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The Redskins-Raiders Super Bowl A Big Letdown To 1983 NFL Season

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By rights, the Redskins-Raiders Super Bowl that concluded the 1983 NFL season should have been one for the ages.

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The Washington Redskins  were the defending champs and had a powerful offense. Joe Theisman had the best year of his career at age 34 and won the MVP award. John Riggins, also 34, rushed for over 1300 yards and 24 touchdowns. Three offensive linemen, “The Hogs” made the Pro Bowl. The defense wasn’t great—Washington lost its only two games by scores of 31-30 and 48-47, but those two points were all that separated them from a perfect season.

The ‘Skins won a key Week 15 game at Dallas by a 31-10 count to seal the NFC East and #1 seed. Washington then thrashed the Los Angeles Rams 51-7 to start the playoffs, and jumped out to a 21-0 lead on the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. The 49ers rallied to tie it 21-21, but the ‘Skins got the benefit of a couple questionable pass interference calls to get the game-winning field goal.

The Los Angeles Raiders rolled to a 12-4 record, and had five defensive starters in the Pro Bowl. Howie Long recorded 13 sacks, while Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes formed the best cornerback duo in the league. Marcus Allen was an electric talent at running back and veteran quarterback Jim Plunkett had shown he had what it took to win a Super Bowl, having led the Raiders to the Lombardi Trophy in 1980.

Los Angeles coasted to the AFC West title and then easily rolled the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks to reach the Super Bowl.

Further adding to the drama of Redskins-Raiders was that it was the matchup that probably should have taken place the prior year. Los Angeles had been the #1 seed in the AFC, but suffered a big upset loss in the second round of the AFC playoffs to the New York Jets. Thus, these were the teams that had each been the #1 seed in their respective conference for two straight years, and their one head-to-head meeting in 1983 had been a thrilling 37-35 Washington win.

So yes, by rights, the Redskins-Raiders Super Bowl, should have been a battle royal. Only, like most Super Bowls through the 1980s, especially the Dark Ages of 1983-87, it didn’t work out that way.

The Raiders blocked a punt for an early touchdown. Most of the first half stayed competitive, but the fact the Raiders led 14-3 seemed to be another indication that when defense meets offense, always bet the defense. Then disaster struck for Washington.
With just seconds remaining in the first half and the Redskins deep in their own end, they tried an ill-advised screen pass.

Theisman didn’t see linebacker Jack Squirek who stepped in, grabbed the ball and walked into the end zone.
In retrospect, it seems as though the game might as well have ended right there, but reality was different. The Redskins found the end zone early in the third quarter and even though another special teams mishap cost them the extra point, it was still a game at 21-9.

But the lesson that you can’t come from behind unless you first stop the opponent was another one learned anew today. Raider running back Marcus Allen was having a huge day, rushing for 191 yards. After Los Angeles had pushed out to a 28-9 lead, Allen made one of the great plays of Super Bowl history. Allen swept to the left, ran into traffic, reversed course, found a hole on the opposite side of the field and took off on a spectacular 74-yard run for the touchdown that eliminated any residual doubt about who would win.

Allen was named MVP, and the Raiders 38-9 win gave them their third Super Bowl championship. The Los Angeles Raiders were an organization on top of the world. It seems hard to believe that not only have they not won it all since, they’ve only even played in one other Super Bowl, that being in 2002. In 1983, they turned a hyped matchup into rubble.

The 1979 Washington Redskins: When Building Anguish Found Its Peak

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The great fan base of the Washington Redskins had endured some heartache in both 1977 and 1978. Each season saw the Redskins miss the playoffs on the final week of the season, in the latter case after giving away a 6-0 start to the year. What the fans couldn’t have guessed, nor would they have wanted to, was that the 1979 Washington Redskins would lift the season-ending anguish to a new level.

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1979 was the second year under head coach Jack Pardee, and the offense continued to improve, as Pardee and his quarterback Joe Theismann grew together. A unit that ranked 21st in the NFL two years earlier was up to 10th in points scored for 1979. Theismann threw for nearly 2,800 yards and his 20-13 TD/INT ratio was pretty good by the standards of the time.

John Riggins ran for over 1,100 yards and gave the team a real running game, even though Riggins ran behind a pedestrian offensive line that had none of the players who would make up the legendary “Hogs” three years later when the Redskins won the Super Bowl. In fact, to the great credit of Pardee and offensive coordinator Joe Walton (soon to be head coach of the New York Jets), the offense produced in spite of not havin a single Pro Bowl player.

The defense was still the veteran unit that George Allen had built through the 1970s and leading up to his departure after 1977, but there was some infusion of youth. Rookie middle linebacker Neal Olkewicz and 24-year-old free safety Mark Murphy were inserted into the lineup. The strength was still a veteran secondary that had thirtysomething Pro Bowlers in Ken Houston, Lemar Parrish and Joe Lavender, but the ‘Skins were getting younger.

