Even though the guy who runs it seems to be some kind of a winger politically, I really love the blog “Dan Shaughnessy Watch”, dedicated to mocking Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy. Today’s excerpt (it requires no extra mocking) will warm the hearts of Steelers fans and make everyone else want to vomit:
The Steelers are football.
The Steelers are the NFL.
[…..]If you have been to Pittsburgh to watch the Steelers, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you’ve never been, maybe you’ve picked it up just by watching on TV. Pittsburgh is simply the cradle of the NFL.
The Steelers are about continuity, excellence, toughness, and tradition. They are football’s comfort food. You see the logo on the right side of the helmet and you know you are watching the NFL at its best.
KG
Reminds me of the slurping of St Louis Cardinals fans as the Best Fans In Baseball ™. But I suppose this is the nature of sports punditry.
jc
For the record, most of us from Boston think Shaughnessy’s a complete ass. I don’t need polling either. He’s considered an ass.
Yutsano
Jaysus H Christ on a Triscuit, please don’t show this column to my co-worker. He’s from Pennsylvania, thinks everything there is God’s gift to sport, and would go off for hours. Then again he’s a former Marine with hair down to the middle of his back, so he’s just interesting period.
Mark S.
The Steelers were arguably the L.A. Clippers of the NFL for the first 40 years of their existence. To call them the “cradle of the NFL” (whatever that means) is just ignorant.
Steve
“What I wouldn’t give right now to put my hands under Mike Webster’s butt just one more time.” –Terry Bradshaw
Susan Ross
Dan Shaughnessy’s only criteria for greatness in any sport is that the team not be one he covers regularly. He’s a provocateur, to say the least.
He does have Schilling’s number, though. I’ll give him that. one of the funniest columns I have ever read was him mercilessly mocking all the sycophants who at one time were spending every waking moment listening to Loudmouth pontificate over at his 38Pitches blog.
Kryptik
@Mark S.:
And the Raiders used to be one of the most consistently dominant teams in the NFL. History is funny the way it turns on dimes sometimes.
Remember, folks, the Islanders used to be a Dynasty once upon a time.
ricky
You see the Dallas Cowboys logo, on the other hand, and you think of creamy flesh and amplified tatas. All the comfort thoughts that make you think women admire you for being a couch potato while watching such manly sport. Admire you and will dance for you if only they were good looking enough.
asiangrrlMN
Ugh. Even if that were my team he were fapping, I would be nauseous.
Napoleon
Mark S – arguably? I would be amazed if over that period they were not overwhelmingly the worst team in the league.
As someone who lived in Canton, Ohio for years, home of one of the original league members the Canton Bulldogs, it especially galls me that he wold hold up a team that is not that close to being the oldest in the league. If any team could claim that it is the Bears.
Martin
Pittsburgh Exceptionalism!
Having lived in PA for some years, I never thought I’d see the day…
ricky
@Kryptik:
Dynasty was once in Denver. Gilligan was once the ultimate Islander.
Snayke
God the infatuation with the Steelers is awful.
Mark S.
@Napoleon:
Yeah, the Bears or maybe the Packers would get that distinction.
Trivia time: Which team besides the Bears has been in the NFL since its inception?
The Grand Panjandrum
If the Steelers had a Touchdown Jesus they would be the Notre Dame of the NFL.
Davis X. Machina
I think of the Packers, Bears, Browns, Steelers, pari passu. The Lions would get in there if they did anything, ever, in this geological epoch.
The NewYorkFootballGiants don’t get into that brain-space, and I’m not sure why. They’re old, they have the Mara family, Y.A. Tittle….
Sly
How that sounds to non-Steelers fans:
You may all commence vomiting.
Napoleon
Mark S,
I know its not the Packers, they entered a year later, and the Steelers and Lions were something like 10/12 years later. My gut tells me it is going to be a team that is not in its original city and original name but the best I can come up with is the Giants.
Yutsano
Is it bad form to bait your blog host so blatantly? Inquiring minds want to know!
Bostondreams
I will never forgive this red-headed schmuck for propagating that stupid ‘Curse of the Bambino’ nonsense. For my money, Bob Ryan was always a far superior columnist and sports reporter.
Mark S.
@Sly:
Fire Joe Morgan used to make fun of a guy they called Hatguy who wrote nothing except Yankee-worshiping columns. I could see him writing something like that.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
The curly haired boyfriend is one of the worst columnists in the country.
