JRN / SPS 362 - Lecture Nineteen

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of FootballRich Hanley, Associate ProfessorLecture Nineteen

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football


Review• The culture of celebrity emerged

in the late 1960s with Joe Namath leading the way as quarterback of the New York Jets.

• The fact that Namath played in New York and guided the Jets to the Super Bowl III win over the heavily favored Colts ratified his standing in pop culture.


Review• The launch of Monday Night

Football transformed the game to prime-time television spectacle, cementing its spot at the top of both sports and pop culture in America.

• Roone Arledge’s approach to cover the game as entertainment programming drew ever-widening audiences to the NFL.


The End of the Century• By the second half of the 1960s,

football reflected broad cultural shifts more so than other sports despite lingering conservatism.

• And pro football, reflecting America twin traits of ecstasy and violence, stood as America’s secular religion, with the Super Bowl serving as its sacred rite.


The End of the Century• If Jesus Christ were alive today,

he’d be at the Super Bowl,” said the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale in 1975.

• Indeed. The 1970s NFL featured two plays studded with religious imagery:

- The Immaculate Reception - The Hail Mary


The End of the Century• One of the more enduring

symbols of football in the 1970s is a cartoon strip known as Doonesbury.

• The cartoonist, Garry Trudeau, attended Yale and drew cartoons that featured campus personalities, including No. 10 B.D. – Brian Dowling, Yale’s quarterback from 1966-68.



The End of the Century• But football itself had long since

left its origins in the cloistered quads of eastern colleges.

• It’s core remained in the football crescent but had expanded to the south and west – and to TV.

• Still, Yale and Harvard had one more piece of mythology to insert.



The End of the Century• Events in 1968 roiled the nation.

• Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.

• Anti-Vietnam War protests and black power demonstrations even at the Yale Bowl unsettled conservative America.


The End of the Century• On November 23, 1968, cultural

divisions and arguments ceased for an afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for The Game, the annual Harvard-Yale contest, played since the 1870s.

• The game matched the extraordinary chaos of the year.


The End of the Century• Both teams stood at 8-0. The Ivy

League championship was on the line but Yale seemed to have the edge with an exceptional quarterback in Dowling and the great running Calvin Hill.

• The Bulldogs led 29-13 late.


The End of the Century• But Harvard scored two late

touchdowns (the last after an onside kick) and two two-point conversions to tie, 29-29.

• “Harvard Beats Yale” declared the headline in The Harvard Crimson newspaper.


The End of the Century• The Yale sideline as Harvard tied

the game showed just how dispiriting the loss felt – then and decades later.

• National coverage of the game’s finish gave the two old schools a final bow in the sport they shaped over almost 100 years of play.


The End of the Century• That game and the decade of

1970s marked the end of the first 100 years of American football.

• Over that period, football became the national spectacle and innovations in tactics and fields between the mid 1960s and early 1970s guaranteed it would be contemporary in its approach to gameplay and look.


The End of the Century• For one, football began to played

on plastic grass and in indoor stadiums.

• Innovative, high-risk, high-reward offenses built for artificial turf under a new generation of coaches emerged to challenge and replace the standard T-formation and its big backs with small, fast backs.


The End of the Century• The University of Houston

became the first college team to play indoors when the Cougars played in the Astrodome in 1965.

• A year later, they played a game on the Astrodome’s new synthetic turf, the first team in college football to play on something other than grass – or mud.


The End of the Century• Houston coach Bill Yeoman

introduced the veer option offense in 1966, and it turned out to be the perfect system for plastic grass.

• It transformed college quarterbacks and running backs and forced defenses to adapt by recruiting faster, more mobile players.


The End of the Century• The veer gave the quarterback

three options to consider based on the defense:

- Run the ball- Handoff to a

halfback (dive back) - Pitch to a halfback. (pitch back)


The End of the Century• The veer could be operated from

the split T-formation or from the new I-formation, with the fullback and halfback in a line behind the quarterback.

• The offense allowed fast, small backs to find space on the outside while maintaining the power of the inside game with the fullback.


The End of the Century• The veer kept defenses confused

as the quarterback could read the play as it unfolded and select the best option based on that read.