Washington opened the season against the Houston Oilers, who had made the AFC Championship Game in 1978 and would do so again this year. After building a 27-13 lead in the fourth quarter, the Redskins lost 29-27 in a beginning that looks even more ominous with the benefit of hindsight.

The Redskins turned it around quickly and won three straight games over mediocre opposition in the Detroit Lions, New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. Then the ‘Skins went to Atlanta. The Falcons had delivered a big blow to Washington’s playoff hopes the prior year with a win in the season’s penultimate game. Atlanta wasn’t as good this time around, and Theismann hooked up with receiver Danny Buggs ten times for 134 yards in a 16-7 win.

Over the next three weeks, Washington played the Philadelphia Eagles twice, with the Cleveland Browns sandwiched in between. It was a tough stretch. The Eagles had made the playoffs the previous year, the first time they had done so in the Super Bowl era and were a team on the rise. Philadelphia would end the year 11-5 and in the postseason again. Cleveland wouldn’t make the playoffs in 1979, but they would go 9-7 and had the core of a team that a year later would win a division and produce the league MVP in quarterback Brian Sipe.

Washington met the challenge. They got a split with the Eagles, and won in Cleveland when Theismann founded Clarence Harmon on a fourth –quarter touchdown pass that pulled out a 14-9 win. The two games against the Eagles had seen Riggins go over 100 yards both times against a good defense. With a 6-2 record, Washington had validated itself as a contender again.

But one week later, the ‘Skins gave a little bit of the good will back with a home loss to the New Orleans Saints. It wasn’t a terrible loss—the Saints would finish 8-8, but it’s also the kind of home defeat that had haunted the Redskins the previous two years. It might have gotten worse a week later at home against St. Louis—the Cardinals turned a 27-7 fourth quarter deficit into a 28-27 lead. Fortunately, Washington kicker Mark Moseley bailed his team out with a late kick to win it.

The Moseley game-winner gave way to a huge home win over the Dallas Cowboys. The Redskins shut down the run, holding the Cowboy’s star running back Tony Dorsett to 43 yards. Washington took care of the ball on offense and forced five turnovers on defense. It added up to an easy 34-20 win as a four-point underdog and at 8-4, life was good in Washington.

But it would not have been the late 1970s Washington Redskins if they didn’t mess things up against the Giants. To keep this in perspective, New York was a bad team through the decade, and that wouldn’t turn around until two years from now. Yet they went 4-2 against the Redskins from 1977-79, and every single year Washington fans could look back on a New York loss that effectively cost the ‘Skins a playoff spot. This year, it was an ugly 14-6 loss in the Meadowlands.

It threatened to get worse when the mediocre Green Bay Packers came to old RFK Stadium and jumped out to a 21-7 lead. But Theismann saved the day—three of his four touchdown passes came in the second half, he threw for 256 yards, he spread the ball around and Washington pulled away 38-21. A victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in the team’s final home game had the Redskins at 10-5 and in first place in the NFC East.

Now it was time to go to Dallas.

The NFC was a packed race, and all five playoff teams (at the time there were three division winners and two wild-cards) would finish either 10-6 or 11-5. The consequence was this—the Redskins were in first place and in fact a victory in Dallas would also lock up the #1 seed in the NFC. Yet Washington could also miss the playoffs entirely.

It was the Chicago Bears that were the immediate issue. They needed to beat the St. Louis Cardinals by 31 points. A win by any smaller margin would at least clinch a wild-card spot for the Redskins. But if the Bears won by 31 or more, then it would be all-or-nothing: Washington would play to be either the #1 seed or to miss the party entirely.

Chicago-St. Louis played an early afternoon game from Soldier Field and to everyone’s disbelief, the Bears won 42-6. All the money was on the table in Big D for the nationally televised late afternoon game.

Washington got a big game from Riggins who ran for 151 yards. They had a 17-0 lead and let it slip away, falling behind 21-17. But the Redskins bounced back, and after a 66-yard touchdown run by Riggins, led 34-21 with just under seven minutes to play.

Roger Staubach was Dallas’ legendary quarterback, known for his fourth quarter comebacks. This was his final year and as it turned out, this would be his final comeback. Dallas scored twice in the final seven minutes and led 35-34.

Theismann led the Redskins down the field in a furious attempt to get into field goal range. They reached the Cowboy 40-yard line and Theismann whirled to the official to signal timeout. Moseley’s range reached into the high 50s, so a field goal was at least doable. But the officials allowed the last second to tick off. It was an understandable mistake in the heat of the play, though under today’s replay rules, Washington would have been granted another play. In the world of 1979 though, their season was over.

It was the bitterest of all all endings in Washington and even today, it stands as the most consequential regular season loss since the NFL expanded the playoffs to four rounds in 1978. Furthermore, Pardee pointed out after the game that the Redskins had declined to run up the score in the Green Bay win, not taking the chance for a late touchdown in the closing seconds when the Redskins were inside the 10-yard line. They ended up five points short of the playoffs.

