NFL Week 16: So we were talking about rules

Did they wear helmets?

 

Went to my first games in the early 70s with the Junior 49ers Minor Club, sponsored by Berkeley Farms milk (Farms, in Berkeley? Moooooo). Seats at Candlestick were behind the first base-side bullpen,or the south end zone, and vision was partially blocked by the rollaway stands.

 

Bad form posting this before the Monday night game.

Also, the Bears are going for a sweep of the NFC North? I'm quite certain that would come to a surprise to the Vikings, Packers and Lions, not to mention the Bears themselves.

 

My first game was a Saints-Chiefs preseason game in the Superdome in, I think, 1985. Went with my dad, cousin and uncle while we were visiting them in New Orleans.
I was 8 and don't remember much about it other than the Saints drove down for the winning touchdown in the last two minutes, my uncle wanted to bail at the two-minute warning to beat traffic despite the Saints having the ball, and my cousin being super pissed about my uncle wanting to leave early. Once the game was over and we did leave, cousin practically took off running for the car and was ranting all night about my uncle's tendency to arrive two hours early for anything yet wanting to leave an exciting football game early.
There was also a drunk guy who we all were surprised didn't die. Our seats were on the 50-yard line, about a dozen rows from the top of the Dome, and the stairs were almost vertical. They were hard to climb sober. This guy was drunk and trying to find his seat, and teetering to the point he was about to fall backward. He got to his seat, but if he had fallen he might not have stopped until he hit the field.

 

How preseason games used to be: the first game I ever attended was a Vikings-Bengals preseason game in 1976. The Vikings won on a late TD pass from Fran Tarkenton to Sammy White. Yes, a 36-year-old Fran Tarkenton was playing in the closing minutes, on a 93-degree day, of the fourth (out of six) preseason games that year.

 

I know my first game was at Three Rivers Stadium in the '70s, but I have no memory. I don't even know which game it was. My father insisted on bringing the entire family even though I was too young to understand what was going on and my mother had no interest at all in football.

The best was when she started taking books to the games. She would actually sit there and read. When my father protested, she said the other option was that she fall asleep.

 

My first game was at the Vet, but it was the Stars, not the Eagles. IIRC, it was their first home game ever, and they beat the N.J. Generals.

 

I saw my first pro football game on 9/15/62. AFL, not NFL.

Denver Broncos at Buffalo Bills - September 15th, 1962 | Pro-Football-Reference.com

My first baseball game was earlier that y ear.

Box Score of Game played on Saturday, April 21, 1962 at D.C. Stadium

Didn't see my first NBA or NHL game until the Braves and Sabres were formed in 1970.

 

I went to a Bills-Colts at Memorial Stadium in december in I am guessing 1977. Both teams were well out of it, and a friend had an extra ticket (I was in middle school).
No field was ever consistently bad as Memorial Stadium in december. Nothing but dirt and painted lines.

 

Breathless headline alert:

The most improved team ... ever? L.A.'s historic turnaround, and what's next

Barnwell: The Rams' stunning turnaround, and the 2018 worst-to-first candidates

This isn't even the most improved Rams team ever. They went from 4-12 in '98 to 13-3 and Super Bowl champs in '99.

 

I saw the Chicago Blitz at Soldier Field against the Birmingham Stallions before I saw a Bears game there. That would have been the 1990 opener against the Seahawks. Bears won in a shutout and Seattle scrapped the run-and-shoot afterward.

 

My dad, brothers and I went to almost every Stars home game ever played. It didn’t hurt that they were the premier USFL team and the Eagles were stuck in the Marion Campbell years. It wasn’t even close as to who was more fun to watch.