Monday, November 23, 2020

What's On TV This Week (1974)?


TV Guide's
got 1974 me all psyched up in here!
There's something about November that brings out the best in television. Of all the months of the year, it is the one that is likely to have the most abundant and most varied array of special programs.
It's no accident, of course, that all the networks cluster so many of their specials in this autumnal month. It's the time of year when cold weather is setting in throughout much of the continent, and people are spending more time indoors, where their television sets are.

And it's the time of year when sponsors are eager to find vehicles that can carry their messages prodding viewers to get started on their Christmas shopping ...

Now it's time for November's main event--Thanksgiving week, which is so crammed with special programs and special events, it's hard to sort them all out ... 

Happy reading, happy viewing. Happy Thanksgiving!

The big deal on Saturday, Nov. 23, 1974, is going to be college football, of course ...

But, clearly, we are going to be needing our HP-exclusive e-IHOP NFL Magnetic Team Standings Board in the next few days ...

Comments flow!

141 comments:

  1. I was really excited to see a few weeks ago that YouTube has a lot of U.S. of Archie episodes available, but it turned out that they were in Portuguese. Here in English, though, is a song they did about George Washington Carver.

    I've spent a good bit of time at Tuskegee, and I'm a huge George Washington Carver fan.

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    1. I could never take the Archies seriously, because I just couldn't see Archie and Reggie hanging out like that.

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  2. Here's how TV Guide doped the big Channel 3 noon Central football game on Saturday, Nov. 23, 1974: "The Big Ten championship may be on the line in a showdown between the Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State Buckeyes at Columbus, Ohio. Directing the Wolverines' power-I attack is option-threat QB Dennis Franklin, an all-conference selection last season. Defensive stalwarts include All-America DB David Brown and LB Steve Strinko. The big-play man for Ohio State is All-America RB Archie Griffin, who has an excellent chance to become the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy since Navy's Roger Staubach (1963). Calling the signals for the Buckeyes is Cornelius Greene. LB Bruce Elia is the team's top tackler. Team rosters are in the Close-up opposite. (Live)"

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    1. I almost certainly watched the first 10 minutes of this game, before getting bored and going outside. I always rooted for Michigan, because I thought that Ohio State won too much.

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    2. It's really boring. It's pretty perfect, however, to have on a buried tab of your browser. Every so often, Keith Jackson fires up and gets excited about something or another, and you know it's time to click over and see what's happening. Usually in this game, that thing is a field goal.

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  3. And then the Close-up on the opposite page has the rosters alongside two little megaphones, one reading "MICHIGAN" and the other reading "OHIO STATE."

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    1. They used the megaphones for college games, and the actual helmets for pro games. That was my favorite part of TV Guide.

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    2. Oh, me, too. This edition of TV Guide has Sunday-listing Close-ups for Patriots-Colts and Vikings-Rams games. The hiking patriot is a little too intricate for such a small depiction, but those other three helmets are just absolutely regal in black and white.

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  4. Michigan is undisputed Big Ten champ with a win or tie.

    Ohio State was upset two weeks ago by Michigan State. So the Buckeyes have to win to share the Big Ten crown. In this event, both Michigan and Ohio State would finish 7-1 in the conference, and then Big Ten ADs would get together in Chicago on Sunday, Nov. 24, to figure out which of the teams is going to the Rose Bowl.

    This happened in CFB73. A 10-10 tie in this game forced the ADs to sort it out, and they voted, 6-4, to send Ohio State to Pasadena. Bo Schembechler went nuts, and the Big Ten put him on some sort of two-year probation (probation from getting mad, I guess. I don’t remember. I think I might’ve gotten into this at the HP last fall.)

    This is the sixth time in seven years that the Michigan-Ohio State tilt will decide the Big Ten title.

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    1. It bored me to tears. I was frantic to see any other team win the Big 10.

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  5. This game also has huge ramifications for the national-championship chase. According to the YouTube label on this video, Michigan is ranked third; Ohio State, fourth. It might well say in the description whether this is Associated Press and/or United Press International, but I'm scared to look because I'm afraid it also says who ends up winning.

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  6. It's kind of challenging to locate the in-season rankings in the 1974 newspapers other than on the day after the new polls are released. It occurs to me how much a bigger deal agate had become in sports pages by the time I started really paying attention to newspapers in the 1980s. By the 1990s, I'm pretty sure we sports boys at the ol' Park City Daily News in Bowling Green would've been running the AP Top 25, with last and next opponents, every day in the agate, and I'll bet that was more then norm.

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    1. In 1974, you really had to do a lot of work to keep up with sports in any coherent way.

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    2. For example, they would put out the high school and college football schedules maybe one time at the beginning of the season, and if you missed them, or if you lost those pages, that was just too bad.

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  7. So, anyway, I don't know the AP or UPI rankings right now, and, again, I'm scared to do much searching, because I don't want to find out who won this game. What I can safely report is Larry Keith's regional CFB74 rankings in the current Sports Illustrated.

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  8. In the West, Larry Keith (or some SI committee) has Southern California (7-1-1) first, followed by Arizona (7-2) and California (7-2-1). Steve Bartkowski just broke some of Craig Morton’s old passing records at Cal.