Changes would come to the NFL tiebreaker system as a result. Common opponents was elevated in importance and net points took its appropriate place near the very bottom of the list.

By the replay standards of today, the 1979 Washington Redskins would have gotten a chance at a last-play field goal in Dallas. By the tiebreaking standards of today, the 1979 Washington Redskins would have at least been a wild-card team. But by the standards of 1979, all they and their fans got was another cruel dose of last-week anguish, the kind of which made 1977 and 1978 look benign by comparison.

The 1992 Super Bowl: Dallas Buries Buffalo

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The Buffalo Bills came to the end of the 1992 NFL season the same way they’d reached the previous two—as AFC champions. But the Bills yet to win the sport’s ultimate prize and the pressure was on in the 1992 Super Bowl to win their first title.

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Even though they had the experience, oddsmakers liked the Dallas Cowboys. They were young and for some the youth was a concern. But the Cowboys had also been a better team all year long, and were favored by 6 ½ points when they arrived in Pasadena.

Dallas had gone 13-3 during the regular season and won big battle in San Francisco to claim the NFC Championship. Buffalo, unlike its previous runs through the AFC, had not been head and shoulders above the rest. The ’92 Bills came the wild-card route.
They started by producing the greatest comeback in the history of the NFL playoffs, falling behind the Houston Oilers 35-3 and ultimately winning 41-38. More decisive victories against the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins on the road followed.

The fact the Cowboys would win this game 52-17 and force a Super Bowl record nine turnovers can make it seem like this game was a fait accompli from the beginning. Certainly, then-Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson does his best to convey that notion in his book Turning The Thing Around.

I have hard time thinking Johnson was really that cocksure—while he’s never lacked for confidence, this is also a coach who six years earlier on the college level had been completely outcoached when leading Miami into a national championship battle with Penn State. If Johnson could blow that game, with a vastly superior talent edge than what he had in 1992, how could he be so sure now?

Nor did the game play out like a mismatch, at least early on. Buffalo’s brilliant special teams player Steve Tasker blocked a punt and set up a quick touchdown. The Cowboys started to force the turnovers, one that set up a touchdown and one that produced the points directly. Even so, trailing 14-7, Buffalo drove to a 1st-and-goal at the 4-yard line.

It was here that the superior talent of Dallas really began to show. The Cowboys came up with a goal-line stand. The ensuing Bills’ drive got them to 3rd-and-1 at the four-yard line and Dallas stopped that play to. Possessions that should have given Buffalo 14 points had resulted in just three.

Meanwhile, Troy Aikman was getting in rhythm. He’d rifled a 19-yard touchdown pass to Michael Irvin on the first real drive the Cowboy offense put together. Dallas now led 21-10. Then came the sequence that realistically decided the game.

Buffalo running back Thurman Thomas took a swing pass and fumbled it away late in the first half. Aikman immediately took complete advantage and gunned another touchdown pass. A game in which the Bills had their share of chances, saw them trailing 28-10 going into the locker room.

The Bills remained nominally in the game. Even though starting quarterback Jim Kelly was injured, it was backup Frank Reich who’d led the epic rally against Houston, and it was 31-17 after three quarters. But Aikman came through again, with a 45-yard-touchdown pass to Alvin Harper to finally blow it open for good.

All that was left was for Dallas defensive tackle Leon Lett to get himself remembered in a less than positive way. Lett recovered another Buffalo fumble and took off for the goal line. In the open field and near the goal line he started to stretch his arms out in celebration. A hustling Buffalo receiver, Don Beebe, stripped the ball. By now, the score was 52-17 so it didn’t matter, but Lett’s hotdogging made him the subject of more than a few jokes. Though we should note in fairness that it’s not all that different from what most players do today. Lett just got busted on the game’s biggest stage.

And Dallas had busted Buffalo on the biggest stage. It was the Cowboy organization’s first Super Bowl title since 1977, and the 1992 Dallas Cowboys were leading the way for a dynasty just getting started.

1988 Sports: A College Football Culture War, A Guarantee Made Good & A Super Bowl Drive

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A single college football game highlighted what was, top to bottom, a very good year in 1988 sports. That game took place in South Bend in mid-October and it defined not just that season, but became caught up in a national culture war.

