Sports History Network The USFL was a wildly popular league for many football fans during the mid-1980s. Like many pro football leagues before and after the USFL, the league ultimately did not have enough staying power. Most casual fans of football that have heard of the USFL like to place all of the blame on the former owner … Read more
Today we have Super Bowl XVII, which was held on January 30, 1983, at the Rose Bowl, between the AFC champion Miami Dolphins and the NFC champion Washington Redskins. If you’re looking for the full story of this 1982 season, pick up my Great Eighties book and you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know … Read more
Ask any pro football historian what George Allen’s greatest coaching year was, and he or she will undoubtedly say 1972 when his Washington Redskins won their first NFC Championship and a trip to Super Bowl VII. But I’m going to disagree with that opinion. I’m going to say that 1976 was Allen’s greatest coaching season. … Read more
Last week I wrote an article comparing the 1972 and 1973 Miami Dolphins. I concluded that the 1973 team was even better than the undefeated 1972 team. But in drawing that conclusion, I was in no way trying to diminish the accomplishments of the 1972 team. After all, it’s the only undefeated team in NFL … Read more
Before the television era of professional football, which certainly changed the financial outlook of the National Football League, most players still needed to work at some other profession, often both during and after the football season. In 1941, the Chicago Tribune reported that “Twenty-seven percent of the young men under contract to teams in the National Football … Read more