Sports74 Gold: NFL 1974

The mid-'70s may have been an era of labor strife, but not enough to interfere with a lot of gridiron action.

Super Bowl IX is the Pittsburgh Steelers' first Super Bowl victory; the AFC champs defeat the NFC champion Minnesota Vikings 16-6. Franco Harris is the game's MVP with 158 yards on 34 rushes, including the first touchdown.

The game gets a rating of 42.3 and a share of 78. An estimated 29.44 million households watch the game on NBC television Jan. 12, 1975.

It is the first Super Bowl in which a safety is made. Fran Tarkenton is sacked in the second quarter to give the Steelers the first points of the game.

These playoffs are the third in a row in which the Steelers and Oakland Raiders meet and the first of three consecutive playoff years in which the two teams play for the AFC championship.

What will be remembered as the game of the season is the Dec. 21 divisional playoff contest between the Raiders and the Miami Dolphins. The fourth-quarter play that wins the game for Oakland is a catch that running back Clarence Davis makes despite the Dolphin coverage that will go down in history as "The Sea of Hands."

The MVP according to the AP (and in the players' vote for the Jim Thorpe Trophy) is Raiders QB Ken Stabler, who leads the league with 26 touchdown passes.

The UPI Coach of the Year for the NFC is second-year St. Louis Cardinals coach Don Coryell, who improved his team from a 4-9-1 record to a 10-6 record. For the AFC, it's Sid Gillman, who led the Houston Oilers from a 1-13 record that even his skills couldn't prevent to a 7-7 record in his coaching swan song.

Los Angeles Rams DT Merlin Olsen, a 13-year veteran, wins the Bert Bell Trophy for MVP, presented by the Maxwell Club of Philadelphia.

The AP names Steelers DT Joe Greene Defensive Player of the Year and gives teammate Jack Lambert, a linebacker, the honor of Defensive Rookie of the Year.

San Diego Chargers running back Don Woods wins awards from UPI as AFC Rookie of the Year, from the AP as Offensive Rookie of the Year, and from the Newspaper Enterprise Association as overall Rookie of the Year. Woods has 1,162 rushing yards, second-best in the NFL, and 10 touchdowns for rushing and receiving combined. UPI's NFC Rookie of the Year is New York Giants offensive guard John Hicks.

Chuck Foreman of the Vikings is the NFC Player of the Year according to The Sporting News. He has 777 yards on 199 rushes, 586 yards on 53 receptions, and a league-best 15 touchdowns combined on runs and catches.

UPI's NFC Player of the Year is Jim Hart, the Cardinal QB. The undisputed all-NFC signal caller, he leads two game-winning drives, and he passes for 2,411 yards and 20 touchdowns, but he also throws eight interceptions, or a league-high 2.1 percent of his pass attempts.

Washington Redskins quarterback and five-time Pro Bowler Sonny Jurgensen plays his last season and leads the NFC in passer rating with 94.5. His final TD is in the Skins' regular-season finale against the Bears, and he goes 6 for 12 with three interceptions in Washington's playoff loss to the Rams.

The leading rusher in the AFC -- and the league -- is the Denver Broncos' Otis Armstrong with 1,407 yards. In the two years before and the two years after, that is Buffalo Bills back O.J. Simpson's honor.

Besides Armstrong, Harris, Simpson, and Woods, Larry McCutcheon of the Rams is also a thousand-yard rusher, the NFC's only one.

This time, Ken Anderson of the Cincinnati Bengals is the leader in quarterback rating with a mark of 95.7, which is 1.2 better than Stabler's.

The Baltimore Colts' Lydell Mitchell rushes a record 40 times Oct. 20 in a 35-20 Colts win at Shea Stadium against the New York Jets. Mitchell has 72 receptions this year, a record for a running back thus far and the leading figure for any player in the season.

Emmitt Thomas of the Kansas City Chiefs is the first since 1964 to get 12 interceptions in a season. By the way, those INT's go for 214 yards.

An NFL franchise for Tampa is awarded April 24, and Seattle joins that city June 5. The latter could have been the Seattle Kings, whose ownership group felt it was guaranteed the franchise and promoted it greatly, but the $16 million fee and the labor dispute are factors leading the group to concede to Seattle Professional Football, a more local group of owners, which gets the franchise Dec. 5.

A six-week NFLPA strike precludes the Chicago College All-Star Game -- an event in which the Dolphins as reigning champs would have played college all-stars, one that will only be held twice more -- but no regular-season games are canceled or delayed. The point of contention is free agency, and the slogan is "no freedom, no football." The union gets back to work before the season starts.

This dispute will be settled by a federal ruling Dec. 20 that by one contemporary account puts "the game's structure in doubt," ultimately ushering in free agency. District Court judge William T. Sweigert rules in the Joe Kapp case that a team signing someone who has played out his option is not obligated to compensate the team losing that player, striking down a rule (named for Commissioner Pete Rozelle) that had been in standard contracts.

This is the first season in which games outside of the playoffs can go to sudden-death overtime. This might be prompted by the use of overtime in the WFL.