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The game was Notre Dame and Miami, and with the Fighting Irish perceived as the white hats and the Hurricanes perceived as the black hats, everyone was set for battle. Notre Dame won an epic game 31-30 and that game proved to decide the national championship.
Read more about Notre Dame-Miami
The state of California produced three championship teams at the pro level, two from SoCal and another from the Bay Area. Each was thrilling, but for different reasons.
The Los Angeles Lakers became the first NBA team in nineteen years to win consecutive championships. The Lakers got everything they could handle and then some from the Detroit Pistons.
The Pistons, led by Isiah Thomas, had dethroned the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals—although not before Larry Bird first led the Celtics into the conference finals by winning an epic Game 7 scoring duel with Atlanta Hawks’ forward Dominique Wilkins.
It was Detroit’s time in the East, but Los Angeles still had Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. They trailed the Finals 3-2, but won came from behind in the closing minute of Game 6 and then held off a furious Piston rally to win Game 7, fulfilling head coach Pat Riley’s guarantee of a repeat NBA championship.
More last-minute dramatics were on display at the Super Bowl, as was a championship for a 1980s dynasty. The San Francisco 49ers, led by Joe Montana, scored the winning touchdown with 34 seconds left in their victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. Montana’s drive culminated a NFL playoffs that was filled with interesting storylines, but for reasons both on-field and off, desperately needed this kind of an ending.
And in baseball, we’re back down in Los Angeles. The World Series itself was not thrilling. The Los Angeles Dodgers jumped out on the Oakland A’s and won in five games. But the manner it went down has still captured the heart of the nation to this day.
The Dodgers, heavy underdogs to the A’s of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco won a shocking Game 1. Los Angeles outfielder Kirk Gibson, barely able to walk because of an injury, came off the bench to pinch-hit and took the best closer in the game, Dennis Eckersely, deep for a home run. Los Angeles never stopped winning and took an unlikely World Series title.
Read more about the 1988 Los Angeles Lakers
Read more about the 1988 NFL playoffs
Read more about the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers
College basketball didn’t lack for its own drama, this time in America’s heartland. Danny Manning led the Kansas Jayhawks on an improbable ride as a #6 seed, in which they combined catching bracket breaks with having a singular superstar and took a national championship.
The 1988 NCAA Tournament also saw two respected coaches, who never made the Final Four, have their best chances. John Chaney of Temple and Gene Keady at Purdue each had excellent teams and were #1 seeds. But Temple come up short to Duke in a regional final, while Purdue lost in the Sweet 16. Each would have other chances, but never a better one than existed in 1988.
In that, they shared a common bond with Michigan football coach Bo Schembecler. Bo never won a national title and while 1988 wasn’t his only shot, it was certainly one of his best. Michigan took both Notre Dame and Miami to the bitter end before losing heartbreakers. Sometimes, things just aren’t meant to be, as Keady and Chaney lived through at the NCAA Tournament.
Read more about the 1988 Kansas Jayhawks
The Edmonton Oilers won their fourth Stanley Cup in five years behind the leadership of Wayne Gretzky. The regular season didn’t go as smoothly as had been in the case in recent years, but the postseason was their most dominant. Edmonton rolled to a 16-2 record to add another jewel to their Gretzky-era treasure chest.
Read more about the 1988 Edmonton Oilers

1987 Sports: Knight, Gretzky & Magic Get Back On Top

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Bob Knight, Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson had already made their mark on the respective histories of college basketball, the NHL and the NBA. All three were looking for redemption in varying degrees, and in the year of 1987 sports, all three got back on top.

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None of the three won a championship in more dramatic fashion than Knight. After coaching the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1984, Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers had seen some hard times—missing the NCAA Tournament in 1985 and losing in the first round in 1986. Knight’s infamous, albeit vastly overplayed chair-throw incident took place in ’85.
It was appropriate that the year Knight returned to the top of the college basketball world took place in the same year the movie Hoosiers came out. Like the movie, the real-life version of the story ended up with a last-second shot winning the national championship, as Keith Smart’s jumper near the baseline gave Indiana a 74-73 win over Syracuse and their head coach his third national title.
The 1987 NCAA Tournament also provided a Cinderella, and one with lasting implications for college basketball. Providence made the Final Four. It was the first breakthrough for a young head coach named Rick Pitino. And his best player was Billy Donovan. We’re still hearing plenty from both Pitino and Donovan on the sidelines today.
Read more about 1987 Indiana basketball
Read more about Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan & 1987 Providence
Magic Johnson already had three championship rings and twice had been named MVP of the Finals. But the 1986 season ended badly for his Los Angeles Lakers, and there was talk that they might be supplanted by the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference.
Instead, Magic upped his game to become a top scorer, without losing his tremendous passing ability and he won his first league MVP award. The Lakers won the NBA title, and their battle with the Boston Celtics in the Finals was a historic benchmark—it was the last time Magic and Boston’s Larry Bird ever competed for a championship.
And on the hockey side, Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers had seen their dynasty interrupted in 1986, after winning consecutive Stanley Cups in 1984-85. Gretzky won another MVP award of his own—making him 8-for-8 in his career, and Edmonton erased the upset loss of 1986 by capturing a third Stanley Cup in four years.
Read more about the 1987 NBA Finals
Read more about the 1987 Edmonton Oilers
Baseball and college football each provided good regular seasons and interesting finishes. The baseball season was highlighted by a dramatic AL East race, with the Milwaukee Brewers providing any number of streaks, both individual and team, while the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers ran a great race to the final day of the season.
And baseball’s postseason was marked by a team making full use of the rotation system MLB then used to set homefield advantage for both the League Championship Series and World Series. The Minnesota Twins won their division on the one year in four that they were set to have homefield throughout, and the Twins used it win a surprise World Series.
College football saw the first advent of the four-team playoff that begins in 2014, albeit entirely unintended. But Miami-Florida State and Nebraska-Oklahoma ended up as a de facto national semifinals, with the winners playing for the national title and the losers meeting in the Fiesta Bowl. Miami won the national championship and Florida State ended up #2.
Read more about the 1987 World Series
Read more about 1987 college football
Read more about the 1987 AL East race
The NFL toyed with fans with the second strike in six years. Four weeks of play were missed, but unlike the 1982 strike, the league used replacement players to cover for three of the weeks. The games counted in the standings and were retained even after the regular players returned.
What this strike year had in common with 1982, was that once again it was the Washington Redskins who held together and won the Super Bowl. The Strike-Year ‘Skins still had the magic and their 42-10 rout of the Denver Broncos sealed a title, with Doug Williams becoming the first African-American quarterback to start and win the Super Bowl.
Read more about the 1987 Washington Redskins