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  9. In the South, it’s Alabama (10-0) first, followed by Auburn (9-1) and Maryland (7-3). Kentucky scored 17 in the fourth quarter to beat Florida, 41-24, and clinch its first winning season 1965. Vanderbilt came from behind (twice) to beat Tulane, 30-22, and so the Commodores have sewn up their first season of more than five wins since 1955.

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    1. 1974 was one of Vandy's greatest years. The basketball team won the SEC Title, and the football team went to the Peach Bowl. Vandy's run to the Peach Bowl made Coach Steve Sloan famous, and he went to Texas Tech, where he went 23-12 in three seasons.

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    2. At that point, I thought Steve Sloan was on track to be one of the great coaches ever. But then he made his big mistake -- he went to Ole Miss, hoping to restore the Rebels to the glory they had enjoyed in the 1950's and 1960's. That was not to be. He went 20-34-1 in five seasons at Ole Miss, and then went 13-31 in four seasons at Duke, and that was it for his college career. Winning is hard.

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    3. One of Sloan's assistant coaches was Bill Parcells.

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    4. And even Florida's weren't bad.

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    5. Kentucky's uniforms -- for both basketball and football -- peaked in the 1970's.

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  10. In the Southwest, it’s Texas A&M (8-2), followed by Houston (7-2) and Baylor (6-3), and, in the East, it’s Penn State (8-2), followed by Pitt (7-3) and Temple (7-2).

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    1. In my mind, there's still a big difference between the Southwest and the South.

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  11. Then, back in the Midwest, it’s Oklahoma tops at 9-0, followed by Michigan (10-0) and Ohio State (9-1). I’m pretty sure Oklahoma is banned from bowl competition because of some NCAA rules violation. They beat Kansas, 45-14, passing for a touchdown on the last play of the game. “We had to have it to stay on top,” Larry Keith quotes Barry Switzer as saying.

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    1. Oklahoma is on a bowl ban (and a TV ban) due to probation. I remember how weird it was when they finally came back on TV a year or so later.

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  12. So out of all this, my guess is that Oklahoma is No. 1 nationally, followed by Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State--then maybe USC and Auburn, or vice versa. I think I'll root for Southern Cal to win the whole thing, or maybe Michigan (I love The Big Chill).

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  13. By the way, other future Topps cards honorably mentioned by Larry Keith in “The Week” this week are Kansas linebacker Steve Towle (FUTURE DOLPHIN!), Utah State’s Louie Giamonna (future Eagle), Pacific’s Will Harrell (future Packer), USC’s Anthony Davis (future Buccaneer), Kent State’s Larry Poole (future Brown), Pitt’s Tony Dorsett and Stanford’s Scott Laidlaw (future Cowboys), North Carolina State’s Roland Hooks (future Bill), Maryland’s Bob Avellini (future Bear) and Walter White (future Chief), Texas A&M’s Bubba Bean (future Falcon), Notre Dame’s Mike Fanning (future Ram) and Steve Niehaus (future Seahawk), Tulsa’s Steve Largent (another future Seahawk) and Ohio State’s Griffin (future Bengal). I have and love all of those cards, and it makes me so happy to think about all of them, so thank you, Larry Keith, SI and Internet.

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  14. And now I'm going to fire up this YouTube game in the background and get down to making some high-tech-PR love out of nothing at all. Nobody tell me how this thing comes out!

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  15. Indeed, at the outset of this telecast, Keith Jackson breaks down the Big Ten championship possibilities and assures us "there will be no telephone vote" if Ohio State wins. In that case, the ADs "will fly to Chicago tomorrow and eyeball each other," he says.

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  16. Ohio State in crimson jerseys, Michigan in whites ... Joe Paterno in the booth with Keith Jackson ...

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  17. Replies
    1. That's one of the best-quality clips I've seen of 1970's football. It's easy to forget just how good the TV picture was back then.

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  18. 10-9, Michigan, at the half.

    I have almost no sense of Archie Griffin's greatness. The first really great college-football player I have a true first-hand sense of is Dorsett. Griffin came a couple of seasons too early for me with college football, and then his NFL career mostly didn't make my radar. He's kind of a legendary figure to me--categorized in my brain with Billy Cannon more than with Billy Sims.

    So, I really appreciate this description of what I missed by YouTube user "PockyCandy:" "Physically, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about Griffin, as he was a rather small and short back with mediocre speed. But he could break tackle. Oh, Griffin could break tackles like few runner in history. He used his gritty and relentless running style to become the only two-time Heisman Trophy winner as the centerpiece of Woody Hayes offensive juggernaut of the early 70's."

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    1. As a Southerner, I was convinced that Archie Griffin was largely a creation of the media -- and I felt vindicated when he didn't do much in the pros.

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    2. Archie Griffin was to football what Tyler Hansbrough was to basketball.

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    3. Hansbrough won the Wooden Award for the 2008 season. Here were the other finalists:

      Michael Beasley (Kansas State)
      Kevin Love (UCLA)
      D.J. Augustin (Texas)
      Stephen Curry (Davidson)

      So, yeah, that decision doesn't look so good now.

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  19. Halftime stats ... Ohio State: 177 total yards, 12 first downs and one turnover ... Michigan: 176 total yards, 11 first downs and one turnover ... "what we expected," says Keith Jackson ...

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  20. Well, heck. Tennessee leads Kentucky, 13-0, at the half.

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  21. Keith Jackson calls Griffin "a package of determination." OK, this is helpful, too.