• A fourth option – the pass - further complicated approaches to stopping it.


The End of the Century• Houston led the nation in offense

in 1966, 1967 and 1968, and the offense spread throughout college football.

• Variants emerged, too, as coaches experimented with option football.


The End of the Century• Texas coach Darryl Royal

perfected the most visible innovation in college football: the wishbone design formulated by assistant Emory Bellard in the late 1960s.

• The formation focused on quickness, with a quarterback under center with a fullback flanked behind him by two halfbacks.


The End of the Century• Bellard initially called it the 46

veer from the Y formation when he first designed it after Royal asked him to develop an option offense.

• “I never liked the concept the defense could say, ‘you can either run or pass.’ We should be able to do anything we like—this is the way football ought to be played,” he said.


The End of the Century• A sports columnist from Houston

who saw Texas run the formation against the Cougars in 1968 described it as a wishbone.

• The name stuck.


The End of the Century• Under the wishbone, the

quarterback had four options:

- handoff to the fullback- fake to the fullback and

sprint to a side, turn up field and run

- pitch to a tailback, with the other tailback blocking

- long pass


The End of the Century• Texas unveiled the wishbone in

1968 and had perfected it within a year.

• In one game in 1969, quarterback James Street and backs Jim Bertlesen, Steve Worster and Ted Koy all rushed for 100 yards.


The End of the Century• With the wishbone in full flower,

Texas won the 1969 national championship and shared the 1970 crown with Nebraska.

• The Longhorns won 30 straight games between 1968 and 1970.


The End of the Century• In a brief period, the wishbone

became part of Texas football mythology, an enduring symbol of the team’s success in the 1970s.

• When Royal died in 2012, the team honored his memory by using the wishbone for a play.


The End of the Century• Teams running the wishbone won

or shared seven national titles between 1969 and 1979.

• Two traditional football powers that successfully adopted the wishbone during this time were Oklahoma and Alabama.


The End of the Century• Oklahoma took advantage of the

high crown of its artificial turf field to run opponents into the ground with the multiple-option offense.

• In 1971, Oklahoma sought to ride the formation to a national championship just as Texas did twice.


The End of the Century• Oklahoma would have its chance

to secure the top ranking on November 25, 1971, when it hosted No. 1 and defending national co-champion Nebraska.


The End of the Century• The game matched the two best

backs in the country.

• Greg Pruitt of Oklahoma averaged as astonishing 9.5 yards per carry as a wishbone tailback.


The End of the Century• Johnny Rodgers of Nebraska

would win the Heisman Trophy in 1972, capping a career in which he was named twice to All-America teams.

• Unlike Oklahoma, though, Nebraska ran a power I formation that featured fullback Jeff Kinney.


The End of the Century• A television audience of 55

million – a record for a college football game at the time – tuned in to watch the game on a national holiday.

• They were not disappointed as the game featured a clash of fast offenses and fast, strong defenses.


The End of the Century• The late writer, commentator

and sports information director Beano Cook defined a great game as follows:

• “For a game to be considered great, it has to have special meaning … and something has to happen in the last few minutes.”


The End of the Century• The game met all criteria.

• The teams were the top two in the nation.

• The greatest wishbone quarterback ever, Jack Mildren, threw a touchdown pass – a rare event from the formation – to give Oklahoma a 31-28 lead late in the fourth quarter.


The End of the Century• But Nebraska responded,

systematically marching 74 yards in 12 plays to score with 1:38 remaining to take a 35-31 lead, which it held to win the game.


The End of the Century• Oklahoma’s wishbone couldn’t

crack Nebraska in the end because the Cornhuskers figured out how to defend it.

• Coach Bob Devaney assigned a defense end to cover the tailback to neutralize the pitch.


The End of the Century• Nebraska then defeated another

wishbone team - No. 2 team, Alabama - in the Orange Bowl to claim the national championship with a 13-0 record.

• The power I had defeated the wishbone but the wishbone endured for another decade.


The End of the Century• Because of the wishbone, the

veer and other option systems, the stars of the college game in the 1970s tended to be running backs.