The 2008 NCAA Tournament & The Showcasing Of Three New Stars

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The NCAA Tournament is always a time for the future stars of the NBA to showcase themselves to their future employers, but rarely do you see several future pros all come up so big in March that they win the Outstanding Player Award in their respective regionals. That’s what happened in the 2008 NCAA Tournament though, as regionals weekend saw Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and Steph Curry all come up big.

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Rose was a freshman for Memphis and no one doubted he was a one-and-done player, the kind then-Tiger head coach John Calipari has thrived on recruiting, either here or later on in building a national champion at Kentucky. Rose, with considerable help from another immensely talented frosh in Chris Douglas-Roberts led Memphis to a 33-1 record, the top seed in the South Regional and into the Sweet 16 in Houston.

Love played for UCLA, who after two consecutive Final Four appearances, went on to win another Pac-12 title, be seeded #1 in the West and then survive a dogfight from Texas A&M in the tournament’s second round to reach the regionals in Phoenix.

Curry was the least heralded of them all, playing for tiny Davidson in the Southern Conference. Curry led his team to a 26-6 record, and got sufficient attention from the Selection Committee that they were seeded 10th in the Midwest, an abnormally high seed for such a low-profile conference. There was nothing low profile about the NCAA’s first weekend tough—Curry scored 30-plus points in wins over Gonzaga and Georgetown and his team moved on to Detroit to play for the Final Four.

Memphis might have been a #1 seed, but they were widely considered the most vulnerable of the favorites, between their youth, free-throw shooting problems and the weak competition in Conference USA. You wouldn’t convince Michigan State and Tom Izzo of that though. Rose scored 27 points, Douglas-Roberts added 25 and the Tigers had a 50-20 lead on the Spartans by halftime, cruising to an easy win.

Then it was on to play #2 seed Texas in what promised to be a good regional final. This was a promise not kept though, as Rose again dazzled, with 21 points/6 rebounds/9 assists. Douglas-Roberts tossed in another 25 and Memphis coasted to an easy 85-67 win, with Rose named Most Outstanding Player.

UCLA’s path wasn’t quite as tough, with a gutted bracket only leaving Western Kentucky and Xavier in the Bruins’ way. No one could match up with Love. He had 29 points/14 rebounds in leading the way past the Hilltoppers. In the win over Xavier, Love’s 19 was part of a balanced attack, and his 10 rebounds keyed a second straight game where UCLA dominated in rebounding. Love would be an easy choice for MOP.

This writer is a Wisconsin fan, and was counting on his team making it to a regional final showdown with Kansas in the Midwest. Curry got in the way—in a big way. He delivered yet another 30-plus point game. Shooting 11-of-22 from the floor and banging home six treys, Curry helped Davidson break open a tie game at the half and turn it into a shockingly easy 73-56 win.

Davidson got the shot at Kansas, and Curry scored 25 more in that game, with no other player on the floor for either team getting more than 13. Davidson lost 61-59, as Curry, under a defensive double-team had to give up the ball on the final possession, but his dominance of the weekend still made him a natural choice as the Outstanding Player.

Rose, Love and Curry have all gone on to make a big mark in the NBA. No one more so than Rose, who won the MVP award in 2011, and presuming he’s recovered from the torn ACL in the 2012 NBA playoffs, will be set to lead his Chicago Bulls back into championship contention. Love has been a two-time All-Star, even as he plays for lowly Minnesota and is widely considered one of the game’s best. Curry, after struggling with foot injuries early in his career, exploded on the scene in the 2013 NBA playoffs, leading Golden State to a series win over Denver and throwing a big scare into San Antonio.

This power trio weren’t the only ones making their mark on regionals weekend in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Tyler Hansbrough was Player of the Year at North Carolina and had a 28/13 game in putting his team past Louisville and into the Final Four. And speaking of that Final Four, the Outstanding Player in New Orleans was Mario Chalmers. The Kansas guard hit a game-tying three at the end of regulation and helped the Jayhawks win a national championship. He’s since had a little success of his own at the next level, as a starter for the two-time defending champion Miami Heat.