Mark S.
@Napoleon:
Yeah, they’ve moved around a bit.
Davis X. Machina
@Bostondreams: Bob Ryan wasn’t the wizard at self-promotion that Gammons, or Shaughnessy, turned out to be. Most of his stuff is still pretty good. When he took his first shot at TV, he turned the Celtics beat over to — Dan Shaughnessy.
Napoleon
As long as we are doing professional sports franchise trivia my favorite of all time is what two ABA teams that have never fielded a team in the NBA are none the less entitled to a cut of NBA revenues to this day, so in that sense are still active?
Jim C
@Sly:
It’s just as nauseating if you substitute Cardinals (and I say that as a Cardinals fan, KG), or Red Sox. (I’d say “or Cubs” as well, but then we’d just be being silly.) After all, what’s the metric?
I may be in a small subset, but I’ve never taken any sort of “fan pride” in being considered one of the “Best Fans.” I’ve never been able to find an online record of it, but I recall a column in the Chicago Tribune some ten years ago wherein the author recounted a recent trip to Wrigley Field. He was sitting right behind the opponents’ bullpen bench – so they were awfully nice seats – and after the game, one of the relief pitchers turned to them as he was leaving and complimented them on being “really good fans.” The author took such pride and self-congratulation from this that I was nauseated. Who cares what the visiting team thinks of your cheering?
scarshapedstar
Respectfully, I must rejoin with:
WHO DAT
Mousebumples
@Mark S.: As a Packer fan, I must begrudgingly credit both the Bears and the one-time Chicago Cardinals (then St. Louis Cardinals, and now the Arizona Cardinals) joined the NFL in 1920. The Packers, however, have been in existence since 1919 – however, they didn’t join what is now known as the NFL until 1921.
jay
@Mark S.: Not since the merger in 1970, which is when the modern league begins. 6 Super Bowls, 7 AFC championship wins (with 14 total appearances – both are records for AFC teams and Super Bowl wins is an NFL record), 19 division titles, 25 playoff berths, best win-loss record since the 1970 merger, 3 coaches since 1969. You’re telling me your NFL team wouldn’t trade for that consistency, for being a playoff contender year after year???
What everyone seems to be missing is the merger, which is the marker by which almost everyone judges the modern league. Yes, the old Monsters of the Midway (Chicago) and Packers were awesome. But since 1970…what have they done in the 40 years since the league merger???
Between 1933-1970 the Steelers were the lovable losers of professional football. But after 1970 they’ve been consistent decade after decade (even the lean years of the 1980’s weren’t terrible compared to the production of other franchises).
In other words, given what the old great franchises did before 1970 and have done since (not a lot), the Steelers have earned their place among them in regards to the overall history of the NFL.
It is, of course, hard to compare the two eras since the way the game is played is so different.
Jim C
@Napoleon:
It’s my understanding that only the Spirits of St. Louis are still entitled to tv money in perpetuity. John Y. Brown and his Louisville Colonels took the settlement money offered and ran.
Napoleon
Mark S, OK I cheated and looked it up so I will not say what the answer is and give someone else a chance, but like the Steelers and Clippers they are candidates for the ineptitude hall of fame.
TheYankeeApologist
I am a Yankees fan and thus completely biased, but Shaughnessy is the Hawk Harrelsson of sportswriting.
I am utterly gobsmacked that he has a job. Possibly the worst of all-time. I think he feels like he doesn’t earn his paycheck unless he’s taking the piss out of his own hometown team.
Napoleon
Jim C – you are a winner, although I had not heard that about the Kentucky Colonels. As of 10 years ago I had heard that both teams were entitled to something like .5% of TV revenues in perpetuity to merge into the NBA without fielding a team.
On a related matter it is just amazing how good the ABA teams and players did in those years following the merger.
Mousebumples
@Napoleon: I answered above, and I honestly thought the Packers were among the original founding teams of the NFL … until I visited the NFL Hall of Fame in canton maybe 6 years ago.
(Although I will concede to checking Wiki to confirm the origins of the Cardinals … I thought they founded as the St. Louis Cardinals, which was not accurate.)
Jim C
@Napoleon: My source is the fabulous Loose Balls by Terry Pluto – an oral history of the ABA, and one the best oral histories I’ve ever read.
