Logo of a football team that played in the old Continental Football League, the Montreal Beavers. The team began play in the league as the Ft. Wayne Warriors but was sold and moved to Montreal in 1966. The franchise lasted 2 seasons there before folding prior to the 1968 season. Some former Beavers include Mike Hafner, Jim LeClair, Ronnie Lamb and Bob Brown, all of whom went on to play in the AFL or NFL.
1962 Fleer football card of former pro halfback Ron Burton, who played 6 seasons in the American Football League for the Boston Patriots, the first 6 years of the team’s existence from 1960 to 1965. He was one of the new league’s early stars and excelled with the Pats as a runner and kick returner. Burton’s 4 children are all successful. He has 2 sons, Paul and Steve, who work in Boston area media, another son, Ron Jr. who is director of community relations for the Boston Red Sox, and a daughter, Veronica, who plays for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings. Burton passed away in 2003.
This week’s NFL schedule includes a matchup of the Las Vegas Raiders and Minnesota Vikings, 2 of pro football’s winningest regular season franchises of the 1960s and ’70s. Unfortunately, neither could finish the job, and gained the reputation of not being able to “win the big one”. To this day, the Vikings still haven’t achieved the feat, while the Raiders exorcised the demon in the game we’ll feature for this week’s Throwback Thursday. It was Super Bowl XI, played on January 9, 1977, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. It was the second Super Bowl appearance for the Raiders, who lost to Green Bay in the second such title game, and the fourth (and to this day still the last) attempt at winning the “big one” for Minnesota.
Oakland coach John Madden had always had his team at or near the top of the regular season standings in the AFC, but were forced to play second fiddle to the dominating Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steeler teams in the first half of the decade of the ’70s. They finally slayed the Steeler dragon in the 1976 AFC championship game, and would now get their chance to climb to the top of the NFL mountain. The Vikings, always known for having exceptional special teams, got the game’s first break when Matt Blair blocked a punt to give the Raiders the ball deep in Oakland territory, but a fumble at the 1 yard line ruined that break. After a scorelees first quarter, the Raiders took command. They used a relentless rushing attack, led by Clarence Davis, to pound away at the aging Viking defense to secure the next four scores of the contest – a pair of Errol Mann field goals sandwiching a 1 yard Ken Stabler to Dave Casper touchdown pass and a 1 yard Pete Banaszak run, giving Oakland a 19-0 lead. Minnesota’s offense, stifled for most of the first 3 quarters, finally put together a drive that culminated with an 8 yard Fran Tarkenton to Sammy White scoring pass to cut the lead to 19-7. White, one of Tarkenton’s top receivers, had been held without a catch in the first half, and was almost killed when he caught a pass over the middle by the Raiders’ Jack Tatum, known as “The Assassin” and a guy who always played on the edge.
Clarence Davis, the real MVP of Super Bowl XI?
Banaszak scored again on a 2 yard run and when Willie Brown picked off a desperation Tarkenton pass and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown, the final nail was driven into the Vikings’ coffin for the day. Minnesota scored a late garbage time touchdown to make the final score 32-14, but Oakland and coach Madden claimed their first title in dominating fashion. Davis was the star rusher in the win, accumulating 137 yards on 16 carries, but the game’s MVP award went to Fred Biletnikoff, who had key receptions on scoring drives among his 4 grabs for 79 yards. After a couple more seasons Madden would retire as a coach and go into broadcasting and video games, but his replacement, former Raider QB Tom Flores, would pick up the reins and win 2 more “big games” for the Raiders in the early 1980s.
“Old man Willie, he’s gonna go all the way!”
Logo of a pro football team that lasted less than a full season in the old defunct World Football League back in 1974, the New York Stars. The WFL wanted a team in the Big Apple, but this franchise was woefully underfunded. They used the New York market to bring in a pair of former New York Jets players, George Sauer, who was lured out of retirement, and Gerry Philbin. Their first head coach was Joe Namath’s former backup quarterback Babe Parilli. Despite compiling a winning record of 8-5, the team failed at the box office and was moved to Charlotte for the rest of the season, eventually morphing into the Charlotte Hornets.
1978 Topps football card of former pro tight end Dave Casper, who played 11 seasons in the NFL, mostly for the Oakland Raiders. Nicknamed “The Ghost”, he was a four-time All Pro and five time Pro Bowler, a member of the NFL’s All Decade team of the 1970s, and a member of the Raiders’ first Super Bowl champion team in 1976. Casper was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002. He works as a financial planner and business consultant today.
This week 2 old NFL franchises meet in a battle of top teams in the National Conference this season – the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers. Our Throwback Thursday feature game, played between these clubs, took place on November 20, 1966 at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium. Both teams were non-contenders at the time, with Eagles entering the game with a 5-5 record while the Niners were barely above water at 4-3-2. They managed to put on a pretty good show this particular week, however. The home team jumped out to a 10-0 lead on a Tommy Davis field goal paired with an 11 yard touchdown pass from John Brodie to running back Ken Willard. Earl Gros, the Eagles’ fullback, cut into the lead with a 1 yard touchdown plunge, but the 49ers countered with another 10 point surge before halftime as Willard scored again, this time from a yard out, and Davis added another three pointer.
