Fun Trivia : NFL 1970s

Structure Sub-topic of: NFL by Season Quizzes Interesting Questions, Facts and Information There are a total of 20 general entries. Special Topics Football in a Decade A Decade of NFL Football

Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information

NFL 1970s

We were just two old quarterbacks, starting against each other for only the second (and last) time of our careers, when our teams played each other on September 24, 1972. The young guys should've been there taking notes. By the time the dust had cleared, we'd combined for 872 yards passing, and thrown eight touchdown passes. Who are we?

NFL in the 1970s #1


Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas. The Jets won the game 44-34, but the real winners were the fans, who witnessed a passing exhibition the likes of which the league had not seen before. Namath was 15/28 for 496 yards (more than 32 yards per completion) and six touchdowns, while Unitas added 376 yards and two touchdowns. Two weeks later, Unitas was benched in favor of Marty Domres. He was traded to San Diego the following year. Namath continued to play until 1977, but this was his last spectacular game in the NFL.



There were coaches in the league younger than I was. I had teammates who hadn't been born when I cashed my first NFL paycheck. So, what did I do in 1970? For five weeks in a row I pulled rabbits out of a hat, helping my team go 4-0-1 in games where we'd been struggling. Who am I?

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George Blanda. Blanda, who began his NFL career with the 1949 Chicago Bears, and who helped the 1960 Houston Oilers win the first AFL title, was a 43-year old placekicker and backup quarterback with the 1970 Oakland Raiders. His heroics began in the sixth week, when the Raiders 2-2-1 at that point, were tied 7-7 against the Steelers. Coming in off the bench to relieve starter Daryle Lamonica, he engineered a 31-14 Raider victory. The following week, he kicked a 48-yard field goal as the game ended to tie division rival Kansas City, 17-17. In the Raiders' next game, he relieved an injured Lamonica with the Raiders trailing the Cleveland Browns, tying the game with a late touchdown pass and winning it with a 52-yard field goal as time expired. The following week against Denver, his last minute touchdown pass lifted the Raiders to a 24-19 victory. Blanda's amazing string continued into a fifth week when his late field goal carried them to a 20-17 win over the San Diego Chargers. The team finished 8-4-2 that year, and half their wins and ties were because of Blanda's miracles. He retired after the 1975 season, at age 48, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981.



Everyone laughed at my teams. They called us, "The Over the Hill Gang", because we were the oldest team in the league. I had the last laugh though. I returned our team to the playoffs for the first time in almost 40 years. We went to the Super Bowl. I never came close to having a losing season. Who am I?

NFL in the 1970s #1


George Allen. George Allen coached the Los Angeles Rams from 1966-1970, taking the team immediately from mediocrity to one of the elite squads in the league. When he was fired by the team's impatient owners after the 1968 season, then his players threatened to quit if he wasn't re-hired. The Rams re-hired him. Fired again after 1970, he joined the Redskins and immediately traded away many of the team's draft choices for proven veterans (many from his former team, inspiring some to call the Redskins the "Ram-skins"). In Allen's first season, the Redskins went 9-4-1, the most wins by the team since 1942, and their first trip to the postseason since 1945. He continued his "future is now" philosophy for his seven years at the helm of the team, always opting for known-quantity players over unproven rookies. Allen's Redskins made the playoffs in five of those seasons, never finishing worse than 8-6, but he was fired after the 1977 season.



The New York Giants were the nomads of the league in the 1970s, having more home venues than any other team in the decade. Which of the stadiums listed below did not host a New York Giant home game in the 1970s?

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Fordham Stadium. The Giants moved into Giants Stadium in 1976, but construction delays on the stadium required the team to be creative for a few seasons. Yankee Stadium, their home since 1956, was closed for renovations after the 1973 baseball season, with the Giants playing their final game there on September 23, 1973. The team played its remaining five home games that year, plus all its 1974 home games, at the Yale Bowl in nearby New Haven, CT. Still waiting for their own stadium, they shared Shea Stadium with the Jets in 1975, before finally being able to unpack their boxes at Giants Stadium.