• Eight of the 10 Heisman winners were running backs as the position recaptured prominence from quarterbacks.


The End of the Century• Among the winners were Archie

Griffin or Ohio State won two Heisman trophies (1974-75), the only player to do so …


The End of the Century• … and Tony Dorsett of

Pittsburgh, who won the trophy in 1976.


The End of the Century• As colleges focused on the field,

the NFL was all business, completing its merger with the AFL.

• AFL teams became grouped under the American Football Conference.

• The National Football Conference included all but three teams from the NFL.


The End of the Century• To achieve numerical balance

among the 26-team league, the NFL assigned those three teams - Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers - to the AFC.



The End of the Century• The NFL finally conquered the

full continental U.S. in 1976 when the Seattle Seahawks of the Pacific northwest started play, as did another team from the South, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

• That gave the NFL 28 teams from coast-to-coast, north-to-south.



The End of the Century• Innovation on the field,

meanwhile, remained the province of Paul Brown.

• After Cleveland owner Art Modell fired him in 1963, Brown founded the Cincinnati Bengals of the AFL in 1968, a year after he was elected to the pro football Hall of Fame.


The End of the Century• “This is like coming home,”

Brown said at the Bengals’ first press conference. “I’m living again.”

• Brown hired Bill Walsh as his offensive coordinator in 1968 to build a new offense.


The End of the Century• Walsh learned the vertical game

from Sid Gillman in the AFL.

• He devised a new offense – the Ohio River Offense - that would feature passing as its animating force, saying it didn’t matter how teams gained yards.


The End of the Century• In 1969 with fifth overall pick,

Brown drafted the perfect quarterback to run that new offense, Greg Cook of the University of Cincinnati.

• “Greg Cook was, I believe, the greatest talent to play the position,” said Walsh years later.


The End of the Century• Cook’s rookie season was among

the best of any quarterback in NFL history.


The End of the Century• Cook led the AFC in completion

percentage, passer rating and yards per attempt, all while leading a second-year expansion team

• He averaged 9.41 yards per pass attempt and 17.5 yards per completion mark, rookie records that still stand.


The End of the Century• Cook and the Bengals defeated

Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders, that team’s only loss in 1969.

• But Cook had injured his shoulder against the Chiefs and although he continued to play in 1969, he never fully recovered afterward.


The End of the Century• The injury forced Brown to

change the scheme in 1970, because Walsh’s Ohio River Offense depended on Cook’s arm.

• Instead, Walsh re-formatted the offense to feature a horizontal, ball-control passing attack for new quarterback Virgil Carter.


The End of the Century• Thus was born what would later

be called the West Coast Offense, implemented by Walsh in San Francisco and operated by Joe Montana.


The End of the Century• For Brown, the loss of Cook

meant the loss of a quarterback he saw as the next Otto Graham. Others did, too.

• “What a great, great talent," Walsh said in 2001. "What a terrible shame.”


The End of the Century• Nevertheless, Brown and Walsh

led the Bengals to divisional titles in 1970, 1973 and 1975.

• Brown retired after the 1975 season, ending his pro coaching career with 167 victories, 58 losses and 8 ties.

• He died in 1991.


The End of the Century• Cook’s career lasted just 12

games as the shoulder injury never healed even after multiple surgeries.

• After formally retiring at the age of 27, Cook, an art major, painted. He died in 2012 of pneumonia.


The End of the Century• Brown’s legacy was assured

even before he retired as former players and coaches who worked with him led teams to championships.

• First, it was Weeb Ewbank with the Jets in Super Bowl III.

• Don Shula of Miami followed.


The End of the Century• Like Brown, Shula was from

Ohio, the core of the football crescent.

• He coached Baltimore against Ewbank in Super Bowl III but left to lead the Miami Dolphins in 1970.


The End of the Century• Shula immediately built the

team around a punishing ground game on the Orange Bowl’s new synthetic surface.

• The team featured three backs – Larry Csonka, Eugene “Mercury” Morris and Jim Kiick – who each brought unique talents to the run.