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  22. Ohio State's fourth-straight field goal makes it puts the Buckeyes in the lead, 12-10. And now our video is leaping ahead to the outset of the fourth quarter. Michigan has the ball ...

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  23. Because we live in a glorious space age, I spent late Tuesday night, Nov. 24, 2020, with my wife, born in 1976, in Kentucky watching the Mary Tyler Moore and Bob Newhart episodes that aired on CBS on Saturday night, Nov. 23, 1974, after this football game in Ohio on ABC that afternoon. They were great! We laughed and laughed. These are the days of miracle and wonder, and now back to Columbus ...

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  24. Neil Colzie, another of my Topps favorites, intercepts Michigan, and Ohio State has the ball and a two-point lead early in the fourth at its own 39.

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  25. Kentucky and Tennessee winner is slated to play Maryland in the Liberty Bowl.

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  26. But the Buckeye play selection appears as though Woody Hayes is already trying to run out the clock (Paterno suggests it's OSU's strong defense and great punter/kicker, Tom Skladany, that are driving Hayes's conservatism), and now Michigan has the ball again. Sophomore halfback Rob Lytle carries for another Wolverine first down at midfield ... 9:40 to play ...

    Lytle and Skladany: more old Topps friends!

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  27. OK, 6:25 to go, and Michigan faces fourth-and-12 from the Ohio State 42 ... Paterno says he'd punt ... Keith wonders if Bo might go for a 59-yard field goal--says he remembers a guy who hit from 63 yards a few years ago ... you're drunk, Keith ...

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  28. But no! Keith's right! Here's comes the Michigan kicker! It's on line, but he's short by about 10 yards. Oh, well. Keith notes that Southern Mississippi's Ray Guy holds the CFB record with a 61-yarder (I did not know that).

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  29. Of course, Ohio State takes over at its 20, and, with Woody running the clock, this is probably a pretty good strategy.

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  30. Oh, this could be huge ... third-and-3 at its 41 with four minutes and change to go, and Ohio State's guard is flagged for movement before the snap ... that was probably going to be a handoff to determined Archie, but now Hayes tries to surprise Schembechler with a fancy-looking misdirection to flanker Brian Baschnagel ... doesn't work ... Michigan ball at its 30 after the punt ...

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  31. But after three hopeless passing plays, Michigan is punting ... 2:31 ... Ohio State at its 25, and Keith is going back over the Big 10 ADs' possible-and-looming-larger Sunday in Chicago ...

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  32. And now another Ohio State punt ... this one puts Michigan back to only its own 47 ... 57 seconds to play ...

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  33. First down, and Michigan's Dennis Franklin (not a Topps card) completes to Jim Smith (Topps!) at the Ohio State 32 ... wow ...

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  34. Lytle runs to the 22 ... 39 seconds ...

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  35. OK, I thought I remembered this Michigan kicker Mike Lantry. Yeah, I watched this game last year. College man Jim Lampley reminds us from the sidelines that he missed field goals twice in the last five minutes against Ohio State in CFB73. He hit one in the first half today but has since missed two tries.

    And now he has missed with 18 seconds to go. My word, it looks like he hit that thing! Man, sports can be cruel.

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  36. If I get to retire, I'm planning to spend a good bit of it reading as much of super Wikipedia as I can:

    The game was broadcast on national television, and as Ohio State fans came flooding onto the field to celebrate, the camera followed Lantry as he picked up his tee, and in the words of game announcer Keith Jackson "walked disconsolately toward the sideline."[11] The image of Lantry walking slowly to the sideline became one of the iconic images of the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry. Because of the severe angle, several people believed Lantry's kick was actually good, and this has been used to advocate for the use of cameras on the uprights to permit replay review of ambiguous kicks in the future.[12]

    The Chicago Tribune opened its coverage of the game with the line, "Mike Lantry served in the Viet Nam War and he had reason to believe the worst was over—until Saturday."[13] After consecutive years with disappointments on last-minute field goal attempts, one sports writer joked that "perhaps the state of Michigan was going to form a lynch mob for Mike Lantry."[10] Instead, Lantry received thousands of letters from fans expressing compassion, sympathy and encouragement.[2][10] Even Ohio State Coach Woody Hayes expressed his sympathy for Lantry: "I hate to see that happen to a kid like that because he served his country in Vietnam, but if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened against us."[14] Lantry told reporters at the time, "I guess the biggest surprise is the way people have acted. They're suffering with me. They've been more than kind. I wish there was a way I could thank them all."[10]

    Interviewed in 2004 about the missed kick in the 1974 Ohio State game, Lantry recalled: "I was numb. That was the final play of my college career right there. Everything you worked for, those glorious years of competition, my teammates. ... If we had won that game, we would have played in the Rose Bowl. We could have shot to the top of the AP and UPI rankings. Who knows? That was like the World Series: bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, two outs, a 3–2 count. It was on my foot, but it didn't happen."[2]

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  37. I'm really surprised that the UCLA-USC game later that Saturday afternoon on ABC does not appear to be on YouTube, but I am excited to have discovered several versions of the game program available on eBay. It'll be fun to piece together the different JPEGs into kind of flipping through the thing.

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  38. Tennessee ended up beating Kentucky, 24-7.

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  39. OK, the AP poll going into the games of Saturday, Nov. 23 ...

