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MichiganPackerFan
08-04-2009, 03:34 PM
Here's the link to the full article, which is a fun read.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/remember-when/football/25things.html

Here's the spoiler list, I stripped it down for those of you with ADD!!!

25 Things We Miss About Football

1. The USFL:
It offered an opportunity for all-comers, with little egos from the players (outside of those involved in a bidding war with the NFL), plenty of offense (including the two-point conversion) and innovation (the use of instant replay).

2. Over-the-top touchdown/sack dances:
Any one of us would turn into Chad Ochocinco or Terrell Owens if we reached the end zone in front of a national audience.

3. Al Davis when he was a football genius:
The more he meddles, the harder it is to remember a time when Davis was the football equivalent of King Midas.

4. Single-Bar Facemasks:
Back in the 1980s, the only thing separating a gridiron great from an oncoming 300-pound (OK, back then they were probably more like 250) lineman was a gray, acrylic bar.

5. The College All-Stars vs. defending Super Bowl champions game:
…can you imagine the interest if this game replaced the current yawn-inducing Pro Bowl today?

6. Well-dressed coaches:
Quite simply, the man looked like he was going to work.

7. College football games played only on Saturday:
…the fact that the entire nation's focus was, for that one day, entirely on campuses across the land.

8. The Statue Of Liberty Play in the NFL:
"The Statue of Liberty [play] has a high explosion rate, meaning that if it blows up, it blows up bad," former Bengals Sam Wyche told SI in 1987.

9. Old Mile High Stadium:
How can you not love a stadium where home fans sustained the world's loudest roar for 10 seconds (a reading of 128.74 decibels in 2000, beating the previous world record by 3.34 decibels)?

10. Quarterbacks calling their own plays:
It's a skill that's become all but extinct.

11. Frank Broyles:
More Southern than sweet tea and grits, Broyles teamed with Keith Jackson to form college football's definitive announcing team, back before it took a network roster to figure out who was in the booth.

12. Straight-on kickers:
The NFL hasn't had a full-time straight-on kicker since Mark Moseley retired in 1987.

13. Spiked Footballs after TDs:
Before "The Fun Bunch," before Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, before the "Ickey Shuffle," and long before the "Lambeau Leap," there was Homer Jones.

14. Drop kicks:
(Didn’t Green Bay attempt one last season? (My Comment)

15. The NFL in L.A.:
Then again, some would argue the Trojans are already a professional program.

16. Two-bar facemask:
Terry Bradshaw wore one.

17. Tearaway jerseys:
You've seen the footage countless times: running back Earl Campbell runs around and over the Rams in November 1978, his No. 34 Houston Oilers jersey ending up in tatters before defenders finally bring him down.

18. Jack Buck and Hank Stram calling CBS Radio's Monday Night Football games:
Both are gone now, which means a whole generation of football fans will never enjoy the pleasure of falling asleep listening to one of the great sports broadcasting partnerships.

19. Stickum and Eye-Black:
The eye black of old was made of actual grease, not over-priced tape with a cute little logo that is merely an extra licensing/merchandising arm for the league.

20. The Wishbone:
Remember the tight end and the fullback?

21. Pete Rozelle:
Simply the best commissioner to ever serve a sport…

22. The Orange Bowl in the Orange Bowl:
It was one of the few things that ever made sense about the Bowl Championship Series.

23. Barefoot kickers:
“There was a 28-below-zero wind chill,” Karlis told SI in 1984. “I made a 24-yard field goal. But later, a woman stopped me in a Denver bank and told me I was a wimp.”

24. Brent Musburger beginning a telecast on CBS: “You are looking LIVE …” :
The call never seemed better than when he issued it on The NFL Today during the opening montage of the day's marquee games.

25. Aloca Presents … Fantastic Finishes:
The words immediately grabbed your attention at the tail end of an NFL broadcast in the 1980s.

Zool
08-04-2009, 04:19 PM
IBM Presents: You make the call

Lurker64
08-04-2009, 04:23 PM
14. Drop kicks:
(Didn’t Green Bay attempt one last season? (My Comment)


There are several things that the author could mean by "drop kicks".

First of all, the NFL Rulebook defines a "drop kick" as "A Drop Kick is a kick by a kicker who drops the ball and kicks it as, or immediately after, it touches the ground", making it distinct from a punt.

Dropkicks are in the rulebook in three contexts: kickoff, free kick, and scrimmage kick.

In a kickoff, it is legal for the kicker to use either a place kick, or a drop kick. Punting is not legal on a kickoff. For obvious reasons, everybody these days uses the place kick.

A free kick, follows a safety and in it the kicker is allowed to use a place kick, a drop kick, or a punt. Since you kick a free kick from further back on the field than a kickoff, nowadays teams virtually always punt to give their coverage teams more time to converge on the ball.

A scrimmage kick is when a team kicks from behind the line of scrimmage. This is usually a field goal, a point-after-touchdown attempt, or a punt, in the modern NFL. However, the NFL rulebook, it is allowed to score a field goal or a PAT via the drop kick rather than the place kick (as is now standard) provided that the kick take place behind the line of scrimmage, and it is otherwise counted as good or not as though it were a place-kick. This most recently took place in a 2006 game between the Patriots and the Dolphins, where Doug Flutie completed a drop kick for a point-after-touchdown, which you can watch here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Jsz-fSNd4).

