either learned from Gillman or copied his offensive philosophies, including Bill Walsh, Bum Phillips, Don Coryell and Dick Vermeil. Coryell was head coach at San Diego State during Gillman’s Charger era and used to bring his team to Charger practices to observe. Vermeil actually hired Gillman as a consultant when he was coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1980. Another tribute to Gillman’s genius is the players he developed. His reputation as a quarterback guru played out when 2 of his Ram QBs of the 1950s, Billy Wade and Frank Ryan, won NFL championships, Wade with the 1963 Chicago Bears and Ryan with the 1964 Cleveland Browns. His resume also includes coaching all kinds of Hall of Famers, players like Norm Van Brocklin, Tom Fears, Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Les Richter, Ollie Matson, Lance Alworth and Ron Mix, as well as some Hall-worthy players in Ernie Ladd, Earl Faison, Keith Lincoln, Paul Lowe, John Hadl, Tank Younger, Andy Robustelli, Lamar Lundy and Jon Arnett. Gillman may have been a product of pro football of the 1950s and ’60s, but his legacy lives on in the way the modern game is played today.

Coach Gillman, Lance Alworth (19), John Hadl (21)

On this week’s NFL schedule, there’s a game to be played between 2 historic franchises who are struggling mightily this season – the Washington Redskins and Miami Dolphins. For this week’s Throwback Thursday feature, we’ll harken back to a time when both teams were winning, and one in fact, achieved what was thought to be impossible, perfection. The game we’re featuring is Super Bowl VII, played on January 14, 1973 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Dolphins, under coach Don Shula, entered the game undefeated and their opponent was coach George Allen’s “Over The Hill Gang”, a collection of grisly veterans molded into a competitive team by Allen ,who despised playing rookies and young players because of their penchant for making mistakes. Coming into the big game without a loss in either the regular season or playoffs was an amazing achievement for Miami, especially since they had lost their starting quarterback, future Hall of Famer Bob Griese, for a large portion of the year. The man who came to the rescue and kept the team’s record unblemished was old veteran Earl Morrall, who along with Shula had been subjected to ridicule just a few seasons prior when their Baltimore Colts’ juggernaut was shocked by the New York Jets in Super Bowl III.

Shula revived his reputation by building an instant winner in Miami and for the Super Bowl, even got his starting QB back as Griese, who had seen limited playing time in the AFC Championship against Pittsburgh 2 weeks earlier, was deemed ready to play full time. Griese was hardly needed in this game, as he threw only 11 passes all day, completing 8 of them, with the biggest being a 28 yard touchdown throw to Howard Twilley to open the scoring in the first quarter.  The rest of the game was dominated by the Dolphins’ “No Name” defense and the hard running of fullback Larry Csonka, who racked up 112 yards on 15 carries. Miami’s defense harassed Redskin quarterback Bill Kilmer, the ageless wonder who resurrected his career in Washington, all day, sacking him twice and picking off 3 of his passes. Two of the interceptions were by Dolphin safety Jake Scott, who would be named the game’s Most Valuable Player. The Redskins never seemed to pick up any momentum on offense and when Csonka’s backfield mate, Jim Kiick, scored on a one yard touchdown plunge in the second quarter to boost Miami’s lead to 14-0, the game appeared to be already out of reach. Then, in the fourth quarter, Washington gained some unexpected momentum on a play that is one of the most memorable in Super Bowl history. On a botched field goal attempt, Miami kicker Garo Yepremian picked up the ball and attempted to throw a pass. It wobbled straight up out of his hand for a fumble and ‘Skins cornerback Mike Bass snatched it up and returned it 49 yards for a touchdown to cut the lead in half. Shula was incensed but he didn’t need to worry. Washington stopped the Dolphins on the ensuing possession but when they got the ball back for one last try to tie the game, the “No Names” rose to the occasion and snuffed out Kilmer and the Redskins’ offense in a quick three and out to seal the victory and immortality as the only team in NFL history to achieve an undefeated season.

Years later, Shula and Yepremian joke about “The Pass”