When a sportswriter asked Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John McKay about his team's execution, how did McKay respond?

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I'm in favor of it. McKay, who won national titles while coaching the USC Trojans in college, had some significant adjustments to make when the expansion Buccaneers hired him as their first coach. The team went 0-14 in its 1976 inaugural season, then lost the first 12 games of 1977. When they beat New Orleans to win their first game after 26 losses, he declared it to be, "the greatest win in the history of the world".



Super Bowl V was a game of many firsts. Which item below was not one of them?

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First Super Bowl played in Miami. Super Bowl V played on January 17, 1971, will forever be remembered as the "Blunder Bowl," in which the Baltimore Colts and Dallas Cowboys managed to combine for 11 turnovers, 14 penalties, a missed extra point, and converting only four of 24 third downs. After the Cowboys had built leads of 6-0 and 13-6, the Colts struggled back, and finally won the game on Jim O'Brien's 32 yard field goal with only five seconds left in the game.



My decade started and ended slowly, as I gained only 488 yards in 1970 and only 460 in 1979. But for most of the 1970s, I ran like a criminal trying to elude police on the freeway, and my 10,539 yards during the decade outgained all other running backs during that period. Who am I?

NFL in the 1970s #1


OJ Simpson. Simpson had been hampered by injuries and bad coaching during his early career. In 1972, his fourth season, Lou Saban, who had led the Buffalo Bills to two AFL titles in the 1960s, returned to coach the team, telling Simpson that he would be the cornerstone of the Bills' offense. Simpson gained 1,251 yards, almost twice his best previous effort, to lead the NFL in rushing that year, then gained 2,003 yards in 14 games the following year. By decade's end, he had amassed 10,539 yards, putting him ahead of Franco Harris (8,563 yards in eight seasons) and Larry Csonka (6,975 yards in nine seasons) for best running back of the 1970s.



From its 1970 debut, Monday Night Football was an immediate hit with football fans and the viewing public. By the end of the 1979 season, which member of its broadcast team had covered the most games for the program?

NFL in the 1970s #1


Howard Cosell. When Monday Night Football debuted in 1970, it used three announcers, Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, and Keith Jackson. Jackson was unceremoniously dumped from the broadcast team after the 1970 season when ABC was able to sign Frank Gifford from CBS. Cosell stayed in the booth through the 1983 season. Gifford remained through 1997. Meredith left ABC from 1974-1976 for an opportunity to act and cover sports for NBC, before returning to the team from 1977-1984. So at the end of the 1979 season, Cosell had 10 years on MNF, Gifford nine, Meredith seven, and Alex Karras (Meredith's replacement) three.



On November 19, 1978, quarterback Joe Pisarcik and running back Larry Csonka played a memorable role in a last minute 19-17 win by the Philadelphia Eagles. What is note worthy about that?

NFL in the 1970s #1


They were playing for the New York Giants. "The Miracle of the Meadowlands" was one of the most notorious blunders in football history. With the Giants leading 17-12 in the final minute, Pisarchik "took a knee" to kill the clock. For reasons unknown, the Giants coaches then ordered him to hand off to Csonka on the next play. Fearing for his job if he overruled their command, he went ahead with the play, bobbled the snap, fumbled, and Herman Edwards of the Eagles picked up the bouncing ball and returned it 26 yards for a touchdown.



What happened in 1973, making it easier than ever before for NFL fans to watch all of their hometown team's games?

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The league lifted rules that had prohibited the televising of home games. Since 1951, the NFL had prohibited television stations from broadcasting games being played within 75 miles of the station, forcing fans to either attend the games in person, or drive far enough away to be able to watch the game in a distant city. Beginning with Super Bowl VII, played in Los Angeles in January 1973, the league allowed home games to be televised, if they had been sold out for 72 hours prior to kickoff. The 1973 season set a new record for in-person attendance at NFL games, so the new rules satisfied both fans and the league.