The Eagles came out storming in the second half behind their crew cut quarterback, King Hill. He fired a 15 yard scoring strike to tight end Pete Retzlaff, only to be matched by Brodie, who threw 30 yards to John David Crow for a score, putting San Francisco ahead 27-14. Hill kept his club close with another TD strike to Retzlaff of 10 yards. Gary Lewis then scored on a 2 yard run to end the third quarter, with the Niners now ahead by a commanding 34-21. Philly owned the final quarter, cutting the lead to 34-28 with some help from their defense – a Jim Nettles interception returned for a touchdown. Hill then sealed the deal for a 35-34 comeback win for the Eagles when he connected with an aging future Hall of Famer, Ollie Matson, on a short 4 yard TD pass. It was a sweet moment for Matson, who was winding down the final season of a brilliant 14 year career. It was also a bright spot in the ’66 season for Hill, as he was making 1 of only 2 starts he got that year in place of Norm Snead. Philadelphia finished that season strong, winning out the last 3 games after this to wind up 9-5 for the year, tied for second place with Cleveland in the Eastern Division.
1966 Eagles’ offense, with King Hill under center
Older logo of a college football team that plays in the Pioneer League, the Drake University Bulldogs. Their gridiron program began play in 1893 and they’ve been a Pioneer League member since 1993. The Bulldogs have won 14 conference titles and a national championship in 1922. Drake alumni who have enjoyed pro football careers include Billy Cundiff, Karl Kassulke, Felix Wright, Dan Turk, Pug Manders, Jerry Mertens, Eric Saubert and Dennis McKnight.
1962 Topps football card of former pro quarterback and punter King Hill, who played 11 seasons in the NFL for 3 different teams. The top pick of the 1958 NFL draft, he had most of his success with the Philadelphia Eagles but never achieved the notoriety of a top draft pick. Hill was instrumental in the Players’ Association in the 1960s and helped negotiate the first ever collective bargaining agreement. After his playing days ended he served as an assistant coach in Houston and New Orleans and in the scouting department with Philadelphia. Hill passed away in 2012 at the age of 75.
The Denver Broncos face the Cleveland Browns in the week 12 NFL schedule, and our Throwback Thursday post will relive an AFC Championship game played between these 2 teams on January 17, 1988. It was a rematch of the 1986 title game that saw the Broncos winning 23-20 in overtime after John Elway led his team on a 98 yard scoring drive to send the game into the extra period. That game would go down in NFL lore as “The Drive”, and this contest would produce another heartbreaking defeat for Cleveland that would become known as “The Fumble”.
This was the third meeting over a four year span that Denver and Cleveland would meet for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, with the Broncos winning the previous two. Once again, it appeared that Denver would have it’s way as they jumped out to a 14-0 lead behind an 8 yard Elway to Ricky Nattiel touchdown pass and a Steve Sewell 1 yard plunge. The Browns got on the scoreboard in the second quarter with a Matt Bahr field goal, but another short scoring run from Gene Lang lengthened Denver’s lead to 21-3 at halftime. The Browns, determined to reverse their luck, came alive in the third quarter. Quarterback Bernie Kosar found Reggie Langhorne on an 18 yard TD pass, but Elway countered that with an 80 yard bomb to Mark Jackson for a score. Ernest Byner, who along with Kevin Mack gave the Browns a devastating 1-2 punch in the run game, scored a pair of touchdowns, first on a 32 yard pass from Kosar and then on a 4 yard run. Suddenly the Browns were within 4 points of the lead at 28-24. Rich Karlis’ field goal stretched the Broncos’ lead back to 7 at 31-24. Early in the final quarter Kosar got his club tied at 31-31 with another touchdown pass, this time a short 4 yarder to Webster Slaughter. Elway’s 20 yard TD throw to running back Sammy Winder restored the Broncos’ lead to 7 as the game was winding down.
The determined Browns drove down the field and were within striking distance of tying the game when the infamous play happened. On second down at the Denver 8 yard line, Byner took a handoff and battled his way to the 3, where he would’ve set up first and goal. However, in trying to get into the end zone he was hit by a pair of defenders who jarred the ball loose. The Broncos recovered at the 3 yard line, and after failing to move the ball, coach Dan Reeves had his punter run out of the end zone for a safety rather than risk a blocked punt or a long return. Cleveland had one more shot but ran out of time, and the Broncos escaped with a 38-33 victory.
Byner took the fumble and the loss to heart, as the play went down in history as “The Fumble”. Karma would be kind to him, however. He was eventually traded to the Washington Redskins and would be a major contributor to a pair of Super Bowl wins for that franchise in the early 1990s.
A dejected Byner after his fumble
Used from 2003 until 2014, this is an alternate logo of a storied National Football League team, the Cleveland Browns. The logo is part of the resurrected franchise that came into existence in 1999 as an expansion team after the city had lost the team to Baltimore following the 1995 season. The Browns currently are members of the AFC North division of the league, and although in their early years they were a powerhouse, they are one of a handful of clubs that has never reached the Super Bowl.