From memory, Brown’s franchise was going to be stripped of its marquee player, Artis Gilmore. Again, if I recall correctly, Brown (the chicken magnate) took his buy-out money and bought the Buffalo Braves (soon to be the San Diego, and later the Los Angeles Clippers). The Spirits owners got their deal mainly because the NBA negotiators were sick of dealing with their persistence on every point, and didn’t foresee just how much money they were coughing up to buy them out.
Bill Murray
@Jim C: They were the Kentucky Colonels.
Terry Pluto’s book “Loose Balls” has lots of great Spirits of St. Louis stories featuring Marvin Barnes and/or Bob Costas. Costas once said “Coach MacKinney won’t want a repeat of Friday night’s blow job” during a radio broadcast. It’s probably a good thing few people drove and listened to the Spirits
Innocent Bystander
Say what you will about Dan’s sportswriting…he was a damn good whist partner in college.
Bill Murray
From wikipedia
In the end, the NBA agreed to take in four teams—but the Colonels weren’t among them. Although it has never been confirmed, it is likely that the NBA selected the Pacers over the Colonels because Indianapolis was a more lucrative market. However, the Colonels were on far stronger financial footing than the Pacers.
On July 17, 1976 the Kentucky Colonels ceased to exist as John Y. Brown, Jr. agreed to fold the Colonels in exchange for $3 million. Brown used the money to purchase the Buffalo Braves of the NBA.
The Colonels players were put into a dispersal draft. The Chicago Bulls took Artis Gilmore for $1.1 million. The Portland Trail Blazers took Maurice Lucas for $300,000. The Buffalo Braves took Bird Averitt for $125,000. The Indiana Pacers took Wil Jones for $50,000. The New York Nets took Jan Van Breda Kolff for $60,000. The San Antonio Spurs took Louie Dampier for $20,000.
In contrast to Brown receiving $3 million in cash for the Colonels, the Spirits of St. Louis’ owners received $2.2 million in cash along with a 1/7 share of each of the four remaining teams’ television income in perpetuity. That deal has been estimated to have generated over $250 million in the years since.
Mark S.
@Mousebumples:
You are correct, sir, and here is your Golden Internet, as well as a $0.50 coupon to Luby’s. I did not know that the Packers were formed in 1919.
@jay:
I’m not disputing that the Steelers have been the bomb for the last 40 years; I was taking exception to the notion that they are the cradle of the NFL when they were a mediocre franchise for their first 40 years.
Napoleon
Mousebumples – missed that, sorry.
Some more trivia that was triggered by something you say in your post, there is actually a professional football (in the American sense) team that is older then any of the teams you mention or any that has ever had an NFL franchise. What team is it?
cathyx
I don’t see a problem with that quote. Sounds about right.
Napoleon
Terry Pluto is a great sports writer. He has a new book coming out that was outtaked in today’s paper – didn’t look at it yet.
Bill Murray
@Napoleon: CFL is so unfair. Go TiCats. Garney Henley rulez
trollhattan
@Kryptik:
Yep. Here on the left coast I’m hipdeep in Raiders fans, or at least Raiders-garb-draped goobers, who have to be among the most clueless in sports. “What, they moved to LA?” Good thing for them Al’s a Geeeeenius.
Napoleon
Mouseb “I thought they founded as the St. Louis Cardinals, which was not accurate”
I want to kick myself because I actually knew they were an original team from Chicago. As of 10-12 years ago the Bidwells still owned at least one horse track in Chicago (hawthorne?).
Bill Murray
@Napoleon: Things I Learned from Watching the Browns?
PanAmerican
I got yer Steagle right here.
The Browns (and 49ers) came in 1950 after the AAFC collapsed.
Napoleon
Bill, CFL is correct but it is not the TiCats.
Napoleon
PS, though depending on how you view the TiCats history they are significantly older then any NFL franchise.
Tim F.
Whoo. I need a cigarette.
Napoleon
Pan, the Colts came in with them from the AAFC also.
Bill Murray
@Napoleon: and older than the next oldest team
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
Ok. Can anyone not from Canada name the original NHL teams? One of them is still playing.
D-boy
@Dougj
Do you read http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/
They do an excellent fisking of Peter King every week.
morzer
Tough comfort food?
Sounds like a frozen shit burger.