    1. Oklahoma (now 10-0 after beating Nebraska, 28-14)
    2. Alabama (10-0 and being idle)
    3. Michigan (10-1 after the loss to Ohio State)
    4. Ohio State (10-1 after the win over Michigan)
    5. Notre Dame (9-1 after beating Air Force, 38-0)
    6. Nebraska (8-3 after the loss to Oklahoma)
    7. Auburn (9-1, did not play Saturday)
    8. USC (8-1-1 after clobbering UCLA)
    9. Texas A&M (8-2, did not play Saturday)
    10. Penn State (9-2, did not play Saturday)

    Alabama and Auburn play this coming Saturday, Nov. 30. Unless the Tide blow that, then the playoff field appears to me as though it will be Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio State and Notre Dame. If Auburn wins, I think the committee will probably take Southern Cal or Michigan and snub the SEC.

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  40. Haha. That’s a joke. Here are the bowl pairings:

    — Maryland vs. Tennessee in the Liberty Bowl Dec. 16

    — Miami vs. Georgia in the Tangerine Bowl Dec. 21

    — Houston vs. North Carolina State in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl Dec. 23

    — Vanderbilt vs. Texas Tech in the Peach Bowl Dec. 23

    — Oklahoma State vs. Brigham Young in the Fiesta Bowl, Dec. 28

    — Mississippi State vs. North Carolina in the Sun Bowl Dec. 28

    — Auburn vs. a TBD opponent in the Gator Bowl Dec. 30

    — Nebraska vs. Florida in the Sugar Bowl Dec. 31

    — Penn State vs. Baylor or Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl Jan. 1

    — Southern Cal vs. Michigan or Ohio State (all eyes on the Big 10 ADs in Chicago!) in the Rose Bowl Jan. 1

    — Alabama vs. Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl Jan. 1

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  41. One of the airlines--I think it's American--has been running display ads in the city newspapers the last few months, promoting that they are showing NFL Films productions on cross-country flights. I'm so happy that the Sabols were cutting in on some of that sweet in-flight-entertainment cash.

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  42. Anyway, I'm pretending that fake 1974 me just flew somewhere fancy and got caught up on all of the Week 10 411.

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  43. With four games to go, the Dolphins are now in sole possession of first place for the first time all season. Miami is 8-2 after winning in the Orange Bowl against Buffalo, which is now 7-3. This was the NFL Game of the Week feature, so, as you can imagine, I didn't dally when the flight attendant came by with my steak.

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  44. Neither team scored for the game's first nine possessions, and then the Dolphins went up, 14-0. Larry Csonka scored the first touchdown, which was great to see because Csonka has missed some time of late. And then Bob Griese threw to Paul Warfield for the second one, which was also great to see. But then I just got depressed thinking about how both Csonka and Warfield are leaving for the World Football League after this season.

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  45. Then I really turned sullen watching Mercury Morris and Nat Moore lose fumbles and Csonka limp out of the game with a new injury. This result still didn't feel much in doubt, however, given that O.J. Simpson was playing with a sprained ankle and Joe Ferguson ("The Arkansas Rifle") had been knocked out with an injury. The score was 21-14; Miami had won 28 straight in the Orange Bowl prior to this game, and into the game for his first NFL passes was coming Buffalo's backup quarterback, Gary Marangi.

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  46. Alas, Marangi connected with J.D. Hill for a tying touchdown (on a play that likely would've been ruled an incompletion on review). Csonka's sub--my old LinkedIn friend, Don Nottingham--ran one in to move Miami back out, 28-21. But then here came Marangi again, completing five of six passes and running for 20 yards on a drive that ended with a Bob Chandler touchdown reception with 56 seconds remaining: 28-28.

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  47. The brilliant NFL Game of the Week script by Mike Adams and Louis Schmidt noted that Csonka was now back on the Miami sideline, pestering Don Shula to put him back in. Shula, however, resisted and kept giving the ball to ...

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  48. ... Don Nottingham and Jim Kiick. They did great, though, of course, this, too, elicited a tinge of melancholy given Kiick is the third Dolphin signed to leave for the WFL after NFL74.

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  49. Then Nottingham ran in untouched on a long, surprise draw on the last play of the game, and I could pretend for a bit that things were back to normal for the two-time defending champs.

    Of course, they aren't back to normal. Dolphins really do keep getting hurt; Csonka, Kiick and Warfield really are leaving. Adams and Schmidt correctly noted that the Dolphins were renowned for never celebrating--even after Super Bowls--like they celebrated after this fall-from-ahead victory. Adams and Schmidt, who also edited the film, used a lot of relieved-Dolphins footage at the end. There was Tom Wickert, the backup offensive lineman who had been beaten a few times by Buffalo's Earl Edwards, in a hug with injured regular Wayne Moore. There were Bob Kuechenberg and Jim Langer looking as elated as they probably were on election night 2016.

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  50. Still, 1974 me almost certainly wouldn't've had much problem ignoring Adams and Schmidt's foreboding and settled happily into an every-little-thing's-gonna-be-alright/cocktail-cart fantasy--at least until a layover at O'Hare. Cooper Rollow in the Chicago Tribune this week has a thing that "an unidentified group of Packer-backers" had been in Miami of late, coming hard after Shula to replace Dan Devine in Green Bay.

