Sports Then and Now

Craig "Ironhead" Heyward began his NFL career as a first round draft pick of the New Orleans Saints in 1988.

Writer’s Note: Craig Heyward would have been 45 on Sept. 26, 2011.

The name “Ironhead” Heyward used to invoke fear into the hearts of NFL defenders. Hell, Heyward used to invoke fear into the hearts of anyone who crossed his path, or him. This is how Len Pasquarelli from ESPN.com described Heyward:

“He was one of the toughest, nastiest SOBs that I have encountered in 28 years of covering the NFL, a man whose menacing scowl could seemingly strip paint from a wall, and who reveled in his own brute physicality and took glee from imposing his strength on others.”

But is that really all Craig “Ironhead” Heyward was about?

There is no doubt that Heyward relished the moniker he had been given at New Jersey’s Passaic High School (the same high school, incidentally, whose halls had been previously haunted by Jack “Call Me Assassin” Tatum).

Whether it was because of his eight-and-three-quarter-inch hat size or his propensity for using his head as a battering ram, it cannot be disputed that Heyward loved to spread the gospel of his “Ironhead.”
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Every team in the NFL has its own collection of heroes. Players who played key roles in helping that franchise reach their greatest heights. Some of these players have been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and are forever immortalized. However, many players who endeared themselves to the home fans, but were not quite Hall of Fame worthy, have been forgotten as time passes and new players take their place.

This fall we are going team-by-team across the NFL featuring some of the “Forgotten Stars” whose greatness was valuable to their team, but who have been largely forgotten over time. We are not simply highlighting the best players from a franchise who are not in the Hall of Fame, but instead featuring some of the players who were important contributors and helped define the team during their era.

Some of these players probably should be in the Hall of Fame and were well known stars, while others were simply solid players and are remembered primarily only by true fans.

This week we look at the Atlanta Falcons, a franchise that despite having some great players during their 45 years in the NFL, just celebrated the first Falcon with at least five years of service with the team to enter the Hall of Fame with the recent induction of Deion Sanders.

Many of the players we are featuring probably would already be in the Hall of Fame had they played in New York, Dallas or for some other consistently successful team. Instead, they toiled in obscurity in Atlanta for a franchise that took more than 40 years to register their first back-to-back winning seasons.

William Andrews – Had it not been for an injury suffered during the 1984 preseason, it is very likely that William Andrews would have a bust in Canton and be on the short list of NFL all-time great running backs. Read the rest of this entry →

One of the NFL’s most bitter rivalries was taken up a notch in the 1991 NFL Playoffs when the Atlanta Falcons visit the Louisiana Superdome to take on their NFC West division rival, the New Orleans Saints.

The Saints won their first division title in 1991 with an 11-5 record for the team’s third playoff appearance and fourth winning season in five years, all under the helm of head coach Jim Mora.

The Saints were lead by their defense, the famed “Dome Patrol”, a linebacking corps that consisted of Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, Vaughn Johnson, and Pat Swilling, which allowed the fewest points and forced the most turnovers in 1991.

The Saints had failed to win a game in their first two playoff appearances, but were favored to beat their division rivals from Atlanta.

The Falcons went 10-6 in 1991 for their first winning season and playoff appearance in a full 16-game season since 1980 (Atlanta made the playoffs in 1982 with a 5-4 in a strike-shortened season).

The Falcons were lead by head coach Jerry Glanville who was in his second season as head coach from the Falcons after coaching the Houston Oilers for four seasons and leading them to three straight playoff appearances.

Glanville’s Falcons reflected his personality; a brash, outspoken team that featured classic trash talkers such as wide receiver Andre Rison and cornerback Deion Sanders. Read the rest of this entry →

Beginning in 1933, the Green Bay Packers would play two or three home games in Milwaukee in an effort to draw extra revenue.

In 1955, the team almost moved to Milwaukee permanently unless the team built a new stadium in Green Bay to replace City Stadium which was seen by the NFL as too small and too inadequate.

Two years later, Lambeau Field opened in Green Bay but the team continued to play a few of its eight home games in Milwaukee at County Stadium, which was originally for the city baseball’s team at the time, the Milwaukee Braves.

But on October 12, 1994, Packers president Bob Harlan announced that starting with the 1995 season, the team would play all of its home games at Lambeau Field.

Two months later, the Packers played their final home game in Milwaukee against the Atlanta Falcons in a critical game for both teams and their chances for the postseason.

The Packers entered the game with a 7-7 record and needing to win their final two games of the season to make the playoffs for the second consecutive year.

Green Bay was in the third year of the Brett Favre era, as he became the team’s starting quarterback back in the fourth game of the 1992 season, the first season with Mike Holmgren as head coach.

The Packers finished that season with a  9-7 record, just missing the playoffs, but made it to the playoffs in 1993 with a 9-7 record where Green Bay defeated the Detroit Lions 28-24 in their NFC Wild Card game before being eliminated by the eventual world champion Dallas Cowboys the following round. Read the rest of this entry →

In 1978, the National Football League expanded not only its regular season from 14 to 16 games, but also its playoff format from eight teams to 10. With the inclusion of one extra playoff team per conference, a game between the two wild card teams would be played one week before the three divisional winners began their postseason.

Thus, the Wild Card playoff round was born and in the very first NFC Wild Card Game the Atlanta Falcons would host the Philadelphia Eagles in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

The Eagles were making their first postseason appearance since they won the NFL championship back in 1960.  Following that season, the Eagles went into freefall as the franchise had only two winning seasons from 1961-75.

After a 4-10 season in 1975, the Eagles hired UCLA head coach Dick Vermeil, whose team had just defeated #1 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, to the same position.

By his third season, Vermeil had turned the Eagles into a winner as the team finished with a 9-7 record to clinch one of the two NFC Wild Card spots for the team’s first playoff appearance in 18 years.

While the Eagles were returning to the postseason, the Atlanta Falcons were making their first foray into the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry →

William Andrews

The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Week burst on the NFL scene 30 years ago with two great performances to start his career and spent five seasons as an elite runner before a devastating injury ended his career.

The Atlanta Falcons found one of the gems of the 1979 NFL Draft when they selected William Andrews in the third round of the draft out of Auburn University.

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