The End of the Century• Bob Griese, left, provided steady

if not spectacular play at quarterback and had a top receiver in Paul Warfield – formerly of the Browns – when he needed a great receiver to gain yards.


The End of the Century• Shula and his defensive

coordinator Bill Arnsparger constructed a defense focused on linebacker Nick Buoniconti.

• It had a nickname as many defenses did at the time: the no-name defense, which lacked Sam Huff-level media stars.


The End of the Century• This combination of a lethal

ground game and a stubborn defense – hallmarks of the type of play favored in the football crescent – powered the Dolphins to three straight Super Bowls in 1971, 1972 and 1973.


The End of the Century• In Super Bowl VI, the Dolphins

lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 24-3, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

• The Cowboys suffocated Miami’s running attack, holding the Dolphins to 80 yards of net rushing in becoming the only team to not allow a touchdown in the Super Bowl.


The End of the Century• It would be more than another

year before the Dolphins would lose another game.


The End of the Century• In 1972, the Dolphins went 17-0,

becoming the first NFL team to go from the opening game to the Super Bowl without a loss, finishing 14-0 in the regular season and 3-0 in the playoffs.


The End of the Century• In the Super Bowl against the

Washington, the No-Name Defense held the Redskins and running back Larry Brown in check.

• The Dolphins won 14-7, with the Washington score coming on a botched field goal attempt.


The End of the Century• The Dolphins relied on the

running attack, amassing 184 net yards.

• Griese threw just 11 passes, completing 8 for 88 yards.

• And the MVP was a defense back, safety Jake Scott, who had two interceptions.


The End of the Century• The following year, Miami lost

the second game of the season to Oakland, ending its winning streak.

• Still, the team finished 12-2 and defeated Minnesota 24-7 in the Super Bowl to match Green Bay’s record of two straight wins in the game.


The End of the Century• Griese set a record for the

fewest passes in the Super Bowl with seven, including just one in the second half, for a total of 63 net yards passing.

• NFL headquarters took note as concern grew over a style of play that was not friendly to the drama and entertainment values television required.


The End of the Century• As Miami built is dynasty, a team

in western Pennsylvania established its credentials as one to watch.

• Long a doormat in the NFL, the Steelers hired former Paul Brown assistant Chuck Noll in 1969 to make the team competitive.


The End of the Century• Noll had the best of multiple

worlds in terms of preparation.

• He was drafted by Paul Brown in 1953 and played in Cleveland until 1959.

• From 1960-65, he was an assistant coach under Sid Gillman.


The End of the Century• Noll joined the Steelers after

serving as offensive coordinator for Shula in 1968 when the Colts lost Super Bowl III.

• In his first draft as head coach in 1969, Noll selected Joe Greene from North Texas State as his first pick.


The End of the Century• Noll selected Terry Bradshaw, a

quarterback from Louisiana Tech, as the first overall pick in 1970, establishing the building blocks for success on defense and offense.


The End of the Century• In 1972, the Steelers arrived as a

legitimate contender for the Super Bowl by making the playoffs for only the second time in their 40-year history.

• In a first-round game, the Steelers met the Oakland Raiders in Pittsburgh.


The End of the Century• Trailing with only time for one

final play, Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw called for a pass over the middle, to back John Fuqua.


The End of the Century• Bradshaw rifled the ball toward

Fuqua, who was bounced off the play by Jack Tatum of the Raiders.


The End of the Century• The ball bounced off either

Fuqua or defensive back Jack Tatum and down the middle of the field., where Franco Harris snagged it before it hit the artificial turf.

• At least the officials saw it that way .


The End of the Century• Harris raced into the end zone,

giving Pittsburgh the win.

• The play would later be known as the Immaculate Reception.


The End of the Century• The AFC Championship game

that followed pitted two Brown disciples – Noll and Shula – against each other as the Steelers met the Dolphins.

• Miami won, 21-17, and went on to win the Super Bowl and complete the undefeated season. But Pittsburgh showed it was among the elite teams.


The End of the Century• As the Shula’s Dolphins and

Noll’s Steelers established dynastic teams, NFL headquarters became increasingly alarmed over football-crescent play that favored the run over the more crowd-pleasing pass.