MikeJ
If we’re doing trivia, there’s a non-sports related game up at cleek’s place. Name that tune.
In the past, winners have always come back and added more answers as they got them over the course of the week. Don’t get down if you don’t know them all at first listen. Download them all and put them on repeat.
Cat Lady
The blog is kind of amusing, and everyone knows Dan Shaughnessy is sort of a douchey asshat, but of all the fuckery afoot, the fact that Roger Bournival devotes his life to parsing every word of a mediocre sports writer’s column says WAY more about Roger Bournival that it does about Shaughnessy. It makes total sense he’s a winger – he’s like that sad pathetic closet case Asst. DA in Michigan Andrew Shirvell. Makes you wonder what’s really motivating him.
Anyway, Charlie Pierce’s blog is the only must read.
Yutsano
@morzer:
White Castle, we hardly knew ye.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
Here are two questions about the American League:
Who was the last switch hitter to win the AL MVP?
(The last in MLB was Ken Caminiti in 1996.)
What American Leaguer hit his 100th home run at the youngest age?
(Youngest in MLB was Mel Ott.)
Chat Noir
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Detroit Red Wings
Chicago Blackhawks
New York Rangers
Boston Bruins
Toronto Maple Leafs
Montreal Canadiens
morzer
@Yutsano:
Made up of gristle, the intestines of missing dogs, random steroids they had lying around the plant, and with a generous helping of sperm from bored day-release convicts…. no, there really is no comparison between the Steelers and a White Castle abomination burger.
Bill Murray
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Vida Blue was the most recent switch hitting AL MVP
I’m going with Tony Conigliaro for the other
Bill Murray
@Chat Noir: not the original NHL — the canadiens are the remaining original. But there were like 3 other Montreal teams and the Ottawa Senators (not related to the current team)
JenJen
I just projectile-vomited. No, really.
MikeJ
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
I think we’ve all heard the rumours about A-rod’s personal life.
Napoleon
Chat, I know that the teams that are generally called the original 6 are not in fact the original 6. They are simple the teams left over after the early years when the league settled down into a long term stasis. The Canadians are the only team that was their at the start, but I have no idea who the teams were.
Ash Can
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
@Chat Noir:
The “one still playing” tipped me off, and I remembered some old names, so I cheated and looked it up:
Montreal Wanderers
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Arenas
and, of course, the
Montreal Canadiens
ETA: I suppose I have all the non-cheaters cursing me now. Sorry — I’m just no good at sports trivia games.
JenJen
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Damn, Chat Noir got to it first. But really, opinons like the one DougJ posted contribute heavily to me becoming more and more of an NHL fan by the day.
ETA: Oh, wait, I wouldn’t have gotten that right at all. Well done!! And good question!
ETA 2: And speaking of the Habs, Carey Price’s save in the 3rd period last night was epic.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Chat Noir: The others are correct. The “Original Six” era starts in 1942, when the last of the other teams folded. Others are close. The Canadiens are the only surviving original team, and they were all in Canada. The Ottawa Senators were one. The other two were the Montreal Wanderers and the Toronto Arenas.
@Bill Murray: You are correct on Conigliaro. Imagine the logjam in that outfield in 1975 if he hadn’t been beaned.
Edit: And Ash Can beat me to the answer.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@JenJen: I’m not sure which DougJ comment you are referring, but welcome aboard. Where do you live?
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
Since the NHL is the only major league in which the championship trophy is older than the league, it lends itself to another trivia question: What was the last non-NHL team to win the Cup, and when was it?
Bill Murray
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: I’m pretty sure Vida Blue is correct, although he didn’t win for his hitting abilities given his robust 0.294 OPS+. I played a lot of APBA back then and I definitely remember Vida as a switch hitter.
For hitters, probably Mickey Mantle was the last switch hitting MVP
morzer
Broncos 35 Chiefs 0, and about 6 minutes to play in the second quarter!
JenJen
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: Oh, sorry, awkwardly-worded, just meant the Steelers-drool in the OP. I’m not really feelin’ the NFL this year, but that probably has more to do with my hapless Bengals, and my fantasy team. I’m a sore loser.
Loving the NHL this year, though. The NHL Center Ice free preview on cable through October hooked me good.
ThresherK
If we don’t have an “old extant American football (in CFL) team” yet, I’m guessing the Toronto Argonauts. My memory (which may not be reliable) tells me that Ottawa Rough Riders were older yet, until the wrong guy bought them and ran them to ruin.
