I watched most of the amazing Michigan State vs. Wisconsin game last Saturday. The Badgers lost via a last second hail mary. I got to wondering, what was the original "Hail Mary"? As always, wiki provided the answer in seconds, and it was in a 1975 playoff game featuring Dallas vs. Minnesota. Staubach threw it, and while being asked about it in the locker room mentioned the term "Hail Mary" due to his Catholic faith.
I youtubed and quickly found the play. I also found the WHOLE GAME, that you can watch below if you have some spare time. It was so cool to watch this piece of historical football footage. Immediate things you will notice.
The turf was a mess at the old Met in Minneapolis.
Not a single one of these men could compete in today's NFL.
They had different equipment - from the facemasks to the pads.
The formations were a lot more like the college game. The shotgun and empty backfield was rarely used, and a lot of the time a two running back set was also used. The west coast offense was not discovered yet - it is clear that both teams based their offenses around the run.
It was great to see Landry and Bud Grant, along with a lot of other names from the past.
Clipping was called. That penalty I think is gone now, called an illegal block from behind or some nonsense.
The refs showed the penalty to both sides of the stadium.
There are a lot of other little things that you will look at and say - hey, I remember that. Just a cool little trip to the past.
As a side note, the Hail Mary was disputed, as the Vikings said that Pearson pushed off and they wanted offensive pass interference. At the end of the game the field was littered with trash and the head ref got nailed with a whiskey bottle and was knocked unconsious. Ah, the good 'ol days.
16 comments:
haha the announcers are amazed how big the Dallas O Line is since the guys are 250 and 260.
The receivers for both teams start the plays in the three point stance.
I caught a quick glimpse of the Viking cheerleaders - they had skirts on. In the middle of winter.
Straight on kickers.
As the game wears on the green PAINT from the field, which is basically dirt painted green, starts smearing on the players uniforms. So awesome.
The FULLBACK for Dallas, Robert Newhouse had over 900 yards rushing this year. My how offenses have changed. The fullback rarely touches the ball anymore.
There is very little motion in the plays. Almost every NFL play has all sorts of motion today.
Marlboro ad on the scoreboard.
The Chains technology is exactly the same no surprise there.
holy crap, I just realized that Johnny Unitas is the color guy along with a very young Gary Bender doing play by play.
The refs seem to run this game with a much more iron hand then they do today. They just seem very confident.
The shotgun Stauback uses is really deep, about two yards deeper then ones we typically see today.
The garbage tossing and ref getting knocked out starts around the two hour five minute mark.
I am going to have to find time to watch this. Did you watch the whole thing?
Can't believe that Wisconsin lost. That Michigan State team looks much better than when we saw it at the bar at the Wisco / Nebraska game. Of course my memory is slightly blurry at that point.
Yes I watched the whole thing. It is amazing. Goes by quickly since there are no commercials and they run so much.
Yes is is unbelievable that Wisco lost, if I was a betting man I would have put down a lot that they would have run the table.
Hard to tell, but I think that measurements were called by the captain on the field - the announcers said that Tarkenton "called for a measurement" several times.
Seeing Fran Tarkenton get pasted by Ed "Too Tall" Jones on the last drive of the game made my day.
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