The End of the Century• In 1972, the NFL made a modest

move in favor of more scoring by aligning the hashmarks with the goal posts to give offenses more room to operate from the middle to the sides of the field.


The End of the Century• That didn’t work, as the Dolphins

continued to ignore the passing game en route to back-to-back championships.

• So the NFL went back to work to open up the game.


The End of the Century• In 1974, the league rewrote the

rules in favor of more scoring, just as college football had consistently pursued since the 1890s.

• The rule changes included:


The End of the Century• Moving kickoffs from the 40-yard

line to the 35

• Banning blocking receivers below the knee.

• Reducing holding penalties from 15 to 10 yards.


The End of the Century• Introducing overtime for regular-

season games.

• Moving the goalposts to the back of the end zone.

• Spotting the ball at the line of scrimmage on missed attempts instead of at the 20.


The End of the Century• Limiting defenders to one

“chuck,” or bump, past three yards from the line of scrimmage.


The End of the Century• Noll and the Steelers adjusted

immediately and reformulated the team.

• And the 1974 draft reflected the capacity to move to events.

• The Steelers picked Lynn Swann, right, and John Stallworth, both receivers.


The End of the Century• Moreover, Noll and his defensive

coordinator Bud Carson figured out how to create a defense within the new rules that would help to stop the pass.

• Also in 1974, the team drafted linebacker Jack Lambert, a big, mobile defender.


The End of the Century• Then, Carson devised the Cover

Two, a defense in which cornerbacks moved to the line and the safeties shifted to deeper positions.

• Tony Dungy played for the Steelers and later refined the formation as a coach with Tampa Bay.


The End of the Century• The corners would bump the

receivers at the line and then release to cover a short zone near the sidelines.

• The linebackers would take the middle.

• The safeties would cover deep.


The End of the Century• The Steel Curtain defense - the

front four of L.C. Greenwood and Dwight White at ends and Ernie Holmes, Joe Greene at tackles – would handle the run and pressure the quarterback.


The End of the Century• Noll had constructed the perfect

defense with smart, fast players and an innovative scheme to cover the traditional run and the passing game now expected to be deployed more frequently under the new rules.


The End of the Century• On offense, Terry Bradshaw

would hand the ball to Franco Harris or pass to Swann or Stallworth, giving the team extraordinary options to gain yards and score.

• In short, the Steelers were built to win within the framework of new rules and approaches to the game.


The End of the Century• The Steelers would win four

Super Bowls in six years, an achievement exceeded only by Paul Brown’s run with the Cleveland Browns in the AAFC and the NFL in the late 1940s and 1950s.


The End of the Century• Pittsburgh beat:

- Minnesota 16-6 in Super Bowl IX.

- Dallas 21-17 in Super Bowl X.

- Dallas 35-31 in Super Bowl XIII.

- Los Angeles Rams 31-19 in Super Bowl XIV.


The End of the Century• In addition to the new dynasties

in Miami and Pittsburgh, and rules that opened the game to more television-friendly play, new indoor stadiums in Pontiac, Michigan, and Minneapolis, and synthetic surfaces in multipurpose stadiums appeared throughout the 1970s.


The End of the Century• The most emblematic structure

of the new age of football was Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys and coach Tom Landry.

• Both represented football’s strange linkage between ecstasy and violence, now expressed in a technological fantasyland.


The End of the Century• Texas Stadium opened in 1971,

and the Cowboys moved there from the Cotton Bowl.

• It stood as the first of the modern football-only stadiums, with luxury boxes and artificial turf as part of the original design.


The End of the Century• The original design called for a

roof but when that became impossible to install within the budget, the design changed to leave open the roof directly over the field.

• Cowboys’ fans said it was there so god could watch His team play.


The End of the Century• No one mentioned the famed

Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders in that context.

• The cheerleaders mirrored the glitz of the age, taking the traditional college cheerleading team and remaking it to meet television’s need to show sex alongside violence live and in color.


The End of the Century• Landry, in turn, served as the

human embodiment of what the stadium represented in pro football’s contradictions of ecstasy and violence, technology and religion.