The 2008 NCAA Tournament saw the stars come to shine, and on the weekend when Final Four spots were settled, none shone brighter than Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and Steph Curry.

1979 Sports: Dominant College Champions & Pro Dynasties On Their Last Legs

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The year in 1979 sports carries a special place in basketball lore, as Michigan State’s Magic Johnson and Indiana State’s Larry Bird met in the NCAA final that drew the highest TV ratings in the history of that event and set the stage for a new era in the NBA. That’s fair enough as the prime story of the year. There are a few things that we shouldn’t lose sight of though.

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The first is that the 1979 Final Four provided some other good storylines, with DePaul’s longtime head coach Ray Meyer making his first and only trip to college basketball’s showcase and Penn became the most recent team to reach the Final Four, winning the NCAA Tournament’s first-ever “gutted bracket.”
We also shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Michigan State was far and away the best team. The Magic-Bird storyline works when we take the broader historical view, but the Spartans were decisively college basketball’s best.
And finally, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that there was another great champion in college sports, and one that deserves a place in sports history. Bear Bryant’s 1979 Alabama football team dominated its schedule, won the Sugar Bowl going away and won their second straight national title.

Read more about the 1979 Final Four
Read more about the 1979 college football season

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Two great dynasties of the 1970s had their final ride in 1979. The Montreal Canadiens won their fourth straight Stanley Cup, and the Pittsburgh Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl title in six years. Each team got stiffer tests than normal this season, and each benefitted from significant upsets that eliminated their most potent threat.
Montreal was not the NHL’s best in the regular season for the first time in their dynastic run, but the New York Islanders proved to be not-quite-ready for prime time. The Islanders were on the doorstep of a dynasty of their own and it would have been great to watch them battle Montreal in 1979. But the New York Rangers got in the way, and upset their crosstown rival in the semifinals, opening the path for another Canadien championship.
Pittsburgh saw the Houston Oilers close the gap on them in the AFC, and if we looked ahead to the Super Bowl, there was the potential for a Steelers-Cowboys battle.
It would have been a rematch and the third time in five years the two franchises had met in the NFL’s biggest game. The fact this was the last year for legendary Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach would have only added to the drama. But the Cowboys were stunned by the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs and it eased Pittsburgh’s path.
Read more about the 1979 Montreal Canadiens
Read more about the 1979 NFL season
The Steelers weren’t the only team the city of Pittsburgh had to cheer. The Steel City enjoyed a rare Super Bowl-World Series Parlay, as the Pittsburgh Pirates were baseball’s best, making an exciting run to win the NL East title, and then winning three straight elimination games to take the World Series.
Read more about the 1979 MLB season

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In the NBA, a standard reading of sports history tells us that the league desperately needed the impending arrival of Magic and Bird. From a marquee standpoint, there’s no disputing that, but from a standpoint of competitive balance, the979 NBA postseason was exciting. The semifinals and finals of the Eastern Conference went the full seven games, as did the finals in the Western Conference. The 1979 NBA Finals were anticlimactic, with the Seattle Supersonics winning the championship in five games, but the playoff ride was an interesting one.
Read more about the 1979 NBA playoffs

The 1979 NCAA Tournament & The First Gutted Bracket

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The 1979 NCAA Tournament has a special place in college basketball lore. The championship game, featuring Michigan State and Magic Johnson against Indiana State and Larry Bird remains the highest-rated NCAA final to date and is rightly seen as a watershed moment for basketball at both the college & NBA level. But the 1979 NCAA Tournament deserves to be remembered for something else—the beginning of a phenomena that continues today and it’s the gutted bracket.

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Office pool players today know the gutted bracket—the one where favorites fall like dominoes—as the bane of their existence. But in 1979 the whole concept was unheard of. Parity hadn’t really taken hold in college basketball and the whole concept of seeding a bracket was unheard of.

Previous years had seen national ranking almost ignored, thus creating situations like the one the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers faced, where their reward for going undefeated was a regional with three other Top 10 teams, including second-ranked Marquette stashed in. 1979 brought seeding and began the process to a more balanced bracket.

In three regionals it didn’t matter all that much—the chalk held, with the top two teams playing in the regional final. But not in the East Regional, where fans looking forward to a North Carolina-Duke final in Greensboro had more than a few surprises ahead of them.

The Tar Heels and Blue Devils had shared the ACC regular season championship and UNC then won the league tournament. North Carolina reached the NCAA final and lost in 1977. Duke did the same in 1978. They seemed destined to play a fourth time and see which program could get a shot at redemption and they could count on a packed house in a regional final that would be played in their own backyard.

