Sports Then and Now

The New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers have played some memorable playoff games over the last 30 years.

When the San Francisco 49ers and New York Giants meet for the NFC Championship on Sunday it will mark the eighth time the two squads have met in the playoffs and second time with the Super Bowl on the line.

Given that these two squads have a combined total of eight Lombardi Trophies, it is hard to believe that when they first met in the playoffs thirty years ago, neither team had ever made a Super Bowl appearance.

In the first playoff game of the Joe Montana and Bill Walsh era, the 49ers jumped out to a 24-10 halftime lead and went on to register a 38-24 victory. They would go on to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XVI.

That game proved to be the first of five playoff meetings over the next decade.

The 49ers claimed the second matchup three years later with a 21-10 victory on their way to their second Super Bowl title.

However, the tide would soon turn as the Giants won 17-3 in 1985 and then in 1986 completely demolished the 49ers 44-3 on their way to their first Super Bowl title.

The two teams would not meet again in the playoffs until the 1990 season and for the first time they were playing in the NFC title game.

San Francisco was shooting for a third straight Super Bowl title, but in what would prove to be his final playoff start as a member of the 49ers, Joe Montana suffered a huge hit from defensive end Leonard Marshall that knocked him out of the game for nearly two years.

The 49ers led the game 13-6 in the second half, but three Matt Bahr field goals, including the game winner following a Roger Craig fumble, allowed the Giants to steal a 15-13 victory and end the dreams of a third straight Super Bowl for the 49ers.

New York went on to defeat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 to win their second Super Bowl under head coach Bill Parcells. Read the rest of this entry →

The 1984 San Francisco 49ers are considered one of the greatest teams of the Super Bowl era as they went 18-1 and won the second of four Super Bowl titles in the 1980s.

But the 49ers’ chances of immortality of joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only undefeated Super Bowl champions were shattered in the seventh game of the season when they were stunned by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The 49ers were still led by head coach Bill Walsh and quarterback Joe Montana and their famous West Coast Offense, but it was the San Francisco defense that had been the major reason for their 6-0 start.

After allowing a combined 78 points in their first three games, the 49ers defense allowed only one offensive touchdown in the next three games and forced eleven turnovers.

While the 49ers entered their game with the Steelers riding high, Pittsburgh were coming off a humiliating 31-7 loss to the Miami Dolphins at home.
Pittsburgh was 3-3 under head coach Chuck Noll, who was in his 16th season as the Steelers’ head coach.

While they still had veterans John Stallworth, Jack Lambert, Donnie Shell, and Mike Webster, from the team’s glory days of the 1970s, the Steelers were no longer the dominant team in the NFL as they had not won a playoff game since their win in Super Bowl XIV against the Los Angeles Rams.

The Steelers traveled to San Francisco where they were double-digit underdogs and had backup quarterback Mark Malone in the starter role, filling in for David Woodley who was out with a concussion.

Needing to get off to a fast start, the Steelers received the opening kickoff and used their running game to put together a 12-play, 68-yard drive that ended with a two-yard touchdown run by Rich Erenberg that gave Pittsburgh the early lead at 7-0 midway through the opening quarter. Read the rest of this entry →

During the 1950s, the Detroit Lions were the elite team in the National Football League as they won three NFL championships between the years 1952 and 1957.

But following their 1957 NFL title, the Lions traded quarterback Bobby Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who was so angry about the transaction that he allegedly said that the Lions would not win for 50 years.

For the next 25 years, the Lions did not win as they made the playoffs only twice in 1970 and 1982, with the latter coming because the NFL expanded the playoffs to 16 teams following the strike-shortened season.

But in 1983, Detroit fans were hopeful as the Lions won their first division title since the 1957 season as they won the NFC Central Division title despite a 9-7 record.

The Lions were coached by Monte Clark, who was in his sixth season as the Detroit head coach, after a seven-year stint as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in which the team won three NFC West titles.

Detroit won the NFC Central in 1983 because of their stingy defense which allowed the second fewest points during the regular season and all-pro running back Billy Sims, who had gained over 1,000 yards for the third time since he was taken as the #1 overall pick of the 1980 Draft.

The Lions’ opponent in their 1983 NFC Divisional Playoff would be the San Francisco 49ers, who were two years removed from their Super Bowl championship season.

The 49ers struggled in their defense of their Super Bowl title as they went 3-6 in the 1982 season and failed to make the expanded playoffs because of their 28th ranked rushing offense.

Needing to bolster the running game to help quarterback Joe Montana, the 49ers used their first round pick in the NFL Draft to select Nebraska’s Roger Craig and acquired Wendell Tyler from the Los Angeles Rams. Read the rest of this entry →

Aaron Rodgers didn't have just one great game, his play throughout the Playoffs lifted Green Bay to the title.