The End of the Century• Landry sharpened his analytical

mind while studying engineering and playing football at the University of Texas.

• During World War II, he flew combat missions over Europe.


The End of the Century• Landry returned from the war

and played pro football in the AAFC for the New York Yankees as a defensive back, shifting to the New York Giants in 1950 when the league folded.


The End of the Century• Landry’s intellect so impressed

New York coach Steve Owen that he asked his player to explain defensive formations to his teammates, serving in effect as a coach on the field and in practice.


The End of the Century• Landry retired and joined the

Giants’ staff as defensive coach in 1956, working with offensive coach Vince Lombardo under coach Jim Lee Howell.

• When asked decades later whose coaching style he emulated, Landry did not hesitate:


The End of the Century• “The person who influenced me

the most was Paul Brown. I mean, this is where my whole coaching came from,“ said Landry.

• Indeed, Landry’s approach reflected Brown’s scientific methods in training, coaching and developing innovative formations and game plans.


The End of the Century• In 1960, Landry declined the

Giants’ offer to serve as head coach and signed with Dallas instead so he could return to his home state.

• As Landry and others knew, though, Texas had a different sensibility toward football relative to New York.


The End of the Century• “When I played, I just kinda dug

it for what it was. Football and Texas – it was the thing to do. You know, ‘I want to be a football hero, I want to have a beautiful girl.’” – Joe Don Looney, a running back from Texas who played for Oklahoma, quoted in Dallas Times Herald.


The End of the Century• When Calvin Hill of Yale first

visited Dallas after the Cowboys drafted him with their top pick in 1969, he found it difficult to adjust to the scale of the game and the weight of the fan intensity there.

• An elite eastern college could not prepare Hill for that experience.


The End of the Century• “It was more intense,” he said. “I

went from an environment where football was important to an environment where football was extremely important, not only because it was professional in nature, but also Texas football was much more important. It was part of the ethos, I thought.”


The End of the Century• Landry represented the other

side of Texas football: that of the quiet Christian warrior.

• As noted by scholar Eric Bain Selbo in a paper available on Blackboard, football functions as a religion in terms of the passion expressed by followers.


The End of the Century• Landry thus served as the

singular personality who linked the football and religious worlds of the contemporary South and Southwest.

• Landry, though, was hardly a conservative in his approach to the game.


The End of the Century• As defensive coach for the

Giants, Landry developed the 4-3 defense – four linemen in front, with three linebackers behind them.

• The scheme transformed pro defenses and turned middle linebackers such as Sam Huff into the stars of the defense.


The End of the Century• The 4-3 defense’s emphasis on

the middle linebacker meant the player in that position had to perform multiple jobs: fill the gaps against the run, cover backs circling out of the backfield and blitz the quarterback when the moment required it.

• It required brains and brawn.


The End of the Century• The Cowboys did not win a game

in Landry’s first year, finishing 0-11-1.

• But the coach had started the process of building a team that would be competitive for decades.

• The key would be his capacity to take calculated risks based on data.


The End of the Century• In 1961, the Cowboys won their

first game, against Pittsburgh, and the team would go on to win four games that year.

• The team would not have a winning season until 1966 but Landry’s job was not in jeopardy.


The End of the Century• Landry and general manager Tex

Schramm developed intelligence tests along the pattern established by Paul Brown.

• Both insisted on building the team through the draft, and one choice in particular showed their appetite for risk in making even calculated picks.


The End of the Century• In 1964, the Cowboys drafted

Roger Staubach, the Heisman-winning quarterback of the U.S. Naval Academy, evidence of the team’s desire to draft smart, accomplished people.


The End of the Century• Staubach, though, couldn’t join

the team for five years, until after he met his five-year commitment to the Navy. He would be worth the wait.


The End of the Century• Landry and Schramm took

another risk in 1969, when they reached into the Ivy League to draft Hill with the Cowboys’ top pick.

• Hill would be named NFL rookie of the year in 1969.


The End of the Century• The pair quickly built Dallas into

a competitive team but the Cowboys lost to the Green Bay Packers in 1966 and again in 1967 in NFL Championship games.