Bill Murray
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: I would say the Toronto Blueshirts in 1916, since this team was at the heart of the NHA becoming the NHL
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Bill Murray: Incorrect. You’re off by a decade.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
Alternatively, name the first US based team to win the Cup.
JenJen
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Then it’s gotta be the Victoria Cougars.
ETA: Oh, and when was it? Crap. 20’s, for sure but don’t know.
Andy K
@Mark S.:
The Cardinals, the club that actually predates the NFL itself.
Andy K
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Hmmm…..Portland Rosebuds or Seattle? I’ll go with Portland.
fasteddie9318
Gosh, sorry our team wins a lot more often than yours…
Napoleon
ThresherK, correct.
By the way, that is one reason it POs me that the NFL is rumored to want to move the Bills or start a new team in Toronto. It ought to be offered to a team like the them with all that history.
Andy K
Anyone else take note of the Byron “Whizzer” White mention in the Shaughnessy column? White was great at University of Colorado, but kinda meh with the Steelers.
Napoleon
That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal,
what is interesting about the Stanley Cup is that technically it is not awarded to the NHL champ, but to that years best hockey team. During the strike year(s?) there was talk about still awarding it to some other hockey team that was playing that year.
JenJen
@Napoleon: Been hearing a lot more about that Bills-moving-to-Toronto thing lately, mostly from my Canadian friends. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous, and wouldn’t it effectively kill off the Argonauts?
Yutsano
@JenJen: Not entirely certain why it would, since Canadian football is a different style from American. The real important question is why would Toronto WANT the Bills?
Andy K
@Napoleon:
Up until 1947 that would have been true. In ’47 there was an agreement reached between the NHL and the trustees of the Stanley Cup. Here’s a key point in the resolution:
The league neither dissolved nor terminated in ’94. Had the trustees of the Cup tried to award the Cup to a team from another league, the NHL would have sued their asses off.
On edit: I’m a bit off there. Forgot about the ’04-’05 fiasco.
Bill Murray
@Andy K: well White led the league in rushing 2 of his 3 years and was first team all pro both years. He missed a year during his Rhodes Scholarship between those two years then WW2 started. So it wasn’t exactly meh so much as abbreviated
JenJen
@Yutsano: Well, right, but it’s still easy to see a lot of Argos fans migrating over to the NFL what with all the hoopla and bells and whistles, plus the visiting teams. Because, as you said, the Bills are still a stinky rose by any other name.
(They did beat Detroit today, but c’mon now, that’s like out-running Oprah to the last piece of cheesecake.)
frosty
@Mark S.: “Cradle of the NFL”. That would be the Baltimore Colts, circa 1958.
That is all.
honus
@jay: I am of the age that remembers the Steelers as pathetic, but well-loved, and the Pirates as the, well, Steelers of the NL. Not always dominant, but they always hit you.
Yutsano
@JenJen:
I call foul. The stinky rose is a long standing and honorable seasoning. Comparing garlic to the Bills, well, that’s just mean. :)
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Andy K: It was the Seattle Metropolitans in 1917.
@JenJen: Correct. It was the 1924-25 Victoria Cougars.
@Napoleon: There’s some controversy about that. The Stanley Cup trustees gave control of the Cup to the NHL in 1947. According to the agreement, the NHL has the power to determine “the conditions for competition of the Stanley Cup, including the qualifications of challengers, the appointment of officials, the apportionment and distribution of all gate receipts, provided always that the winners of this trophy shall be the acknowledged World’s Professional Hockey Champions.”
So, the NHL has the authority to declare that only NHL teams can play for the Cup. During the 2004-05 lockout, some enterprising Canadian citizens filed a lawsuit claiming that the 1947 agreement was illegal and that control should return to the trustees. The dispute was resolved when the NHL declared that, if the league did not play in a given season, the Cup would be awarded to someone else. However, they still have the power to change their mind, though that would likely lead to another lawsuit.
If that were to happen, it would lead to an interesting situation. According to the original dictate written by the Lord Stanley of Preston, the Cup must be taken in a challenge. The NHL may get to write the rules for who is allowed to challenge for the Cup, but nowhere are they explicitly given the power to just take it back when the NHL starts playing again. If it ever happens, it will be interesting to see if, after the NHL playoffs, the winner must then go beat whichever team is holding it.
