Yesterday, the NFL network broadcast Super Bowl VII, played January 14, 1973, between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Redskins. Miami won the game 14-7, thereby completing the only undefeated season in NFL history.
As a lifelong Dolphin fan (who wasn’t born when the game was played), I watched for a bit. Truth be told, it was a fairly boring game - it was the lowest scoring super bowl, with Miami’s defense dominating the whole time (Washington only scored when Miami’s kicker, Garo Yepremian, famously fumbled the ball after having a filed goal attempt blocked. If he had made it, Miami would have won the game 17-0 to finish a 17-0 season).
But, for a chance to compare the game as it was 41 years ago, to today, it was fascinating:
The broadcast featured none of the close ups a modern fan has come to expect. Considering it was the Super Bowl, you have to figure that there were more cameras in use then any other game during that time. Yet there were few isolation shots and no zoom in on players faces or expressions while they were on the field, which made the game seemed less intimate than it is today.
Of course, no Hi-Def cameras, either.
There were replays (which actually surprised me for some reason) and graphics, but both seemed antiquated. The graphics were rare (as opposed to ubiquitous) and limited to simple text appearing under a player. There was no announcer drawing on the screen during a replay. I missed innovations like the laser first down line and the scoreboard in the top corner of the screen. It was hard to know what down it was, or how many yards a play gained, unless Curt Gowdy told you.
Rule changes were evident. At one point, a Miami player fielded a punt just as he was hit. He fumbled, but Miami recovered. When it happened, I immediately said “penalty”, since the defender didn’t give the returner room to catch. In the 1972 season, though, that wasn’t a problem: no fair catch signal meant the returner was fair game. Also, refs didn’t have microphones to announce penalties (so those hand signals were really important). I also saw one of the refs call a penalty without first huddling with the other officials, which never happens today.
The passing games reminded me of how a 10 year old plays Madden football - drop back at least 7 steps and heave the ball downfield (both Bob Griese of Miami and Billy Kilmer of Washington did this). This was before the era of west coast football, and it showed. Passing was mainly about throwing downfield, and nobody had yet considered stretching the field from sideline to sideline with short passes that function like long handoffs.
The game moved really slowly, and offenses seemed much simpler. Nobody went in motion. There was no hurry up tempo. I don’t think these teams would have known how to handle the type of line adjustments and pressure that a modern offense would bring to bear.
There were a lot more white guys on the lines. They looked a lot smaller than players today, too. Good thing, too: The QBs looked downright puny.
Handoffs were more creative. Football was definitely more of a running game back then (at one point, Gowdy mentions that Kilmer tied Joe Namath for most TD passes that season - with 19! Granted, it was only a 14 game season, but that’s like a good 4 game stretch for Peyton Manning or Tom Brady), so both the halfback and the fullback (remember those!) was a viable option. I enjoyed seeing the quarterback sleight of hand that kept you guessing which running back took the handoff, and I’m disappointed that today’s teams don’t utilize this technique.
All in all, I enjoy today’s game, and viewing experience, so much better. And when people talk about how the game has gotten bigger and faster, I definitely believe it.
The short passing game (“West Coast offense”) really wasn’t possible until the rules on contact between receivers and defensive backs were changed for the 1978 season… as Wikipedia puts it:
The old contact rules definitely tilted the offenses towards running the ball rather than passing. 3 step drops, ha! Not in that era.
To see the difference the 1978 rule changes created, one can compare a the first two Steeler Super Bowls (IX & X) with the second two, XIII & XIV.
Rule 10, Section 1 [PDF] of the NFL rulebook says that “members of the kicking team are prohibited from interfering with any receiver making an attempt to catch the airborne kick, or from obstructing or hindering his path to the airborne kick, and regardless of whether any signal was given.”
The penalty for “interference with the opportunity to make a catch when a prior signal has not been made” is 15 yards from the spot of the foul.
In this game, there was no flag - if you wanted to not get hit while trying to make the catch, better call for a fair catch!
I also just remembered: In the game, the goalposts were at the front of the endzone. That always seemed ridiculously dangerous to me; I’m surprised more players didn’t collide with the goalposts while running plays.
It’s funny, though, I grew up in that era, and I always knew the down and yards to go. You just instinctively concentrated a lot more. Which was easier because there were fewer distractions–no remote controls, no temptation to flip channels between plays, no Ipad to diddle with during down time. Watching the game meant watching the game, dammit!
At least by then they had gone to the single support post recessed a couple of yards from the goal line. The double-support right on the goal line was even more dangerous. And yet, I don’t remember anybody getting hurt.
One thing you didn’t mention: I think in 1972-73 they still had the wider hash marks. That’s one thing I miss–having to adjust your play-calling to the horizontal position. And, the big slow sweeps developing to the wide side of the field.
The 1972 Season was the first season with narrowed hash marks.
Also forgot to mention the other major 1978 rule change that changed football down the line: offensive linemen were allowed to extend their arms and open their hands when blocking. Bet the defensive linemen hated that rule change!
Fred Dryer hated it… it damn near ended his career… Dryer complained about that in an interview with Roy Firestone where he basically said they legalized holding so they could get more scoring. I showed my son some Mel Blount highlights on youtube… he laughed his head off… he was shocked you could mug the receiver down the field…
The rules definitely favored more running, back then. After Joe Gibbs introduced the one-back offense with the Redskins ca. 1981, it caught on with the rest of the league pretty fast. (Didn’t hurt that the 1982 Redskins won Super Bowl 17 with that offense.) But it wouldn’t have worked so well before the rules changes of the late 1970s, because you really needed two RB’s to handle the load, and (as you mention) to decoy for each other, to a certain extent.
And of course, the main reason why that “quarterback sleight of hand that kept you guessing which running back took the handoff” has gone away, is that for the past 30 years, there’s almost always been only one RB in most backfields. Any sleight of hand is more in the category of ‘was there a handoff or not.’ I remember Theismann used to be very good at selling the nonexistent handoff.
Actually, the support pole was a couple of yards behind the back line of the end zone. But as you say, the crossbar itself was still over the goal line. Which was one of the reasons the game was so boring - a Kilmer pass that would have likely been a Redskins TD early on if the goalposts were as they are now, hit the crossbar instead, and there went the drive.
Not that that would have made the game really lively or anything*, but at least then, neither team would have ever been ahead by more than one score. So theoretically, the Redskins could have tied it up anytime, even after the Dolphins got their second TD.
Of course, with George Allen’s offense, that possibility was largely theoretical. The guy really didn’t like the forward pass, when you came right down to it.
*Totally in keeping with the first 20+ years of Super Bowls, very few of which were interesting unless (a) you had a strong rooting interest, and (b) your team was the one running up the score.
No kidding. I remember when they added the line of scrimmage graphic, I thought, “Well that’s stupid, I know where the line of scrimmage is!” Now, when I watch old games, I realize pretty quickly that I have no idea if a run went for 2 yards or 5 until the announcer says something. One used to just be in the habit of subconsciously making note before each play of where the line of scrimmage and the line to gain were, but it’s a skill that atrophies.