Saturday, December 29, 2018

The Freakin' Weekend (1972/73)

I've gotten myself stagnated on my 46-years-ago pretend at the HP.

For one thing, we're smack in the middle of Christmastide as I observe it, and that's always a happily different season for me, vacating me from the same, old routines that nourish me throughout the rest of the year. And that's great. Not only is the different good in and of itself, the different also is good in that it makes me more grateful and renewed when I get back to the sames.

So Christmastide is one issue here. The other thing, though, is that pretend me is catching up to the real me that I actually remember, and so I'm getting bogged down in all of the 1972 media that 2018 me consumes. I'm pretty regularly looking at three daily newspapers on Newspapers.com; I'm looking for pretty much a whole prime-time schedule's worth of old TV episodes, and I wanted freaking everything in the 1972 Sears Wishbook this year. All of it fancies me.

Anyway, the chase is that I don't know what the heck I'm doing now. I'm all over the place, and I want to talk about everything, and I'm saying almost nothing. And that's no fun at all, because posting and commenting on stuff at the HP makes my heart just absolutely sing. I think my strategy is just going to be to start posting more stuff that is less connected and see how that goes.

Here's the Partridge Family that played on ABC on Friday, Dec. 29, 1972:


Previous and future NFL72 reports:

28 comments:

  1. I really like The Partridge Family. I think it's sweet, clever and funny. I really like it.

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  2. An independent TV channel, 29, aired NFL Game of the Week on Friday evenings at 6:30 during the NFL72 season. Here was its segment on the Dolphins' 20-14 win over the Browns on Dec. 24.

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  3. This game in the Orange Bowl must’ve been so terrifying for Don Shula. Miami was 13-point favorites, but here the Dolphins were trailing in the fourth quarter as Earl Morrall was on his way to a six-of-13 passing day for 88 yards and Cleveland was overloading its defense to stop the Miami run game. Fortunately, Charlie Babb blocked and returned a punt for a touchdown; Miami intercepted five passes by Mike Phipps (the quarterback Cleveland drafted in trading Paul Warfield to Miami), and Warfield made two daring, spectacular catches of off-target Morrall throws to get going Miami’s game-clinching touchdown drive. (So, ultimately, even more terrifying than it was for Shula, this game must’ve been maddening for Browns fans.)

    Shula had already played Bob Griese a bit in the regular-season finale, and my guess is this non-sparkly Morrall performance against a solid, postseason defense was familiar enough to the coach that he decided here to never sit and wait again before putting in Griese.

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  4. What is going to become of Darryle Lamonica after this game? Is he just done?

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  5. It's Ray Scott on the NFL Game of the Week narration here. I gather he's falling out of favor with the networks, as more flamboyant voices are coming into vogue on pro-football broadcasts, but I sure enjoy hearing Ray Scott now.

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  6. Oakland and Pittsburgh were scoreless at the half.

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  7. 3-0, Pittsburgh, through three quarters ...

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  8. Wow. Jack Ham has an interception here. He's going to be great next week against Miami, too.

    And that's it for Lamonica ... Ken Stabler comes on in relief.

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  9. Interesting. Ray Scott has been showing how, this whole game, Terry Bradshaw has been trying unsuccessfully to target Raiders cornerback Nehemiah Wilson, and now Wilson intercepts in the fourth quarter of the still 3-0 game.

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  10. But now Stabler fumbles; Mike Wagner recovers, and Gerela's field goal makes it 6-0, Pittsburgh.

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  11. Stabler puts together a drive, though, and bootlegs left for a 30-yard touchdown run! Or, as Ray Scott puts it, "a young, mod ice man had saved the day just before sundown came."

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  12. "And so it seemed that once again those prideful, poiseful, miraculous Raiders had pulled one out another big one, as Oakland went ahead with 1:13 left in the game, 7-6."

    Puke.

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  13. Exactly what “big ones” have these Raiders been winning? OK, they won the 1967 AFL championship—but then lost Super Bowl II to Green Bay, 33-14. (That was Oakland’s first-ever postseason appearance.) They lost to the Jets in the 1968 AFL final and to the Chiefs in the 1969. And then they lost the first AFC championship, 27-17, to the Colts. Then they failed to make the playoffs in NFL71, and now here they are getting ready to blow this one in Pittsburgh.

    O-VER-RA-TED! CLAP! CLAP! CLAPCLAPCLAP!