The thing that the Packers attempted last year was a "fair catch kick". Which is an obscure outcome of a fair catch. According to the NFL rulebook, following a fair catch a team is allowed to restart play either by snap or by fair catch kick. Traditionally, and in almost all circumstances you restart play via snap, beginning a new drive. However, in order for the ball to be snapped, there must be time remaining in the half, which is not the case with a fair catch kick, which may be attempted even if time expired during the kick that resulted in the fair catch.

In a fair catch kick, the ball is kicked (either by place-kick or drop-kick) from the spot of the fair catch, and the defensive team must line up 10 yards behind the spot where the ball is to be kicked. Once in the air, a fair catch kick is scored (or not) as though it was a field goal attempt. The reason to do this is simple: it's the only way to score points after a half has expired on the previous play. Also, even with small amounts of time remaining, a fair catch kick is attempted from the spot of the catch, rather than 7-8 yards back for a field goal attempt, and the fact that the defending team lines up 10 yards back means that the kicker can take a full run-up to the ball, rather than a standard two-step kick, without fear of getting the kick blocked.

However, the circumstances for a fair catch kick attempt are fairly rare, and tend to result in very long kicks. In NFL history, only four of these have been successful (one of them by the Packers, two of them against the Packers), out of twenty total attempts. This was once a very obscure rule, but has had a recent renaissance as there have been three attempts from 2005 through 2008 (Bironas short from 58 in 2005, Rackers short from 68 in 2008, and Crosby short from 69 in 2008.) Prior to Bironas in 2005, the previous attempt was Cofer short from 60 on January 1 1989 in a divisional playoff game where the 49ers defeated the Vikings 41-13. The kick took place at the end of the second half, and would have had no outcome in the game. It's just that opportunities to try the damn thing are rare enough, that it's generally understood that you might as well give your kicker a chance to get in the record books.

pbmax
08-04-2009, 05:32 PM
IBM Presents: You make the call
Alcoa can't wait either.

I think if they are honoring the AFL this year, next year we should honor the 70's and bring back tear away jerseys and stickum.

MichiganPackerFan
08-05-2009, 04:43 PM
Here's some great related photos (Because that's about all SI does really well)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/gallery/featured/GAL1158480/1/15/index.htm

Fritz
08-05-2009, 10:08 PM
Yup...the college all-stars vs. the Super Bowl champs...that'd be awesome.

I miss Frank Broyles coaching the Razorbacks, I think it was.

And single-bar facemasks, for sure. Garo Yeprimian!

Jack Tatum and Stickum.

I
even miss spiking the ball, though I miss more than that the player handing the ball to the ref. Barry Sanders.

I just miss Earl Campbell. That guy was a beast, period.

And Tom Dempsey. What about him?

MJZiggy
08-05-2009, 10:12 PM
I just miss football. Can they get on with it already?

oregonpackfan
08-06-2009, 12:46 AM
The reason of:

10. Quarterbacks calling their own plays:
It's a skill that's become all but extinct.


is what made Bart Starr so great. He was a tremendous play caller. He was also notorious for keeping defenses off balance. On a number of third and one's he would call and complete a long pass. On future third and one's, the opposition would try to anticipate the long bomb and Starr would counteract that by handing the ball to Jim Taylor off tackle for 3-4 yards to convert the first down.

Johnny Unitas was also an excellent play-caller.

Tarlam!
08-06-2009, 03:16 AM
OPF showing he's an ancient again! :lol:

Strange as it may seem, I miss the QB play calling. All of the film drama I saw as a kid in Hollywood films containing football had the QB calling the plays. Imagine my disappointment when I started watching the real thing and discovered the truth about play calling!! :shock:

Patler
08-06-2009, 04:22 AM
The reason of:

10. Quarterbacks calling their own plays:
It's a skill that's become all but extinct.


is what made Bart Starr so great. He was a tremendous play caller. He was also notorious for keeping defenses off balance. On a number of third and one's he would call and complete a long pass. On future third and one's, the opposition would try to anticipate the long bomb and Starr would counteract that by handing the ball to Jim Taylor off tackle for 3-4 yards to convert the first down.

Johnny Unitas was also an excellent play-caller.

It used to be a big deal when a sub would come running onto the field, and the announcer would try to up the anticipation and drama by saying, "They might be sending a play in from the sidelines!"

Patler
08-06-2009, 04:41 AM
The college All-Stars vs. NFL/Super Bowl Champs game still leaves a bad taste in my mouth! The All-Stars (lead by Wisconsin's QB Ron VanderKelen and TE Pat Richter) beat the Packers in 1963. VanderKelen was the MVP. This was the 1962 Packer Champs, arguably one of the best Lombardi teams, that was beaten by a collection of "kids".

The story was that Lombardi was very embarrassed, and when the Packers next appeared in the game in 1966 he prepared for it like he would have for a league game. The Packers absolutely dominated the All-Stars in one of the most lopsided games ever.

MichiganPackerFan
08-06-2009, 08:08 AM
It does seem that the college All-Stars vs. NFL/Super Bowl Champs game is a no-win situation for the NFL team. If they win, they should have and are expected to. If they lose, utter humiliation. :oops:

oregonpackfan
08-06-2009, 09:47 AM
OPF showing he's an ancient again! :lol:


:

Tarlam,

I may be an ancient but I am still spry enough to throw and bean you on the head with a jar of Vegemite! :)

MJZiggy
08-06-2009, 08:47 PM
Don't listen to him. You right now are more in shape than Tar was at 20...