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  51. The Dolphins and Bills also are the leadoff highlights on This Week in the NFL, but I'll have to come back to Tom, Pat and fake 1974 me a little later. In real 2020, it's the day after Thanksgiving; the ladies of my house are stirring, and it's time to get some Christmas decorations going all up in here!

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  52. So here's the AFC East as of the morning of Nov. 24, 1974:

    Dolphins 8-2
    Bills 7-3
    Patriots 6-4
    Jets 3-7
    Colts 2-8

    New York beat New England in Week 10. It was the Jets' first two-game win streak in two years, and it was the Patriots third loss in a row. Jim Plunkett has thrown 13 interceptions in four games--New England has some receivers hurt, and I think Plunkett has been forcing some attempts in a bid to jumpstart his team.

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  53. The AFC Central is kind of a mess. Cincinnati beat Pittsburgh two weeks ago, and I thought the Bengals were going to pull away down the stretch. But then the Bengals in Week 10 lost to the Oilers for the second time this season, and Sid Gillman suggested Paul Brown is going senile. The Steelers beat Cleveland, but I saw that Terry Hanratty is playing quarterback again. I've lost the bead on what they're doing with Hanratty, Joe Gilliam and Terry Bradshaw. The Oilers are the division's hottest team, for sure.

    Steelers 7-2-1
    Bengals 6-4
    Oilers 5-5
    Browns 3-7

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  54. The Raiders are cruising. The This Week in Pro Football clip of their win over San Diego in Week 10 started with Otis Sistrunk and some teammate, maybe Art Thomas, showing up in the parking lot in a chauffeured Rolls Royce. Sistrunk and his friend were smoking some kind of long cigars--maybe Tiparillos! (Of Owensboro!)

    Raiders 9-1
    Broncos 4-5-1
    Chiefs 4-6
    Chargers 3-7

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  55. In the NFC West, I'm now officially rooting for the Saints. New Orleans beat Los Angeles, 20-7, so there's a chance.

    Rams 7-3
    Saints 4-6
    49ers 3-7
    Falcons 2-8

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  56. In the NFC Central, Green Bay manhandled Minnesota, 19-7, and Detroit came from two scores down in the fourth quarter to beat the Giants, 20-19. The Vikings just look old, and the Packers and Lions are both comers. Green Bay got John Hadl from Los Angeles for draft picks a few weeks ago, so the Packers now have their best quarterback since Bart Starr retired. Rah-rah Rick Forzano--he appears to be a George Allen type--has Detroit surging after the bizarre start to its season (Forzano took over as head coach after Don McCafferty had a heart attack while mowing his lawn and died on July 28). It'll be tough, but I think either of these teams could catch and pass Minnesota down the stretch.

    Vikings 7-3
    Packers 5-5
    Lions 5-5
    Bears 3-7

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  57. St. Louis has been uneven since its 7-0 start, but the Cardinals appear safely headed to the playoffs, at least as the NFC's wild card. Washington stayed on their tail with a crazy 28-21 home win over Dallas. Roger Staubach nearly threw the Cowboys to the win (and back into playoff contention) after it was 28-0 at the half. But his fourth-down pass into the middle of the end zone at the end of the game was just a hair late, and Drew Pearson, the NFC's leading receiver, dropped it. We're unlikely to see anything like that game again. These two teams play again on Thanksgiving.

    Cardinals 8-2
    Redskins 7-3
    Cowboys 5-5
    Eagles 4-6
    Giants 2-8

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  58. So going into Week 11, this looks to me like it's going to end up being Miami, Oakland and maybe Cincinnati from the AFC, with the Steelers, Bills or even the hot Oilers as the wild card. People are excited about the Raiders, but they are always the sexy choice and usually fail. I think it'll be the Dolphins again.

    In the NFC, this appears to be the season that the old powers of the 1960s have finally gotten too old. The Cowboys are done. Either the Vikings or Rams might hold on to make the playoffs, but I think Week 11's late-afternoon loser between Minnesota and Los Angeles could fade all the way out. Cardinals, Redskins, Packers, Lions or maybe even the Saints look like they could come out of this conference in NFL74--and dominate the NFC in the second half of the decade.

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  59. It's been a really disappointing season for the Cowboys--even George Jones is down on Dallas--but they did tamp out the previously hot Oilers in Week 11 in the Astrodome: 10-0.

    I really like the mind's eye picture of George Jones at home on a Sunday afternoon with Tammy Wynette--the NFL on two TVs, one stacked on top of the other. I might have to put the George Jones autobiography on my Christmas20 list; of course, I still need to read the Grandpa Jones autobiography I got for Christmas19.

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  60. Nobody disregards the Patriots more than I do. And I really believe that's true. I actually dislike other teams more--the Raiders, the Jets, the Seahawks, etc. My sense of the Patriots is that they are just a fraud organization, and that goes back way before even their 21st-century cheating. I just try to disregard them, because there's no way to sort out when a cheater is cheating.

    That said, I do really like this Patriot uniform--white jerseys and pants, white socks, white shoes and white long-sleeved shirts under the jerseys. They look like wonderful, cozy pajamas, which is always great to see at this time of year. New England 27, Baltimore 17.

