Pro Football in the 1970s

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE  There were a couple of very competitive playoff games in the NFL during the 1970s, and many people have largely forgotten them…if they really paid much attention to them at all.  One occurred in 1973, and t...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . JOE ZAGORSKI'S OTHER WORK "JOE ZAGORSKI WRITER" WEBSITE CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE EPISODE SUMMARY On January 14, 1973, the Miami Dolphins completed a seemingly impossible dream by defeating the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII by a score of 14-7.  T...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE Just as in today’s NFL, the teams of the 1970s all wanted to be playing their best brand of pro football while they were going down the home stretch of their schedule. They all wanted to be “peaking towards the playof...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE Pro football has provided a showcase for the many different wide receivers who buckled up their chinstraps during the 1970s. Prior to the 1978 rules changes which great benefitted those pass catchers, however, pass re...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE It is perhaps the least appreciated, or probably the least understood position in a football game. I’m speaking about the occupation of punter. It is their job to—in effect—give the ball back to their team’s opponents...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE In 1973 and 1974, a couple of terrible passing performances by a couple of very young quarterbacks somehow equaled victory for their respective teams. Both outings came about with different circumstances, and they bot...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE   There have been two documented cases that I know of during the 1970s where a team’s gameplan has been found by their opposing team on the eve of a game. In 1974, in one of the most exciting playoff games in NFL...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY CHECK OUT THE NFL IN THE 1970S FACEBOOK PAGE Well, I have refrained from discussing this topic, because I know that it will inspire plenty of debates, but I must give in and talk about it here. It’s probably one of the most common topics for any pro football his...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY In 1976, the nation we call the United States of America was celebrating its 200th birthday. It was a grand celebration from sea to sign shining sea, for 365 days. It almost seemed appropriate that the New England Patriots would invest in the patriotic fervor of...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY During the first half of the 1970s, the Miami Dolphins had a couple of starting safeties who brought their own distinctive talents to the team’s defense. That unit was called the “No-Name Defense,” and appropriately so. If you asked anyone today “…who were the s...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY By the time of the 1972 NFL Player Draft, the Green Bay Packers, in particular their head coach Dan Devine, had had enough. Divine's first year at the helm of the Packers would end up with a poor 4-8-2 record. There were plenty of reasons for this, one of the mo...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY The 1979 AFC Playoffs brought an unsung hero, Vernon Perry of the Houston Oilers, into the spotlight. Despite being relatively unknown, Perry's defensive prowess came to the forefront in a memorable game against the highly-favored San Diego Chargers. Riddled wit...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY During the 1970s, there were several outstanding rookie running backs whose first year in the NFL were extraordinary. Any one of the following six players would have been a great addition to any team. Some of them were famous from their college days. Others gain...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY The decade of the 1970s had numerous great plays in the NFL. Now this is not an exact science. I won’t be trying to list every single great play of the decade, because there were so many of them, and because I didn’t want to leave any out if I could help it. But...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY   The featured halfback for the Los Angeles Rams in 1975 was Lawrence McCutcheon, a runner who delivered the unabashed punch of a fullback, with the speed and the shifty moves of a quality halfback. During the regular season that year, McCutcheon had rushed...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY In 1978, a bunch of new rules geared to improve the passing game showed up along the landscape of the NFL. The public for the most part clamored for the news rules because they wanted to see more scoring in the game. Former Hall of Fame Miami head coach Don Shul...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY Pro football in the current day and age seems to produce one or two different Cinderella teams every year. But that was not always the case, however. In the 1970s, you might see one Cinderella team every two or three years. They just were not that common during...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY During the 1970s, there were many men who played the position of quarterback in the National Football League. During the same time, there were also quite a few men who played that position fairly well, to the point that they had winning records, admirable statis...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY Pro football’s longest-enduring rivalry naturally involves two of its oldest teams, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. Their first meeting began way back in 1921. In the 1970s, the rivalry blossomed into its sixth decade. These two natural rivals in th...

Thanksgiving Day, 1924 . The recently-established tradition of the University of Pittsburgh Panthers football team hosting the Pennsylvania State Nittany Lions on the afternoon of the national autumnal holiday continues. Orville Mulligan: Sports Writer is sent to cover the Pitt-Penn State “Keystone Classic” of 1924; in so doing, he discovers a throughline of the football-on-Thanksgiving tradition...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY Perhaps no other era in the sport of pro football has seen the renewing and regurgitation of head coaches quite as much as what we are witnessing in this current era. It seems that when a head coach gets fired in the 21st century, his next opportunity to wear a...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY It was certainly a long wait, but in 1977, the wait was finally over. The Denver Broncos came into existence in the old American Football League back in 1960.  A total of 18 years later, in 1977, pro football’s Rocky Mountain team finally made the playoffs....

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY If you are in your 50s like me, you probably grew up watching the variety of shows that were produced by one of the greatest companies in America, NFL Films. I remember visiting it when I was a teenager in the 1970s, when the establishment was located on North 1...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY A good friend of mine who enjoys listening to my podcast here on the Sports History Network commented to me recently that he would like to hear me discuss the worst trades that occurred during the 1970s in pro football. It is definitely a topic that I had not ad...

Pro Football in the 1970s is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear . EPISODE SUMMARY A former running back for the 1972 Undefeated Miami Dolphins spoke to me recently about his team’s efforts to win Super Bowl VII back at the conclusion of the 1972 NFL season. As it turned out, it took losing the biggest game of the year to enable them to win th...