There were other compelling storylines in the East, particularly viewed with the perspective of history. Georgetown was seeded third, as John Thompson had the program growing to national prominence. Syracuse was in the 4-spot. Jim Boeheim was still the coach all the way back then and the Orange were led by the Louie-n-Bouie Show: Louie Orr and Roosevelt Bouie, who along with Dale Shackleford led the ‘Cuse in scoring. Syracuse and Georgetown weren’t league rivals yet—the Big East Conference had been agreed upon, but not yet begun. But both teams would be good opposition for the ACC favorites in the regionals. Or so the story went.

If you were digging for a Cinderella—a concept not really known in college basketball at the time, you could look at a coach who would soon become very familiar with the term. Jim Valvano would become a national legend in 1983 with N.C. State, but in ’79 he had brought Iona to the NCAA Tournament for the first time, led by center Jeff Ruland. Or there was sixth-seeded Rutgers. Just three years removed from the Final Four, their 6’9” post man James Bailey was helping popularize the alley-oop dunk,  allowed back into the college game two years earlier.

The 1979 NCAA Tournament field was 40 teams, so it was 10 teams per regional. If you really wanted to scrape the bottom of the barrel you could look at #9 Penn. The Quakers had won their eighth Ivy League title in ten years and had an exciting backcourt combination of Tony Price and Tim Smith. At the end of the ladder was St. John’s, led by Lou Carnesecca, on his way to a long career on the bench in Queens.

On the tournament’s opening night there was a mild hint that something might be in the works. The lower-seeded teams won both games. Penn jumped out to a 41-29 lead on Iona and held on for a 73-69 win, while St. John’s eliminated seventh-seeded Temple 75-70.  But the winners had North Carolina and Duke waiting for them.

Saturday afternoon in Raleigh would prove to be one of the darkest days in the history of basketball in the state of North Carolina. The Penn-North Carolina and St. John’s-Duke games were a doubleheader at the same venue in Reynolds Coliseum. Duke had been something of an out-of-nowhere team a year earlier—a group immortalized in John Feinstein’s book Forever’s Team­—so they should have known to be wary. But the Redmen (the team nickname was years from being changed to the more politically correct Red Storm) pulled an 80-78 shocker. And the Price was right for Penn, who administered a 72-71 defeat to North Carolina, completing the day that would become known as “Black Saturday.”

Further north in Providence the other two second-round games were being played, and even the #3 seed wasn’t safe. Rutgers knocked off Georgetown 64-58. It would take Thompson two more years to go deep into the NCAAs, when his 1980 team reached the regional final and not until the recruitment of center Patrick Ewing would he make the Final Four and win a national title. Of the regional’s early favorites only Syracuse survived, an 89-81 winner over UConn.

The prospect of St. John’s-Rutgers and Penn-Syracuse didn’t exactly thrill the folks of Greensboro when the four teams gathered to decide who would go to the Final Four. Only 9,102 attended the Sweet 16 games. By contrast, both Bird and Magic had 17,000-plus on hand for their games and the West Regional, headlined by UCLA and ultimately won by DePaul, had over 15,000.

St. John’s got a big game from guard Reggie Carter, who knocked down 22 points and the Redmen overcame 53 percent shooting from Rutgers and a 19-pooint night from Bailey to win 67-65, their second straight two-point win. Syracuse couldn’t cash in its surprising favorite status, as Price scored 20 points, grabbed seven rebounds, led his team to a 13-point halftime lead and ultimate 84-76 win.

The unthinkable had occurred—not only were the top two seeds out, not only were other favorites gone by the wayside, but the last two teams in the bracket were playing for the Final Four! It was the #9 and #10 seeds for a trip to Salt Lake City. I suppose “chalk” by this point would have meant a St. John’s win, but Price wasn’t going to allow that. The Quaker lead had 21 points, while Carter couldn’t repeat his heroics from the regional semi-final. A 64-62 win in front of little more than 7,200 people sent Penn on to the Final Four.

It was the last time an Ivy League team has made the Final Four. And the 1979 NCAA Tournament was the first time a bracket was gutted beyond all recognition.

The 1978 Atlanta Falcons & The Grits Blitz

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Monday Night Football was in Atlanta on October 30, 1978 and the up-and-coming Falcons were looking to make their mark. This was a franchise that had produced just two winning seasons since its inception in 1966 and never made the playoffs. But coming off consecutive wins, they were 4-4 coming into this game and were playing host to one of the traditional powers of the 1970s, the Los Angeles Rams. It was time for the 1978 Atlanta Falcons to take the next step.

Atlanta was coached by Leeman Bennett, a former assistant for Los Angeles. While Bennett’s expertise had been on offense, it was defense that turned the Falcons around with the new coach’s arrival in 1977. He brought in future NFL head coach Jerry Glanville to run the defense. The attacking style drew the nickname “Grits Blitz” and set a record for fewest points allowed during the ’77 season. The problem was the offense, which is why the Falcons still finished 7-7 that year and out of the money, in an era when just 4 of 13 NFC teams made the postseason.