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  61. I'll tell you one book I definitely am going to put on my Christmas20 list: The Last Season of Weeb Ewbank by Paul Zimmerman. That sounds fantastic! It's about NFL73, which was Ewbank's last season as head coach of the Jets. NFL74 is his last as general manager. He hired his son-in-law, Charley Winner, as head coach, and Edwin Pope in The Miami Herald wrote this week about how it is not ending well: "Weeb Ewbank is not retiring. He is being retired."

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  62. You might not realize it from that last paragraph, but "I like Weeb Ewbank," Pope writes. "I'm not wild about the Jets in general because so many have seemed so much more determined to be New Yorkers than honestly professional athletes. If they worked as hard at football as they have at bing characters, Ewbank still might be the coach, and doing OK, too."

    Occurs to me from that paragraph and how John Thompson used to talk about Charles Barkley how there's some similarities between Joe Namath and Charles Barkley.

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  63. Pope was just terrific:

    Maybe there is something to what (Carroll) Rosenbloom says in Zimmerman's book: "If I had to capsule Weeb as a coach, I'd say you'd never find a better man for building you a ball club, but after he builds it, you have to take another look."

    What I don't like about Rosenbloom's comment is the way he talks about Ewbank as though he were a piece of machinery, like a cement-mixer.

    Weeb Ewbank is a man who treated players like men. Maybe too much so at times, but he handled Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath, the two best, didn't he?

    The last game Ewbank coached, last year, a black offensive tackle named Winston Hill and a black runner named Emerson Boozer from each side during the pregame prayer.

    "Thank you, O Lord," Hill said in one of the last lines of the prayer, "for our relationship with Weeb Ewbank. Thank you for Weeb."

    Then Ewbank saw his team get rocked by the Bills, and he put away his coaching clothes and became general manager altogether. For one year. That's all the time it took for the Jet brass to put the finger on the dumpy little, frumpy little man from little Richmond, Ind.

    Ewbank said something pleasant about getting out and having fun while there is still time. Everybody knows that's a lie. The only thing any fun to Weeb Ewbank is football.

    Realistically, there isn't much call for 67-year-old former general managers. People wear out just like machines. The awful sadness comes when they are treated like machines.

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  64. Shula was 4-0 in Shea before this game.

    Csonka and Manny Fernandez were out with injuries.

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  65. Shula started Nottingham ahead of Csonka and Kiick ahead of Benny Malone and Mercury Morris at halfback. Kiick had excelled against Buffalo, but Shula joked in the Herald this week that he was starting Kiick "because all his friends from New Jersey are hoods and I wouldn't dare risk their wrath."

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  66. Maybe Chuck Knox's big James Harris gamble is going to work out. The Rams were trailing, 17-6, at the start of the fourth quarter, and then Harris got really hot--including a run of nine straight completions. Harris's two late touchdown throws pushed the home team past Minnesota, 20-17.

    The crowd was numbered at 90,266, the NFL's largest single-game attendance in 15 years. It's neat to see so many people down at field level in this and so many other games of the era.

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  67. With the win over the Vikings on Sunday late afternoon, the Rams clinched at least a tie for the NFC West title. Then Monday night, the Rams clinched the title outright. New Orleans lost at home, 28-7, to the Steelers.

    I would really love to see this game. First, it was in Tulane Stadium, and I love seeing the Saints play in Tulane Stadium. Second, Terry Bradshaw was back at quarterback for Pittsburgh, and I would enjoy seeing how Alex, Frank and Howard hyped the matchup of Bradshaw (No. 1 draft pick of NFL70) and Archie Manning (No. 2 of NFL71) with both of their teams still in contention for playoff berths. And, third, I imagine the Christmas74 commercials were O! T! H! during this broadcast.

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  68. Replies
    1. North, by the way, benched Manning in favor of Bobby Scott in the first half against the Steelers after three interceptions. And then at some point, North also apparently benched Scott in favor of Larry Cipa for a bit. Tough night of TV for the Saints fans.

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  69. "All-pro" seems a little strong to me. Bradshaw ran for 99 yards and a touchdown, but he completed only eight of 19 for 80 yards, two interceptions and two touchdowns. Of course, I didn't see the game, and Chuck Noll did call Bradshaw's performance "a heck of a fine game."

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  70. Still, I'm not buying the Steelers. Cincinnati has the league's top passer in Ken Anderson, and the Bengals walloped the Chiefs on Sunday, 33-6. The Steelers are at home Dec. 1 against Houston; then they are at New England on Dec. 8. Cincinnati is at Miami next Monday night, then back home against Detroit on Dec. 8. And then the Bengals and Steelers wrap their regular seasons Saturday, Dec. 14, in Three Rivers Stadium. 1974 I absolutely likes Ken Anderson, Paul Brown and the Bengals coming out on top in the AFC Central.

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  71. And back, finally, to the big Vikings-Rams game in Los Angeles ... Minnesota might've really spit the bit on this whole season in losing that fourth-quarter lead. Green Bay and Detroit both won big on Sunday, so now the Vikings' lead in the NFC Central is down to one game. All three of these teams split their regular-season series with each other. Minnesota (7-4) closes at home against New Orleans and Atlanta and at Kansas City; Green Bay (6-5), at Philadelphia, San Francisco and Atlanta, and Detroit (6-5), at home against Denver, at Cincinnati and at home against Philadelphia. I think I in 1974 like the Lions.