With his MVP performance in Super Bowl XLV, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has just completed on of the finest postseason runs in NFL history.

In light of this accomplishment and recent articles about the greatest individual performances in NFL playoff and Super Bowl history, here are the 10 greatest performances over the course of a single postseason in NFL history.

10. Thurman Thomas-1990 Buffalo Bills
Thomas showed his versatility as he gained 544 yards of total offense in three games during the Bills’ first of four runs to the Super Bowl.

Thomas run for more than 100 yards in all three games, rushing for 390 yards on 72 carries and scored four touchdowns, to go along with 13 catches for 154 yards.

But Buffalo fell short of winning the Super Bowl as Scott Norwood missed his potential game-winning field goal against the New York Giants.

9. Kurt Warner-1999 St. Louis Rams
The former grocery clerk completed his Cinderella season as he became the first quarterback as Warner completed 77 of 121 passes for 1, 063 yards, 414 of those yards coming in Super Bowl XXXIV, and threw eight touchdown passes, including the game-winning touchdown passes in the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl, to lead the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl title after nine non-winning seasons for the franchise. Read the rest of this entry →

Steve Young's performance in Super Bowl XXIX was masterful.

Welcome to the fifth and final installment of the 50 Greatest Individual Performances in Super Bowl History.

This is the best of the best, the top ten Super Bowl performances of all time:

10. Terrell Davis-Running Back, Denver Broncos, XXXII
Davis put the Broncos on his back and led his team as well as quarterback John Elway to their first Super Bowl title.

Davis carried the ball 30 times and gained 157 yards as he scored three touchdowns, including the game-winning touchdown with 1:45 left as Denver shocked the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers 31-24.

Davis was chosen as the game’s MVP despite missing the entire second quarter with a migraine headache.

9. Joe Montana-Quarterback, San Francisco 49ers, XIX
In a much-hyped showdown with Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, it was Montana who stole the show.

The 49ers quarterback completed 24 of 35 passes for 331 yards, a Super Bowl record at the time, and threw three touchdown passes, to comply a 127.2 quarterback rating.

Montana also ran for 59 yards on five carries, a Super Bowl record for most rushing yards by a quarterback until Steve McNair in XXXIV, and ran for one touchdown.

In all, Montana totaled 390 yards of total offense and four touchdowns to win his second Super Bowl MVP in San Francisco’s 38-16 win over the Miami Dolphins.

Read the rest of this entry →

Where does Brett Favre rank among the top quarterbacks in NFL history?

Now that it appears Brett Favre’s 20-year NFL career is finally in its last stages, it provides an opportunity to analyze where the gunslinger ranks among the best quarterbacks in NFL history.

There have been many superstar quarterbacks who fall short when selecting the all-time greats because while they may have posted excellent career numbers, they never measurably made their team better.

The best quarterbacks make an average team good, a good team great and a great team into a champion.

Trying to analyze the value Favre brought to the Packers and recently to the Jets and Vikings can be challenging. Given his tendency for risk taking and the subsequent risk-reward results, did Favre make average teams perform at a higher level than they would have otherwise or did he make key mistakes at inopportune times that kept great Packer and Vikings teams from going as far as they maybe would have had he not been such a gunslinger?

During his 19 years as a starting quarterback, Favre has led his team to at least eight victories 17 times and to double digit win totals 10 times. However, Favre has a 2-3 record in NFC Championship Games and late interceptions cost his team in each of his last two trips to the conference title game.

Favre will retire as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, pass attempts, pass completions, touchdown passes, passes intercepted and times sacked. However, he ranks only 17th in completion percentage and 21st in passer rating. So, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between how great he has been and how many of his records are purely a result of his longevity.

Since the game of football and the quarterback position have evolved so dramatically from the early days of the NFL, for the purpose of creating this list, I have included quarterbacks whose primary careers occurred after 1955. There is no question that Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham and Sid Luckman deserve to be recognized as among the best quarterbacks of all-time, but to try and thoughtfully compare their careers to those of today’s stars in virtually impossible.

Because quarterback stats have increased so dramatically even during the last 55 years, using just single season or career stats to analyze all-time greatness isn’t really an accurate assessment of where a player ranks among the best of all-time. Other qualities such as team success, comparison to others from that particular era and quality of the skill position players around the quarterback also can be used to chronicle success.

Below is my take on the top 10 quarterbacks in NFL history. In general, the selections are not significantly different than those listed in many other all-time quarterback lists.  Rather, there are some differences in my order than on other lists. If you have an opinion, please feel free to provide your own top 10. Read the rest of this entry →