Sports Then and Now

The Pro Football Hall of Fame voters continued their recent trend of correcting the errors of past committees with the selection on Saturday of “Mr. Clutch” Drew Pearson as a member of the 2021 Hall of Fame Class.

During his decade with the Dallas Cowboys, Drew Pearson had a habit of making the big catch at the right moment to help the Cowboys time and again snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The favorite target of Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach, Pearson was widely recognized as one of the great receivers of his era. Though at the time of his retirement many expected Pearson to easily breeze into the Hall of Fame, his enshrinement was derailed by changes to the game which artificially inflated receiver stats and made the numbers he produced during a time when wide receivers weren’t catching 100 passes a season seem inferior.

Ironically, the reality is the exact opposite as though Pearson (and other top receivers from his era) didn’t catch as many passes as the top receivers of the current NFL, the catches he did make were usually crucial to helping the Cowboys become perennial Super Bowl contenders.

Signed by the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent out of Tulsa in 1973, Pearson, who had started his college career as a quarterback before transitioning to receiver, quickly became a key weapon for the Cowboys.  

As a rookie, Pearson caught 21 passes for 373 yards during the final six games of the regular season to become a favorite target of Staubach. He caught five passes for 140 yards and two touchdowns in the regular season finale against the St. Louis Cardinals and the next week caught two passes for 87 yards and two scores in a playoff victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

Happy 79^th birthday to one of the iconic figures in NFL history, the true “Captain America”, Roger Staubach.

Throughout his nine seasons as the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, Staubach was known for leading his team to late-game comebacks and improbable victories and thus was also often referred to as “Captain Comeback”.

He seemed to always have the uncanny knack of making the big play needed to lift his team to victory. He led the Cowboys to 23 fourth quarter game-winning drives during his career, including 15 times with his team trailing.

The Cowboys reached the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons as the starting quarterback and he led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl four times (they also reached the Super Bowl in 1970 when he was the backup).

He was named MVP of Super Bowl VI and also led Dallas to the title in Super Bowl XXII.

Staubach was a winner even before joining the Cowboys.

The Vintage Sports Then and Now Athlete of the Month was the key weapon behind the most important upset in pro football history.

While Joe Namath was the face of the 1968 New York Jets and Super Bowl III, Matt Snell was the backbone of the New York offense and primary weapon during the shocking victory.

In many ways, the foundation for the 1968 championship squad started to be built in the 1964 AFL Draft when the Jets selected Snell, a star at Ohio State, with the third pick in the first round. Occurring at the height of the AFL-NFL player war, Snell was also drafted by the New York Giants in the 4^th round of the NFL Draft (49^th overall pick).

Pros Looking Over Their Shoulders

We don’t normally think of the college game leading the charge in terms of the evolution of football but there is increasing evidence that the NFL is adopting some of their measures. It’s a bit like the tail wagging the dog, yet it is proof positive that all good ideas don’t necessarily germinate at the professional level.

Nevertheless, there are inherent differences between the two games, some of which will never be bridged. Wooing high school kids, and their parents or guardians is a different animal altogether than the sterile task of drafting a college kid onto a professional team. Alabama coach, Nick Saban, has etched his storied legacy in the college ranks but toiled at the NFL level for eight years. Below he explains why he prefers coaching at the collegiate level.

Extremely popular among sports fans, fantasy sports take the intense and exciting rush of sports matches and allows the fans to take part in the behind-the-scenes of making a team from scratch. This is a game, as mentioned before, where any player creates an imaginary team with real-life athletes of that sport. All of this works using the stats of real games that are after converted into points, however, the point system is not always the same. Some players or teams of players prefer to have a manager who coordinates the league and makes the attributions. Fantasy sports is a typical game between friends, nonetheless, its popularity grew to the point of becoming a business with a great matter of influence. There are even tools that can give you the advantage over your competitors, like a NFL lineup optimizer. Like everything, behind this simple game, there’s a story of how everything started and how much it grew. Let’s get into it.

The Beginning

There’s some debate between enthusiasts about how it began – football fans say one thing, basketball ones might say a different one, however, its first appearances were after world war II, when it started with a simple selection of players and contests according to their stats. Wilfred Winkenbach decided to write down some of the first rules, in 1962. One year later the first idea of a fantasy league gained life, this league was known as the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League. Wilfred was the one who brought the first baseball and gold fantasy league. Known by some as the “father of fantasy leagues”, this was the beginning of something with huge proportions. It was in 1969 that the first public fantasy league was born, meaning a vast step for this game.

Rotisserie System

Years later, a new and essential improvement was brought to life, the Rotisserie system. This system was created for the baseball league and it basically gives the players the choice of choosing one of the major team’s players at a time, and winning points according to their performance. It was after this that fantasy leagues had an outburst. This is just one system created, but the one which probably had the biggest impact on the growth of the game.

The Sports Then and Now Athlete of the Month was one of the great linemen of his era and is considered a trailblazer for using weight training and conditioning to develop his skills.

After a standout career at the University of Maryland, Stan Jones spent nine seasons as an offensive lineman for the Chicago Bears, making seven Pro Bowl appearances and earning first team All-Pro three times.

In 1962, assistant coach George Allen suggested Jones move to defense to help solidify that unit for the Bears. He played both ways in 1962 and then in 1963 moved permanently to the defense.