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  72. I appreciate what Classic Sports Network tried to do (and then what ESPN Classic has tried to do), but I will say that is the very, very rare sports event that I will watch for its own sake after it has been competed. Now I love getting to watch some old tape of a three-hour telecast of a football game or whatever with its commercials and all and pretending that I’m watching for the first time. But if there's too much wraparound of now context, like a Popup Video episode (though I loved Popup Video), it falls pretty flat for me. I really don't want to learn too much when it comes to sports; I mostly just want to pretend.

    Anyway, Southern Cal came back to beat Notre Dame on Saturday, Nov. 30, and that made the cover of the Dec. 9 Sports Illustrated. I wonder whether the editors would've made the same choice if it been Tex Maule had been on the Nov. 28 Clint Longley game instead of focusing on a boxing match.

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  73. Maule's story on 36-year-old Emile Griffith's 99th career fight is not surprisingly terrific. (It really is, and now I'm excited to learn more about Terrence Blanchard's jazz opera about Griffith, Champion.) And Edwin Shrake's coverage of the Thanksgiving events in Dallas is excellent, and his use of present tense around Longley is an interesting choice:

    Here is Clint Longley, 22 years old, bold and scattered-looking in a boyish way, the nice kid from the next ranch down the road who has a peculiar twist for catching rattlesnakes and blasting away at stumps and bushes with his two six-guns. Clint is standing on the sideline at Texas Stadium, noting on a clipboard the play that the third-place Dallas Cowboys have just run in the third quarter this Thanksgiving Day afternoon against the second-place Washington Redskins. All of a sudden he hears a voice: "Longley, get your helmet."

    For a moment Longley can't find his helmet. He hadn't figured he would need it. He is a rookie quarterback who would have been playing for Abilene Christian College instead of Dallas this fall if he hadn't decided to go ahead and graduate last summer. Longley looks up and sees Roger Staubach, the No. 1 quarterback, ambling off the field with glass eyeballs and a stoned frown. Staubach has been knocked goofy by a Redskin linebacker; he can walk, but he doesn't know where he is. Someone says to Longley, "Get 'em, Bomber."

    A few weeks ago Craig Morton would have gone in to replace Staubach. But Morton told the Cowboys he was tired of playing behind Staubach and refused to report for work one day and eventually was traded to the New York Giants. So there is no quarterback left for Dallas but Longley, who got the nickname Mad Bomber in training camp when he threw a pass that clanged off an upper rung of Tom Landry's coaching tower.

    This is exactly the situation the Redskins have been asking for. The Cowboys, struggling with bad luck much of the season, are all but out of the playoffs for the first time since 1966. What the Redskins need to do to clinch a playoff spot is hold on to a 16-3 lead; Dallas would be finished and the Redskins would be all but certain of being the NFC's wild-card selection. Washington Defensive Tackle Diron Talbert said earlier that he hoped Staubach would try to run with the ball so the Redskins could put him to sleep and then have fun with the rookie, who never had been in a regular-season league game.

    The Mad Bomber comes in ...


    I think that's really, really good.

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  74. Still, it also would've been fun to see what Tex Maule did with Longley. He was just about done at SI but not quite. And I'll bet Maule's gravitas in the office would've gotten this immediately famous game on the cover, no matter how beautiful that muddy, late-afternoon USC uniform looked.

    The Longley game did, of course, make the NFL Game of the Week.

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  75. It makes me wonder how things might've gone for Tom Landry in Dallas had this game gone the other way. One of the things Mike Adams and Louis Schmidt point out in their NFL Films coverage is how well exiled, ex-Super Bowl-hero Duane Thomas played for Washington, and Shrake for Si was obviously ready to pounce on the Craig Morton-jettisoned-to-the-Giants storyline.

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  76. This was the late-afternoon, CBS game on Thanksgiving 1974. (In the noon Central game, Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis and Don Meredith had called Broncos, 31-27, over Lions on NBC.) We were still in our first house in Paducah, in the Clark Elementary School district, on Thanksgiving 1974. My oldest brother and his wife and my sister and her husband were in from Evansville, and this is back when everyone stayed the night for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was amazing, everybody piled in the same house twice within a span of just a month. My parents, my oldest brother and I all rooted for the Dolphins, mostly because of Evansville's own Bob Griese. My younger brother (who is actually 11 years older than me) rooted for the Vikings, probably just to stick it to the rest of us. My sister and sister-in-law both were rabid Cowboys fans throughout my childhood, and I feel certain that tracks back to this remarkable game and very happy day.

    Man, I miss them all so much, even those of them who are still around. I was so freaking fortunate. Occurs to me that we really need to start planning everybody-sleeps-in-the-same-house events for Thanksgiving and Christmas while my daughter and her cousins are still young--even though we all live in the same town, anyway. I hate this pandemic, and I can't wait until it's over.

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  77. I don't understand why this is true, but every so often there's a story that appears in an old Sports Illustrated that I cannot access individually at vault.si.com. That is the case with "Chicago: The Once and Future Bears" by Richard K. Johnston in the Dec. 9, 1974, edition. I have to get to it by flipping to Page 60 of the online issue. It's harder to read this way, but it's worth it.

    Chicago has to rank right up there with most anywhere on the list of places with the greatest volumes of great things written about it. My personal reading experience would probably have Bethlehem first, followed by Paducah and then maybe New York. But Chicago would be right there with anywhere else vying for No. 4.