A friend invites you over to watch a tape of a game (from which year, he's not sure) featuring the Electric Company squaring off against the 'No Name Defense'. You want to politely decline. Which of the reasons below could you accurately use?

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You already know who won. The Electric Company was the clever name given to OJ Simpson's Buffalo Bills offensive line from the 1970s (they "turn on the Juice," get it?). The Miami Dolphins defense of the 1970s created the nickname "No Name Defense" after hearing too many cracks that they lacked any players with name recognition. Bitter divisional rivals since the Dolphin franchise started in 1966, the teams locked horns twice each season. Although they had many memorable contests, Miami managed to win every one of the 20 games from 1970 through 1979. So whatever drama those games may have had, if you're watching a Miami-Buffalo game from the 1970s, you can easily predict the winner.



How did Clint Longley make a name for himself in a 1970s NFL game?

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Led a thrilling comeback win by the Dallas Cowboys over the Washington Redskins on Thanksgiving Day. "The triumph of an uncluttered mind", was how Dallas Cowboys lineman Blaine Nye described 22 year old Clint Longley's 1974 moment in the sun. On Thanksgiving day that year, the archrival Washington Redskins built up a 16-3 third quarter lead over the Cowboys, then knocked starting quarterback Roger Staubach out of the game. Longley, the backup quarterback, entered the game and went 11 for 20 with two touchdown passes, including a 50 yard bomb with 35 seconds remaining, to give the Cowboys an improbable 24-23 win over the Redskins. The following week, Staubach returned, and Longley's NFL career had only two years and 48 passes left in it. After his Thanksgiving heroics, he became enamored of himself, to the great annoyance of his teammates. During training camp in 1976, Staubach promised to "knock those Bugs Bunny teeth out of Longley's mouth", arranged for some friends to distract the coaches, then beat Longley. Two days later, Longley told friends he'd figured out a way to get traded and punched Staubach. He was dealt to San Diego within days.



We were one of the most fearsome teams in the league in the early 1970s, and the core of our team made four Super Bowl trips. But for a few years, we put a real emphasis on the "professional" part of football. We had a dentist playing quarterback. We had a future lawyer and state Supreme Court justice on our defensive line. Maybe if we had a good CPA or two playing linebacker, we might have actually won one of those four Super Bowls we were in. Which team are we?

NFL in the 1970s #2


Minnesota Vikings. From 1969-76, the Minnesota Vikings may have been the most feared team in the NFL, rolling up an 87-24-1 record and usually annihilating opponents in the process. Their quarterback, Gary Cuozzo, who backed up Joe Kapp in 1968-69 and started the next two seasons, was a practicing dentist and orthodontist in the offseason. Defensive lineman Alan Page, a future Hall of Famer and the 1971 league MVP, earned a law degree while in the NFL and went on to become an assistant attorney general in Minnesota before being elected to the state's Supreme Court in 1993.



Which player below was not part of a group that Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll referred to as a "criminal element"?

NFL in the 1970s #2


Conrad Dobler. Dobler, who shows up on many lists of the dirtiest NFL players of all time, managed to avoid showing up on what was the first list of dirty players ever compiled from sworn court testimony. After a 1976 game in which George Atkinson of the Oakland Raiders injured Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Lynn Swann with a vicious blow to the head, Noll told reporters that Atkinson was part of a "criminal element" in the NFL. Atkinson sued Noll for slander. During the trial, while under oath, Noll added Raider Jack Tatum and his own player Mel Blount to the "criminal element" collection. Although Noll prevailed in the lawsuit, he was then threatened with a lawsuit from Blount after the player took offense with his coach's testimony. The two worked out their differences, however, and Blount remained with the team until his 1983 retirement.