The End of the Century• Landry and the Cowboys finally

reached the Super Bowl in 1971 but the team lost to the Baltimore Colts, 16-13, on a last-second field goal.

• The game featured 11 turnovers on the Orange Bowl turf, including seven by the Colts.


The End of the Century• A year later with Roger Staubach

starting at quarterback, Dallas earned its first NFL title, beating Miami, 24-3.

• It is the only game in which a Super Bowl team did not score a touchdown, as the Cowboys’ Doomsday Defense held Miami’s rushing attack to just 80 yards.


The End of the Century• With new rules favoring more

open play, Landry revised his 4-3 defense to match the tempo set by the offense by stationing two linemen a yard from the line of scrimmage.

• He called it The Flex because it gave linemen the chance to read-and-react to a play as it unfolded.


The End of the Century• On offense, Landry refined the

shotgun formation in 1975 and in the process introduced the spread offense, which took advantage of new rules that restrained defenders from hitting receivers downfield.

• (The 49ers’ Red Hickey developed the shotgun in the 1960s.)


The End of the Century• The Landry Shift to mask pre-

snap movement in the backfield is one innovation no other team copied.

• The shift called for lineman to

start in a crouch and then stand up before moving down to the traditional three-point stance.


The End of the Century• Landry’s Cowboys compiled 20

straight winning seasons between 1966 and 1986, becoming in that period America’s Team, as so designated by NFL Films, because it constantly on national television in playoff and championship games.

• Under Landry during his 29 years as coach, the team:


The End of the Century• Won 13 Divisional

Championships

• Five NFC Titles

• Won Super Bowls VI and XII

• Compiled a 250-162-6 regular-season record.


The End of the Century• The most memorable game

turned out to be the 1975 NFC playoffs against the Minnesota Vikings.

• Staubach hit Drew Pearson with a desperation pass with 26 seconds left in the game to give Dallas the lead, 17-14.


The End of the Century• After the game, Staubach told

reporters that “I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.”

• Since that game, the expression Hail Mary has been adopted by the wider culture, encompassing politics and any desperation heave at the end of games


The End of the Century• The fourth coach who defined

the 1970s joining Don Shula, Chuck Noll and Tom Landry was John Madden.

• Unlike Shula and Noll, who are linked to Paul Brown, and Landry, connected with Vince Lombardi during their assistant years in New York, Madden came from the outside.


The End of the Century• Madden was born in Minnesota

but his family moved to California when he was young.

• Raiders’ owner and GM Al Davis promoted the 32-year-old Madden from linebackers’ coach to head coach in 1969, making him the youngest coach in the NFL.


The End of the Century• Madden would stand as the total

opposite of Vince Lombardi in his approach to players.

• He trusted the team to be ready to play and didn’t care what players did off the field as long as the team won.


The End of the Century• At the start of the 1976 season,

for example, Madden simply told his team: “This is our year, so let’s not get fancy. Let’s just kick ass.”

• That was not the traditional coach speech invented by Knute Rockne in the 1920s. It was simple and direct and spoke to the violence required to win.


The End of the Century• According to one of his former

players, Ted Hendricks, Madden urged his team to “knock their dicks off.”

• The Raiders reflect Madden’s attitude with their play characterized by hard hits, particularly in the defensive backfield.


The End of the Century• Madden had good reason to

keep things simple.

• Between 1969 and 1975, Oakland had lost five AFC Championship games, including two to Pittsburgh. The team also lost a Divisional playoff game to the Steelers in the Immaculate Reception game.


The End of the Century• In 1976, the Raiders met the

Steelers in the season-opening game between the top contenders for the AFC title.

• The Raiders won in a game so brutal that Pittsburgh coach Noll compared it to a criminality.


The End of the Century• “You have a criminal element in

all aspects of society. Apparently, we have it in the NFL, too,” he said.

• The Raiders should be banned from the league, Noll asserted.


The End of the Century• But at least one Raider refused

to be described as a criminal.

• Defensive back George Atkinson sued Noll in response.