The offense was in the hands of quarterback Steve Bartkowski, the top pick in the 1975 NFL draft. Bartkowski would have a good, albeit not great, NFL career. But there wasn’t a lot of name talent around him. There was hope on the right side of the offensive line—the team picked tackle Warren Bryant with the sixth overall choice, and also had guard R.C. Thieleman. Both were 23 years old in 1978. Thieleman was starting a good career that would take him to three Pro Bowls, while Bryant never really panned out. And Bartkowski’s supporting cast at the skill positions was similarly bland.

1978 was a year of change in the NFL overall. The schedule was increased from 14 to 16 games, and the postseason expanded. The league would now allow a second wild-card team in the postseason. The winners of the three pre-2002 divisions (East, Central, West) would be placed in the divisional playoffs as always, but now the two wild-card would have to play their way in.

Atlanta was hoping that the natural improvement that would presumably come in Bennett’s second year, along with the extra playoff spot would finally get them into postseason action. The season didn’t start easily though. Bartkowski dealt with some injuries and backup June Jones (today better known as the architect of high-powered collegiate offenses at both Hawaii and SMU) was getting increased playing time.

Still, the Falcons opened the season by beating the Houston Oilers and another #1 overall draft pick, running back Earl Campbell. The previous year’s Heisman Trophy winner ran for 137 yards and a 73-yard touchdown gallop in the first quarter, but the Falcons prevailed 20-14.

But Jones played poorly a week later in Los Angeles, and consecutive losses to Cleveland and lowly Tampa Bay followed. A narrow win over a bad New York Giants’ team followed, and then an expected thumping came at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, at the peak of their glory in the late 1970s and on their way to a Super Bowl win in January.

At 2-4, the season was in danger of slipping away, but a soft spot in the schedule presented the Falcons with chances for road wins at Detroit and San Francisco. Atlanta won both and it set them up for the opportunity to swing their season decisively for the better at home on Monday Night.

Los Angeles was the power in the NFC West, the division the geographically-challenged NFL had Atlanta in prior to the realignment of 2002. Pat Haden, now the athletic director at USC, was at the helm of the offense and the Rams were on their way to a 12-4 season and a #1 seed in the NFC playoffs.

Haden put them on the board with a first quarter touchdown pass, but then Glanville’s defense went into lockdown mode. They intercepted Haden three times and forced five turnovers overall. Bartkowski’s offense couldn’t put the ball in the end zone, so Bennett needed to turn to an unlikely hero. Tim Mazzetti had been working as a bartender when the season opened and signed on as kicker after six games. He went 5-for-5 on field goal attempts for the prime-time audience and Atlanta got its signature win 15-7.

Atlanta won three of the next four, including close wins over New Orleans, ensuring the Falcons would be the second-place team in the NFC West. In the season’s penultimate game, the Falcons hosted the Washington Redskins. Both teams were 8-6 and a wild-card berth was on the line. Playing error-free football, Atlanta churned out a 20-17 win and its long-sought playoff berth was secured.

The NFL’s first-ever wild-card games would be on Christmas Eve and Atlanta would host the first game—ironically when baseball made the exact same playoff expansion for 2012 it was the Atlanta Braves hosting the first game. The opponent was the Philadelphia Eagles, led by Dick Vermeil and making their first playoff appearance of the Super Bowl era.

Atlanta-Philly was a battle of two Polish quarterbacks, as Bartkowski and counterpart Ron Jaworski, currently an analyst on ESPN, each played well. Jaworski was 19/35 for 190 yards, decent numbers in the days when defenses were allowed to cover wide receivers. Bartkowski was 18/32 for 243 yards. The first three quarters belonged to the Eagles though, with an early TD pass to 6’8” Harold Carmichael helping build a 13-0 lead.

The Falcons roared back in the fourth quarter, and Bartkowski made the kinds of plays fans had dreamt of when he was drafted. He hit Jim Mitchell for a 20-yard touchdown pass and then connected with Wallace Francis on a 37-yard strike to give Atlanta a 14-13 lead. Jaworski led the Eagles back into easy field goal range for kicker Mike Michel, who had the chance to atone for the missed extra point that was the difference in the game. He missed the field goal and the Falcons had their first playoff victory.

Atlanta’s win earned them a trip to Dallas, a game no one gave them much of a chance at winning. The Cowboys were 12-4 and the NFC’s #2 seed behind Los Angeles. Still, the Falcons led 20-13 after three quarters. But Bartkowski could only generate 95 yards passing while throwing three interceptions and Dallas was able to control their fourth quarter and win 27-20. They would go on to hammer Los Angeles a week later, before losing the Super Bowl to Pittsburgh.

The Falcons might not have scaled the heights, but they had the best season in franchise history in 1978. The Grits Blitz became nationally known and they won some important games along the way—beating AFC finalist Houston with Campbell, winning the MNF showcase with Los Angeles, winning a key Week 15 battle with Washington for the playoffs and getting a thrilling victory in the NFL’s first wild-card game. The 1978 Atlanta Falcons are a team that’s mostly under the historical radar, but they were an important piece of franchise history.