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  14. They're going to lose the next three AFC championships, and then they're going to finally win a Super Bowl--against declining Minnesota, with Pittsburgh banged up and Miami retooling after the World Football League decimation and rules changes. Then they're going to let the Broncos go to the Super Bowl, and then they're going to miss the playoffs two years in a row.

    Now, look, the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders are going to legitimately become the best AFC team of the early 1980s with Jim Plunkett and Tom Flores. And it's not that this 1970s version is not a very good team; it's just that they are so, so, so overrated by our generation. I see Oakland as the fourth-best team of the decade, behind Pittsburgh, Miami and Dallas--and much, much closer in the rankings to Baltimore, Minnesota and maybe even the Los Angeles Rams, than any of those first three teams.

    That's nothing to sneeze at. It just doesn't nearly merit the romance applied to them.

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  15. I wonder what people who know about football say about Jack Tatum's last two plays here. They look like pretty much the same play both times: Terry Bradshaw throws into the middle of the field; Tatum comes up from behind the intended receiver and goes high for the ball. The first one, he goes over the receiver's back and knocks away; the second, he arrives to first, but Frenchy Fuqua's collision with Tatum punches the ball high into the air for Franco Harris to catch and take for the game-winning touchdown. Was Tatum's technique the right way for the free safety to play the passes? Should he have been more concerned with ensuring the receiver wouldn't be able to advance with a caught pass? I'm sure this has all been written about at some length by people who know, but now I've got some silent super-8 footage of Green Bay/Washington coming up on my YouTube "Watch Later" queue.

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    1. I do agree with John Madden that football should be called in the moment, by the referees on the field, without replay assistance, etc. My second choice would be making all calls and noncalls eligible for replay review and reversal. My 250th choice would be any version of what we currently have.

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    2. Great stuff here on the roots of the "Immaculate Reception" nickname.

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    3. Well, that whole program was great. My favorite part was how Franco Harris leaves a message with Phil Villapiano every Dec. 23 asking him what he was doing on that date in 1972.

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  16. So the Raiders-Steelers game was the first of the divisional-playoff weekend for NFL72, on Saturday, Dec. 23. In the second game, defending-champion Dallas beat San Francisco, 30-28.

    Then, on Sunday, Dec. 24, it's Miami over Cleveland, 20-14, as previously reported here and, finally, Green Bay 3 at Washington 16. Check out the fantastic Washington Post billboard in the stands of RFK Stadium in this footage!

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    1. And now here's a 2005 throwback email to 1973, looking back on NFL72:

      I'm spending Labor Day in bed reading over the Sept. 17, 1973, Sports Illustrated. My mom got it for me a couple of birthdays ago. Larry Csonka is on the cover, having just taken a handoff from Bob Griese, and the cover story is, "MIAMI IS ROUGH AND READY." It's the NFL season-preview issue.

      The first story of the NFL section is "No Boo-Boos Makes For Ho-Hums," in which Tex Maule is crying about how boring the NFL has become. Tex Maule always hated the Dolphins during this period--I think it had something to do with Don Shula losing to the Jets and then running out on Carroll Rosenbloom--and Miami, of course, had just gone 17-0.

      Anyway, ...

      "... As the offenses grow more and more sturdy, the defenses have turned to a stratagem that may take away the last vestige of excitement. This was apparent in last year's Washington-Green Bay playoff game in which the Redskins substituted almost purely for situations. When Washington anticipated a running play its defensive line was reinforced by the addition of a fifth man, Manny Sistrunk, who took the place of Middle Linebacker Myron Pottios. When Redskin Coach George Allen felt it was 50-50 whether Green Bay would run or pass, he took out Sistrunk and put back Pottios. In obvious passing situations Allen removed Sistrunk and added Speedy Duncan, a fifth defensive back. Since Green Bay was unable to run against the five-man line, its inexperienced quarterback, Scott Hunter, often faced third and long yardage, peering into a horde of Washington defensive backs, hoping to find an open receiver. He did not. ..." (52)

      Oh, boo hoo.

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  17. I had heard the story of the Cowboys' "Captain Comeback" win over the 49ers in the 1972 playoffs, but it really is remarkable to watch this This Week In Pro Football recap. Dallas trailed 21-3, by 15 in the fourth quarter and by 12 still with less than three minutes in the game.

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