The End of the Century• The game unnerved the usually

placid commissioner Peter Rozelle. He wrote the following to both coaches:


The End of the Century• “Dear John and Chuck: A review

of your September 12 game indicates that your ‘intense rivalry’ of recent years could be on the verge of erupting into something approaching pure violence.”


The End of the Century• The trend toward “pure violence”

also influenced fan behavior.

• During a Monday night game at Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., between the Jets and the Patriots, drunken fans battled police. A disabled man had his wheelchair taken out from under him.


The End of the Century• According to one account of the

mayhem, a fan urinated on a paramedic struggling to revive a man who suffered a heart attack as fans rushed the field in the fourth quarter.

• This was the America of the mid 1970s, and a fraction of NFL fans reflected the wider culture.


The End of the Century• Fittingly, the Raiders of John

Madden and the Steelers of Chuck Noll met for the 1976 AFC Championship.

• The rivalry had started with the Immaculate Reception in 1972 that knocked Oakland from the playoffs.


The End of the Century• Oakland manhandled the

Steelers to win 24-7 and advance to its second Super Bowl, but the first for Madden.

• The Raiders would face the Minnesota Vikings, losers of three previous Super Bowls.


The End of the Century• The columnist for the Los

Angeles Times, Jim Murray, described the teams this way:

• “The Vikings play football like a guy laying carpet. The Raiders play like a guy jumping through a skylight with a machine gun.”


The End of the Century• Led by quarterback Ken Stabler,

running back Clarence Davis, and wideout Fred Blitnikoff, the Raiders won the game, easily, in front of 103,000 people at the Rose Bowl and some 80 million watching on television.

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football• In the months after that game, Atkinson’s lawsuit against Noll

reached the courts.

• It effectively put the NFL’s culture of violence on trial in a way that books published in the 1970s critical of the league could not.

• Noll’s attorney closed his argument with a stunning statement. Violence in the NFL, he said, amounted to a:

• “… sad commentary on the motives of our generation, sadistic. This secret love of violence, the spectacle of liking to see others hurt, happiness at pain, the love of blood – that’s the America of George Atkinson.”

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football• The jury agreed with Noll and ruled in his favor, in effect

confirming the statement that the NFL’s DNA of violence did have a criminal strand that could not be separated from the rest.

• The NFL, however, sought to reduce violence and open the game to more scoring in the process as it once again used the rulebook to keep critics at bay and fans in their seats, whether in the stadium or at home watching television.

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football• The league banned head slapping and permitted offensive lineman

to use their arms to keep defensive linemen at bay.

• Moreover, the rules prohibited the defense from hitting receivers beyond five yards of the line of scrimmage, opening up the field for more passing.

• In addition, the league voted to extend the season to 16 games for

the 1978 season, giving TV executives more games in exchange for $5.2 million per team.

• The league also added the wild card to extend playoffs and generate more revenue.

JRN 362/SPS 362 Story of Football• As it turned out, the new rules formulated in 1974 worked. Passing

accounted for half of offensive plays within three years.

• Television ratings skyrocketed along with the average scores of games.

• In 1979, a poll found that 70 percent of Americans preferred football to baseball.


The End of the Century• But for John Madden, the new

rules and extended schedule were too much to navigate.

• He retired after the 1978 season and signed with CBS as a broadcaster.


The End of the Century• And licensed his name to a video

game whose annual release is now part of pop culture.


The End of the Century• The NFL of the 1970s reflected

the violent tendencies of the era but also mirrored the “burned out” decade with its use of drugs and decadent ways.

• But by 1980, the 49ers had opened a new era under Paul Brown assistant Bill Walsh and quarterback Joe Montana, from western Pennsylvania and Notre Dame.


The End of the Century• Walsh left Cincinnati after Brown

did not name him head coach in 1975.

• He went to the San Diego Chargers for a year as an assistant before joining Stanford as head coach.

• In 1979, San Francisco appointed Walsh to lead the team.


The End of the Century• San Francisco drafted Montana in

the third round of the 1979 NFL draft.

• Walsh and Montana would combine to lead the 49ers to the greatest runs in NFL history.

• And it all started with something called The Catch.

Education

JRN / SPS 362 - Lecture Nineteen