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Sure, anyone can ask “do you remember the 21st night of September?” But do you remember the 21st day?
If you happen to be referencing the one that happened exactly a half century ago, you bet I do. I was catching up on my chemistry homework–I never did get those quadratic equations and it’s a major reason I never pursued engineering–, I was sorting the eight separate sections of the two editions of the SUNDAY NEWS we bought each weekend between my parents and myself (I also found the money for the final edition on Sunday morning because, unlike today, they actually printed the West Coast box scores from the previous night) and I was making sure to show up a half-hour earlier than usual to Channel 2 to begin my football Sunday. Dad was initially protesting because he was a habitual viewer of the ABBOTT AND COSTELLO movies that ran on Channel 11 until 1:00, but even he remembered the one he was watching had just been on a couple of weeks earlier. (I guess whoever was doing the job for Lev Pope forgot?)
And if like me you vividly remember how excited we were that CBS was beginning a new full half-hour pre-game show to prepare us for our football Sunday, then the fact they produced a golden anniversary commemorative edition yesterday was a compelling reason to be extra sure to go out of your way to watch, no matter what your current ritual might be. I pretty much eschewed CBS once they starting getting competition from NBC, and once they lost their NFC package to FOX and suffered through four years without games in the mid-90s I rarely came back. But yesterday was 1975 all over again, and boy did the current team deliver on bringing those of us who were around back to that time and those who weren’t a darn good idea what it was like.
As USA TODAY’s Christian D’Andrea gushed:
CBS’s anniversary show leaned in to the nostalgia, opening with the dulcet tones of Bre(n)t Musberger telling the world “you are looking live at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis,” backed by old school graphics. Soon, Musberger laid out the early slate over shots from across the league — a move that dropped knowledge on viewers while allowing them to sink into the warm, familiar voice of a man who has been an unmistakable and trusted source of gridiron knowledge for more than the last five decades.
Then came the wigs. That’s right, CBS didn’t stop at graphics and a special guest appearance from one of the game’s longest-tenured icons. The studio was adorned in brown and khaki, harkening back to a time where a looming gas crisis limited Americans’ ability to purchase colors that weren’t shades of paper bag. The hair was long, the collars floppy and the facial hair aspirational.
And in the middle of all of it, face clearly showing its 86 years of hard living and body a little hunched over accordingly but voice, timber and curiosity still very much intact, was “Burnt Hamburger” himself, the last surviving member of the Core Four that also included former Miss America and Jill of All Trades when it came to light journalism Phyllis George, the recently retired ex-Philadelphia Iggles defensive back Irv Cross and the notorious Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, a comtroversial hire at the time due to his association with (gasp) gambling and an even more controversial fire years later when he was caught on tape (ironically, by a competitor from NBC’s Washington O and O) that blacks were better athletes than whites because they were “bred to be that way” since the days of slavery. Thankfully that was forgotten, as well as Musberger’s acrimonious departure from CBS on April Fool’s Day 1990–just as he was preparing to broadcast the NCAA Final Four championship game–that saw him eventually spend an even larger chunk of his career as an ABC personality.
Musberger was treated like royalty by the current team, especially his one-time colleague Jim Nantz who checked in from one of those “looking lives” for some personal recollections. He was equally as adept fielding questions about what Walter Payton was really like and leading discussions on how inept the current Bears have looked some far. He revived the “checkmark” tote board that served as the simple set piece to frame the discussion around predicting results–a pleasantly simplistic approach to the crawls and graphics that overwhelm viewers which prognostications are made on today’s shows. And because he already had a history with garish on-air looks, he thankfully was allowed to sport his current look, allowing him to come off more like Yoda than ringmaster.
Yes, there were highlight reels of the show’s more entertaining moments over the years. Current hosts James Brown and Bill Cowher shared photographs of what they looked like in 1975; Nate Burleson and Matt Ryan were spared that because they hadn’t yet been conceived. Here’s my contribution. I didn’t have much fashion sense either.
As far as the games themselves went yesterday, several teams also decided to remind folks what they were like in that era. The New England Patriots were among three teams wearing throwback uniforms–the only one of them that actually existed in 1975–but unfortunately they also played like they did in that mostly inglorious era of Pat Patriot, as the ASSOCIATED PRESS’ Jimmy Golum reminded:
An interception in the end zone. A fumble at the goal line. And three more turnovers — including Drake Maye’s fumble late in the fourth quarter with the Patriots in position for the go-ahead score — doomed New England to a 21-14 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. The Patriots (1-2) rallied from a 14-0 deficit to tie the game on a pair of touchdown passes from Maye to Hunter Henry. But their turnovers gave away two potential touchdowns and handed the Steelers (2-1) a short field on another.
Meanwhile, in Tampa the team born in 1976 played with semantics to commemorate their own 50-year milestone, bringing back roughly 100 alumni and their original “Creamsicle” uniforms. But fortunately for their fans they chose not to run back the results from those “Yuc-aneer” beginnings–26 consecutive losses from September 1976 to December 1977–and instead reminded Jets fans how their own team played in those days–and still do. Per TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS ON SI’s JC Allen:
The Buccaneers sure aren’t making it easy on themselves. In another game that came down to the wire, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the New York Jets 29-27 on a last-second field goal by Chase McLaughlin.
Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield once again had to don the cape in the final minutes of the game to propel the team to victory. After taking a 23-6 lead in the third quarter, Tampa Bay let the Jets score 21 points to pull themselves in front, with their final score coming off a blocked field goal returned for a score. Mayfield led the Bucs offense on a seven-play drive, including two huge explosive passes to put them in field goal position.
The ’25 Jets are already 0-3; the ’75 version went 3-11, as did that year’s Giants. The G-Men also went to 0-3 in an embarassingly lousy primetime effort, falling 22-6 to an underwhelming Kansas City Chiefs squad that avoided the same fate. Their ’75 version also went 3-11; it was the first time the two teams shared the same home, the overwhelmed and rapidly decaying Shea Stadium whose “turf” required green paint to even look initially appealing on TV that inclement weather would usually obliterate by the start of the second half. The field literally looked like sh-t, and so too did the home teams playing on it.
I didn’t watch a lot of New York football after THE NFL TODAY would sign off then, and I’m watching even less this year. Thankfully now we have more than enough alternatives at our disposal. Back then, we had no cable, no satellite, no YouTube. I wound up taking up some strange hobbies instead.
Courage…