Sports Then and Now

The last game of the 1984 regular season for the St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Redskins had significant playoff implications as well as the potential for some NFL history.

The winner of the game would be crowned NFC East Champions and would host a divisional playoff game after first-round bye.

But the stakes were even higher for the 9-6 Cardinals because if they lost the game, they would not make the playoffs.

St. Louis had one of the most explosive offenses as the Cardinals scored 30 or more points seven times during the season thanks to quarterback Neil Lomax who entered the Redskins game having thrown for over 4,000 yards and wide receiver Roy Green, who as the league’s leader in receiving yards with 1,359 yards on 70 receptions and 10 touchdowns.

The Cardinals also had a flair for the dramatic as they pulled out three victories in the final ten seconds courtesy of kicker Neil O’ Donoghue who made game-winning field goals in those three wins, including a 21-yard field goal to give St. Louis a 26-24 win over the Redskins in Week 8 of the season.

While the Week 16 game was crucial for the Redskins, it was not deadly as they already secured a playoff spot with a loss to the Cardinals only meant they had to play in the NFC Wild Card Game the following weekend.

The Redskins got off to a slow start in the 1984 season as they lost their first two games of the season to start 0-2, but bounced back to win 10 of their next 13 games to enter the game with the Cardinals with a 10-5 record.

The Redskins were led by quarterback Joe Theismann and running back John Riggins, who had helped Washington, get to the previous two Super Bowls, but the Washington player with the best season in 1984 was wide receiver Art Monk.

Monk had been a solid receiver through his first four seasons with the Redskins, but in 1984 he took the league by storm as though 15 games of the season, he caught 95 passes for 1,236 yards and five touchdowns. Read the rest of this entry →

Dick Groat

The September Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month was a two sport collegiate standout who eventually settled on baseball and helped lead two teams to World Series titles.

As a college standout at Duke University, Dick Groat was a two-time All-American in baseball and basketball and was the collegiate Player of the Year in basketball as a senior in 1952 while averaging 25.2 points per game. His number was retired by Duke following the completion of his basketball career. Read the rest of this entry →

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.

Over the next few months, we will be going team-by-team and 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.

With only a few exceptions, we will be focusing primarily on players whose careers ended prior to 2000 to shine the spotlight on players from past generations.

We start with the Arizona Cardinals, a franchise that has been around since the beginning of the NFL, but has bounced between three different locations.

Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals

One of the original NFL teams, the Cardinals have enjoyed only intermittent success over the last 90+ years. They are also a franchise that has struggled to maintain a strong fan base as they originally played in Chicago before spending 28 years in St. Louis and now more than two decades in Arizona.

During that time, the Cardinals have won only two championships, the last in 1947 and appeared in one Super Bowl. However, there have been many great players who have worn the cardinal red, including 16 Hall of Fame players, 10 of which played a significant portion of their career with the Cardinals.

In addition to those Hall of Famers, many other great players have become fan favorites in Chicago, St. Louis or Arizona. Below are features on six players who all were valuable players during their time with the Cardinals. Read the rest of this entry →

Ottis Anderson

The Sports Then and Now Vintage Athlete of the Month for November is the only eligible member of the NFL’s prestigious 10,000-yard rushing club who is not a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Though Ottis Anderson put up Hall of Fame caliber numbers during his 14-year career and was MVP of Super Bowl XXV, he is often overlooked in discussions about the best running backs in NFL history. Read the rest of this entry →

In 1985 the Kansas City Royals took advantage of some amazing fortune to win the World Series title.

While it is just about impossible in today’s baseball landscape to imagine the Kansas City Royals being among the dominant teams in the game, that was indeed the case in the 1970s and 1980s when the Royals were perennial contenders. Their run of glory culminated 25 years ago when they claimed their one and only World Series title.

After entering the American League as an expansion franchise in 1969 (two years after the Kansas City Athletics left for Oakland), it took only three seasons for the Royals to post a winning campaign and in 1976 earned the first of three straight division titles under the guidance of future Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog.

Unfortunately, each season ended with an American League Championship loss to the New York Yankees.

After faltering slightly in 1979 and replacing Herzog with Jim Frey, the Royals won their fourth division title and again faced the Yankees in the post season in 1980.

This time, the Royals swept the Yankees and earned their first World Series appearance in only their 12th season. By comparison, it took the Texas Rangers (who entered the league as the expansion Washington Senators in 1961) 36 years to make a playoff appearance and 50 years to reach the World Series.

Though Kansas City lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, the core nucleus of players, including George Brett, Frank White and Willie Wilson was young enough that additional series appearances seemed likely.

However, the Royals in the early 1980s struggled slightly. After earning a playoff spot in the strike-shortened 1981 season despite having an overall losing record, the Royals didn’t again reach the playoffs until 1984 when they won the AL West with a pedestrian record of 84-78.

To no surprise, the Royals were swept in the playoffs by the Detroit Tigers.

By 1985 many recognized that the Royals, now under the guidance of manager Dick Howser, were reaching the end of their championship window. Read the rest of this entry →

Innovative head coach Don Coryell has passed away at the age of 85.

Sad news last night that former NFL coach Don Coryell has passed away at the age of 85. Though Coryell has yet to pass muster with the selection committee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his innovative career is certainly worthy of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, when Coryell finally gets the HOF bust he has deserved for more than 20 years, he will join other deserving former players and coaches including Bob Hayes, George Allen, Gene Hickerson and Hank Stram as Hall of Famers who waited way too long for enshrinement and either had passed away or where too ill to fully enjoy their moment in the sun when it finally came.

Coryell almost made it into the HOF this past February as he was named as a finalist for the first time since retiring from coaching in 1987. Unfortunately, the selection committee maintained their track record of bad decision making and chose to recognize Dick LeBeau and Russ Grimm instead of the deserving and ailing Coryell.

While LeBeau was a solid player with the Lions and has been a good defensive coordinator (though an awful head coach) and Grimm was a key member of the great Redskins offensive lines of the 1980s, neither had the same kind of impact on the NFL of today as Coryell.

Though the game had been played for more than 50 years when he became an NFL head coach, Don Coryell ultimately established a passing attack that was well beyond anything that had preceded it in league history. Read the rest of this entry →