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  78. In the same way that municipal courses are filled middle-aged duffers in the days after a golf major, the basketball goals in my Cedar Hill neighborhood of Paducah became much busier in the days closely following a Globetrotters appearance on Wide World of Sports.

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  79. There's plenty of booze, pens and after shave in the new Sports Illustrated, and apparently a Christmas gift of any of them will make a man very popular with the ladies. I'm working on my newest draft of my Christmas20 list right now. If you catch an overwhelming whiff of English Leather at some point in the new year, it might be me getting ready to come around the corner.

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  80. OK, so here's how Week 13 of NFL74 came out, per the Dec. 16 SI's "Roundup of the Week Dec. 2-8" ...

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  81. "NFC Central champ Minnesota beat Atlanta 23-10."

    Here are the This Week in Pro Football highlights: It's always intimidating whenever they roll out that fire-cannon thing to thaw out the field at Metropolitan Stadium.

    I've mentioned how the Vikings were the favorite team of my iconoclast middle brother, Kurt. Another thing about Kurt and the Vikings was that he seemed to like Minnesota more in spite of Fran Tarkenton than because of him, even though he would often defend Tarkenton when the rest of us were razzing him. Also, I've always thought of Kurt's favorite Viking being Dave Osborn. And, finally, Kurt never really seemed that interested in the Vikings or the NFL in general after he got married and moved out of the house.

    So, now I'm thinking this Saturday Falcons-Vikings game on Saturday, Dec. 7, 1974, might've really solidified Kurt's whole Vikings thing. Osborn starred, and Bob Berry, a former Falcon, started in place of Tarkenton. I feel certain we all sat down and watched this thing on Channel 12 after lunch, and I'll bet 17-year-old Kurt probably found in the event a good opportunity to define himself against his Dolphins-fan parents and little brother. Kurt was starting to think about what it was going to look like when he struck out on his own, and thoroughly modern Kurt and his Vikings were going to be this whole new thing in the world. That's how it works.

    Interestingly, I'll bet this game was also pivotal in Dad's deciding to take us to Falcons games in Atlanta in NFL77 and NFL78, which has always puzzled me a bit. It's not like we had the money to go do that. But here is Dad in Paducah, taking some time off from work on a Saturday afternoon, missing his oldest son, Sam (who had been Dad's first NFL-watching buddy and was now on his own out of state). Dad mistakes Kurt's differentiating-statement Vikings fling as new genuine interest in the NFL and starts thinking about how that new I-24 is going to bring Atlanta so much closer than it ever seemed before. Going to see Falcons games would be a good way to establish a long-term connection with all of his sons. This would've also appealed to Dad because he was a giant Civil War guy--hey, along the way, we could stop and have lunch and see Confederama (again)!


    Yeah, this all makes sense to me. I think it's right. In fact, I think I've totally nailed this whole late-autumn 1974 deal that was going on in my house around the NFL. I love 1974.

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    Replies
    1. AIR CONDITIONED -- NO WALKING

      We didn't have air conditioning, and, when I was a kid, I definitely hated walked. So I can see now why I enjoyed Confederama so much. And I can totally see going there on a honeymoon.

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  82. SI: "Greg Landry hit Charlie Sanders with an eight-yard touchdown pass with 29 seconds left to give Detroit a 23-19 win over Cincinnati."

    NFL Films: Detroit remained in play for the NFC wild-card spot with this victory, while Cincinnati was eliminated from postseason contention.

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  83. SI: "San Francisco beat Green Bay 7-6."

    NFL Films: The 49ers were already out of contention, and now so are the Packers, too. This must be especially crushing for their fans because the big-name quarterback they traded for at midseason, John Hadl, looks far, far past prime.

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  84. SI: "The Miami Dolphins clinched their fourth straight AFC East title with a 17-16 victory over the stubborn Baltimore Colts."

    NFL Films has decided the Dolphins are not going to repeat.

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  85. SI: "Joe Namath's second touchdown pass of the game, a 36-yarder to Jerome Barkum, and Linebacker Ralph Baker's 67-yard scoring run with an interception gave the red-hot New York Jets a 20-10 upset victory over Buffalo, which had already clinched the American Conference wild-card playoff berth."

    NFL Films: Snow, mud, Joe Namath's giant overhead throwing motion, Shea Stadium fans running into the end zone to celebrate Jet scores with the players ... this segment is freaking beautiful.

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  86. SI: "Pittsburgh took the AFC Central title with a 21-17 win over New England behind Franco Harris' 136 yards rushing and a rugged defense."

    This was the NFL Game of the Week episode. Here's our Week 13 NFL74 Steelers quarterback status update: "Terry Bradshaw seems to have the job again, but the Steelers' passing remains pathetic." Nonetheless, Pittsburgh has clinched its third straight playoffs berth after 39 seasons of missing, and NFL Films says the Steelers seem as likely to show up "on Super Sunday as the Howard Johnson's colors of the Miami Dolphins or the pride-and-poise boys from Oakland."

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  87. So that left in Week 13 the Monday-night game, and Billy Kilmer threw three touchdowns to lead the Redskins past the Rams, 23-17, in the Los Angeles Coliseum. And the NFL74-postseason field was determined: Buffalo, Miami, Oakland Pittsburgh from the AFC and Los Angeles, Minnesota, St. Louis and Washington from the NFC.

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