Napoleon
Andy K,
Then obviously the newspaper article I read on the subject was inaccurate. And yes it was during the 04-05 fiasco.
honus
@Bill Murray: Three words: Bullet Bill Dudley, to the Steelers via UVA (like James farrior and Heath Miller) He passed earlier this year. Look up his record.
Of course back in my day, the Steelers were mainly famous for cutting Pittsburgh native Johnny U. Then there was Steeler and Colt great Big Daddy Lipscomb who, when a doctor put on a rubber glove to give him a prostate exam said “Take that thing off, I’m a Catholic”
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
He played with the
SteelersPirates for one season- his rookie season, 1938. Pittsburgh went 2-9. Meh.joe from Lowell
Hey, props to the Rooneys. Good family.
PanAmerican
@Yutsano:
They don’t call ’em sliders for nothin’.
@Napoleon:
The Colts folded after 1950 and came back in 1953. You’ll never pass Eddie Simmons’ marriage test.
morzer
@Yutsano:
Not to mention that garlic is good for your arteries. The Bills, on the other hand….
Andy K
New trivia question:
Who was the first NFL running back to rush for more than 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons in the league?
Andy K
@PanAmerican:
Ah, but how well does Napoleon file an LP collection?
Bill Murray
@Andy K: John Brockington
Yutsano
@morzer: I love it when someone says to me they don’t like garlic. I then make it a point to go as garlic heavy as possible. Me gusta ajo. The Bills? Meh.
Bill Murray
@Andy K: but he did lead the league in rushing and was first team all pro. He also had 29 completions and threw 18 interceptions in 73 passing attempts, so he wasn’t all sweetness and light
dr. bloor
Complete with a sexual predator running the offense.
Ain’t that America…
Steeplejack
@Andy K:
Jim Brown, probably, off the top of my head.
morzer
@Steeplejack:
I thought he was under 1,000 yards rushing by a whisker in his first season?
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
Yeah, but you’ve got to ask why he led the league in rushing (sheer number of carries?) and what the All Pro selection process was like back in 1938. I contend that the sportswriters who made the selections back then just looked at the stats, but rarely saw the games that they weren’t covering live.
Oh, he scored all of three TDs that year. Yippee.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Yutsano: One of my mottos is, “Not enough garlic.” It’s appropriate to pretty much any situation.
Boy, the only good late games are the NFC West’s exhibitions of sub-mediocrity. The scores are close, because all four teams are just about equally bad.
Napoleon
Pan American,
Loved that movie, and I guess I must have just forgotten that about the Colts
Andy K
@Steeplejack:
Bill Murray got it right: It was my childhood idol, John Brockington of the Packers in ’71, ’72 (the Year of the Running Back) and ’73.
jeffreyw
Comfort food.
Steeplejack
@morzer:
Yeah, Brockington is correct. I thought it would have been earlier than the ’70s. Shorter seasons, though.
JenJen
@Yutsano: You win. I curse my awkward, unintentional turn of phrase!
Andy K
@Steeplejack:
Certainly one factor. I think the fact that the talent pool had been watered down by expansion over the years had something to do with the bigger stats, too.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Andy K:
I disagree with this. Not only are athletes bigger, faster and stronger than they used to be, but the US population has grown about as fast as the number of NFL teams. Football may not have the increased geographic draw from foreign countries that baseball, basketball and hockey have, but I’m confident that the talent pool is deeper than it has ever been.
Yutsano
@JenJen: As punishment for your sins, I condemn you to eating one whole roasted head of garlic. With crostini is acceptable as mitigation.
Napoleon
I think you are correct @117. At worse its the same, but more likely the talent pool is deeper.
JenJen
@Yutsano: The Crostini Rule! Thank you for invoking it. :-)
Bill Murray
@Andy K: actually he scored 4 rushing TDs which was second in the league. White did have ~15% more carries than anyone else, but had ~20% more yards. His 3.7 ypc was 7th in the league. He led the league in yards from scrimmage and all purpose yards.
The Pirates were really bad offensively, especially at passing. They were mid-league in rushing, although taking out Whizzer’s numbers they averaged about 2.8 ypc.
He was probably the 4th best tailback in the league out of 10, but easily the Pirates best offensive skill player.