Dallas Cowboy coach Tom Landry, a master offensive strategist and leading innovator in NFL history, helped his 1971 team turn their season around and go on to win the Super Bowl, when he dropped one of his more dubious innovations at midseason. Which innovation did he drop?

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Alternating quarterbacks with each offensive play. In the NFL of the early 1970s, it was quite common for teams to situationally substitute quarterbacks, and Tom Landry took this approach to the extreme in the first half of 1971. Craig Morton had been the team's starting quarterback the previous season and taken the Cowboys to the Super Bowl. Roger Staubach had shown promise as a backup and in training camp. So Landry had the two quarterbacks alternate offensive plays for the first half of the season. After the team had struggled to a 4-3 record, including losses to the awful New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears, Landry made Staubach the starter and full-time quarterback. The team ended the season 7-0, then sailed through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl, where they defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-3. Under Staubach, the Cowboys played in three more Super Bowls in the decade. Morton had a solid NFL career, but may be best remembered for his woeful performance in two Super Bowls: 16/41 passing, with 166 yards, one touchdown, and seven interceptions.



Quarterback Bobby Douglass completed 43% of his passes during his career, threw 36 touchdown passes, and had 64 interceptions. So why is he still remembered by many NFL fans?

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He rushed for 968 yards in 1972. If Woody Hayes had seen Bobby Douglass play, he might have changed his famous adage ("There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad") to say "and they're all bad." Douglass's 1972 Chicago Bear season saw him obliterate the existing NFL rushing record for quarterbacks, with his 968 yards almost cracking the list of the league's top 10 rushers. Typically for Douglass, this was far more impressive than his passing line for the year (38% completions, nine TDs, 12 INTs). In 10 NFL seasons, Douglass only once completed more than half his passes, never had more touchdowns than interceptions, and somehow wound up with a rushing average (6.5 yards per carry) that dwarfed his passing average (5.5 yards per completion).



What was the historic significance of the 35-35 tie game played by the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos on September 22, 1974?

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It was the first regular season overtime game in NFL history. The NFL became increasingly frustrated with the prevelance of tie games. Starting in 1972, the league began counting ties as half a win and half a loss in the standings (previously, they had counted as neither), hoping to encourage teams to play for a win. There had been nine ties in 1970 and eight in 1971; the number dropped to five in 1972, but increased to seven the following year. Hoping to eliminate ties altogether, and anticipating a good amount of excitement from using overtime, the NFL again changed the rules in 1974, mandating a ten minute overtime period for regular season games that were tied after 60 minutes. However frustrated the league must have been when the first overtime game ended in a tie, they must have been delighted with the long-term results: after the Steeler-Bronco contest, there were only two more tie games for the remainder of the 1970s.



Which future Hall of Fame running back became the first rookie to lead the NFL in rushing since Jim Brown had done it in 1957, as he slammed through defenses like a well-oiled piece of construction equipment?

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Earl Campbell. Campbell joined the Houston Oilers in 1978 and came into the league like a sledgehammer, leading the NFL in rushing each of his first three years. He piled up 9,407 yards during his career, but his love of slamming into people took a quick toll on him, putting him out of the NFL after just eight seasons.



John Madden won 75% of his games coaching the Oakland Raiders, a winning percentage higher than that of any other 20th century NFL coach. Which are the only NFL teams that managed to win more than half their games against Madden's Raiders?

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Seattle Seahawks & New England Patriots. The best the NFL had to offer was no match for Madden's Raider teams. Against the Dolphins of Shula, the Steelers of Noll, and the Vikings of Grant, they were 9-3-1. Against the NFC East, which included Tom Landry's Cowboys and George Allen's Redskins, the Raiders went 7-0. Yet somehow, the Seahawks (16-28 while Madden was coaching) managed to take two of three from his Raider teams, and the Patriots (61-81) took three of five. Other than going 1-1 against three NFC West opponents (49ers, Falcons, Rams), Madden's Raiders had winning records against every other team in the league.