Whizzer wasn’t the team’s best nickname, though — Scrapper Farrell, Tuffy Thompson, Bull Karcis, and Eggs Manske were all on that team
Andy K
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Not disagreeing that the population has developed physically, but that doesn’t mean that the the upper echelon of football players isn’t still better than the lower echelons. When you expand by four teams as the NFL and AFL did in 19666-1968 (Atlanta and Miami in ’66, New Orleans in ’67, Cincinnati in ’68), you’re adding 44 new starting positions on defense, as well as subs who are platooned in and out situationally (and, yes, I think this matters more on defense, where the players expend more energy chasing down plays). This causes a drop-off in depth around the league.
Andy K
@Andy K:
And it isn’t just the player talent pool that gets watered down: Coaching staffs get watered down, too.
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
Playing in the old single-wing offense, too, right?
Bill Murray
@Andy K: In addition to the talent pool argument not seeming correct, the structure of offensive football has really changed — teams averaged about twice as many rushes (414, 38/game) as passes (203, 18.5/game) in 1938 and there were no feature backs, who really didn’t come in until the 70s. Now teams average 500 passing attempts (31/game) and 440 rushes (27.5/game). White had ~40% of the Pirate rushes — I doubt any team had that low a percentage for their top rusher last year.
So 30-50% more games, and feature backs seems the best answers. Depending upon when you date the onset of feature backs, only about 10 of the top-100 and 3-4 of the top-50 are from before the feature back concept
Bill Murray
@Andy K: I assume so, Sammy Baugh was the top TB in 1938
Bill Murray
@Andy K: In baseball there seems to be a lag time where the standard of play is worse for a few years, but it recovers.
Also, football now gets a much higher percentage of the best athletes than the did before the 50s-60s.
John Cole
Look, I love Steeler worship, but the cradle of the NFL was Baltimore during the Unitas years. Period.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Andy K: You get talent dilution relative to what would have been without expansion, but you don’t get talent dilution relative to what the league was in the past. It isn’t just that the population is getting bigger and faster, it’s also becoming more numerous. There are discontinuities, since expansion has come in clumps, but the ratio of number of professional football teams to number of people in the US has remained remarkably constant. When the league was originally formed, it had 11 teams and the population was about 105,000,000. In 2010, there are slightly less than three times as many of both.
As I said, you get discontinuities, particular when the AFL got started in 1960. Overall, though, NFL teams have almost exactly as many people to select their players from as they always have. The talent pool was a little bit deeper than today in the 1950s (12 teams; 150,000,000 in 1950 census), somewhat shallower in the 1960s (23 teams including the AFL; 180,000,000 in 1960 census), somewhat shallower in the 1970s (26 teams; 203,000,000 in 1970 census), and pretty constant since 1980. Population growth has kept up. The talent pool is deeper now than it was in the 1970s.
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
The feature back idea seems to date back to the mid-to-late ’50s. I’m thinking Joe “The Jet” Perry with the ‘Niners, who, though he shared carries with backfield mate Hugh McIlhenny, wasn’t platooned in and out regularly. But the feature back idea was in full swing by the early ’60s, with Jim Brown in Cleveland and Jim Taylor in Green Bay leading the pack.
Interesting thing here: The position of middle linebacker was created by Tom Landry when he was still the defensive coordinator of the Giants. Before Landry’s 4-3 defense, the regular alignment was a 5-2. But to the point, Landry came up with the 4-3 scheme in order to stop Jim Brown.
And don’t you think it’s funny that the number of 2,00 yard rushers only doubled from 1 to 2 from Simpson to Dickerson while the number of pass attempts per game rose, but really shot up post-1995 expansion (J-Ville and Carolina that year, Cleveland/B-more in ’99, Houston in 2002)? You’d have thought the number of 2000 yard rushers wouldn’t have shot up incredibly with the rules that unleashed receivers from the bump and run coverages of the earlier ’70s, but as pass-happy as the league has become since the late ’80s, you’d think that the number of rushers who even get to 1,800 yards would have gone down since the ’95 expansions…but, alas…
Andy K
@John Cole:
No it wasn’t.
It just happened that the Colts beat the Giants in The Greatest Game Ever Played. Had the Giants won the coin flip and the game, would you say that NYC was the cradle of football?
I’m going with Cleveland in the early Paul Brown era as the cradle of modern pro football. But for the T Formation, Brown was responsible, directly or indirectly, for many of the innovations that make the modern game what it is. And look at the head coaches who either played for or coached under Brown: Shula, Noll, Walsh…And Landry made his name scheming against Brown and Brown and the Browns.
I’ll give western Pennsylvania credit for creating the first pro football teams- Catholic miners and steel mill workers have a lot of time on their hands after Sunday mass- but you can credit northern Ohio, northern Indiana and northern Illinois as well as southeast Michigan for breeding hard-nosed football players in the first half of the 20th century.
ricky
@Andy K:
I never knew you were such a young whipper snapper. I like John David Crow because his frozen facial features eloquently depicted the quintessential Aggie who had bitten of more than he could chew.
Bill Murray
@Andy K: well given that Perry never got over 45% of his teams carries. I think Taylor only exceeded 50% of his teams carries once. Brown was certainly a feature back, but really feature backs weren’t common until the 1970s,
Looking at how often the league leader averaged 20 carries a game as a rough standard, I get approximately
1932-1952 — 200+ carries — 7 of 26 seasons
1953-1972 — 240/280 carries — 9 of 30 seasons
1973-present — 280/320 carries — 33 of 35 seasons
Andy K
@ricky:
I never knew you were so old, Tex.
Funny, this conversation, because over at C&L my 45 years is considered young. Everyone who has worked at the site for more than a year is older than me except for Logan Murphy and Nicole Belle- but Nicole’s only a few weeks younger than me. Of the newer folks, I know that the delinquent Max Marginal, who’s still too busy touring with Ke$ha to post, is only 30 or 31, and your buddy Madrak and that whip-smart Karoli are both….How should I put this? Femmes d’une certain age.
And, btw, if you saw me you’d think I’m in my late 20s, so I win there!
Bill Murray
@Andy K:
I think you would only think that if you were either not being serious, making a strawman argument or knew nothing about football. Making passing easier means that defensive players are going to have more responsibility in pass coverage which in general is going to lead to less run defense focus and hence the feature back has a greater likelihood of gaining more yards. And of course 29 of the top 50 highest and 64 of the top 102 single season carries have happened in that time.
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
Hmmm…
And two of the best teams from that era- the ’73 Dolphins and the mid/late ’80s ‘Niners split the carries pretty evenly between their backs, iirc. But maybe I don’t rc that Craig/Rathman tandem.
Ah, okay, I was thinking of featured back meaning someone who was shuffled in and out regularly, as it had been in the ’30s and ’40s, when three or four backs would all get about equal time and carries.
Andy K
@Bill Murray:
The argument I hoped you’d make…So why not a huge uptick in rushing stats between the time the more modern pass defense rules were implemented in the ’70s and the next set of 2,000 yard runners in the late ’90s-00s? You’d think that, say, Earl Campbell, Marcus Allen, Walter Payton (imo, best football player I saw play- but Jim Brown had retired) or Billy Sims (in a healthy season) would have made legit runs at 2,000 yards.
Andy K
@Andy K:
Fixed.
S. cerevisiae
I met a cougar from Victoria once – ahh Michelle I hope you have done well.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Fixed.
Bill Murray
@Andy K: Because carries did not go up enough to get to 2000. You need 400 carries at 5 ypc to get to 2000; 363 carries at 5.5 ypc. 363+ carries are about 50% more common in the post 1995 era.
eta: Also, the changes were cumulative so the initial changes moved the typical high from ~1200 to ~1500 and then the next change moved this higher. The closer the average season is to the limit the more likely an exceptional season is to exceed your arbitrary limit
honus
@Yutsano: Read Marilyn Monroe’s stuffing recipe in the NYT today. Joe DiMaggio refused to eat garlic.
honus
@Andy K: yeah, no players from Western Pa. Unitas, Montana, Marino, Kelly, Namath. The toughest guy in Chicago is from Pittsburgh, Mike Ditka. Sam Huff is from jut down the road in Fairmont, and Jim Brown was from Long Island, but all the really tough players are from Indiana and Michigan.
ThresherK
@Napoleon: Moving the Bills from Buffalo would mean we could no longer call that locale “a drinking town with a football problem”.
If they want a name in Toronto that isn’t from a rowing club (!), I have an idea.
Andy K
@honus:
Butkus? Nitschke? Both from Chicago.