Among other rule changes possibly influenced by the WFL's rules: the moving of the goalposts to behind the end zone, kickoffs from the 35-yard line, and a new rule for missed field goals.

The Giants play at the Yale Bowl again this year. They will play at Shea Stadium, also home of the Jets, in 1975.

With the first pick in the '74 NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys get Ed "Too Tall" Jones, a 6-foot-9 Tennessee State defensive end.

Throughout the season, the Dolphins maintain their home winning streak, which started in 1971, and extend it to 27 games. That's where the streak will be left when they lose their first regular-season home game in '75.

On Oct. 13, Dennis Morgan of the Cowboys returns a Cardinals punt for a 98-yard touchdown. He is the third player to do so for that many yards, and no one will go longer until 1994.

Mack Herron of the New England Patriots breaks Gale Sayers's single-season record of 2,440 all-purpose yards in a season by accumulating 824 running, 474 receiving, and 1,146 returning. The new record, four better than Sayers', will last one year.

Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw only plays eight regular-season games. He is, however, the starter for all three playoff games, and as such he is credited with the fourth-quarter comeback and game-winning drive against the Raiders. His time to shine, though, will be '75.

With 2,598 passing yards, Tarkenton gets ahead of Y.A. Tittle (33,070) on the all-time list. His 35,846 career yards are at this time second only to the figure put up by Johnny Unitas.

Cowboys QB Roger Staubach's .528 completion percentage is, and will be, his personal worst for a season of 200 attempts or more.

Jets QB Joe Namath has 20 touchdown passes, a high level he hadn't reached since 1967. Also, 22 of his passes are intercepted.

Harris, a third-year player who was the consensus Rookie of the Year in '72, has 1,006 yards on 208 carries. He scores five rushing touchdowns in the regular season and six in the playoffs.

After four games with the Chiefs, future Hall of Fame DT Curley Culp is traded to the Oilers.

Norm Van Brocklin's time as Falcons sideline general, which is in its seventh year, comes to an end Nov. 5.

Ron Smith of the Raiders finishes a ten-year career with 6,922 yards returning 275 kickoffs. Billy Johnson of the Oilers begins a fifteen-year career of returning 282 punts for 3,317 yards.

Raiders kicker George Blanda, who reaches the age of 47 early in the season, plays his next-to-last year and wins the Man of the Year Award.

Far from being Man of the Year is Conrad Dobler, Cardinals offensive guard, who wears a cast on his left arm that he uses to strike opponents. This is in addition to the kicking and biting that opponents have come to expect after two seasons.

Speaking of meanness: In one of the Steelers' two meetings with the Bengals, Pat Matson, Cincinnati offensive guard, tries to limp off the field, but Greene approaches him and urges him to stay on the gridiron.

During the strike and a soccer-style kicker fad, Sal Casola is drafted by the Bills and gets cut. He lands a spot on the Chiefs, but he decides the NFL's not for him and gets his brother to assume his identity. John Casola looks different, as Bills head coach Lou Saban notices Aug. 12, and Saban tells his opponent, Hank Stram, about it before the preseason game. Saban's amused and Stram isn't. The Chiefs' head coach has to wait until the half to end this short non-career.

In his third year as Colts owner and with a reputation for being meddlesome, Robert Irsay (during the Sept. 29 game against the Philadelphia Eagles) tells Howard Schnellenberger that quarterback Bert Jones should be put in. The coach doesn't comply, so Irsay fires him.

At halftime of the Nov. 17 game in Miami, Simpson encourages his fellow Bills to play a more physical game to hinder the Dolphins later on in the division race. On the second play, he taunts linebacker Nick Buoniconti and winds up having to limp off the field. With Simpson ineffective for the rest of the game, Buffalo loses 35-28.

In the week leading up to the Super Bowl, Lance Rentzel and Fred Dryer, members of the NFC runner-up Rams, pose as reporters, complete with old-time clothing, and try to be funny. "Do you think the zone defense is here to stay," Rentzel asks Steelers head coach Chuck Noll, "and if not, where'd it go?"

Besides Lambert and Swann, other future Hall of Famers making their debut this year are Raiders TE Dave Casper, Steelers WR John Stallworth, Steelers center Mike Webster, and Steelers defensive back Donnie Shell.

Besides Jurgensen, other retiring players this year include future Hall of Famers Bobby Bell, Deacon Jones, Bob Lilly, Jim Otto, and Dave Robinson. Coaching for his final year is another man to be enshrined at Canton, Sid Gillman.

One of the latest Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees is tackle and place-kicker Lou Groza. Another is defensive halfback and cornerback "Night Train" Lane. The rest of the class consists of two-way back Tony Canadeo and linebacker Bill George.

Roy Blount's About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, a.k.a. About Three Bricks Shy... and the Load Filled Up, is published. This is an acclaimed book about the '73 Steelers.

Former cornerback and current blaxploitation star Fred Williamson has a short-lived gig joining Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football. Former Detroit Lions DT Alex Karras replaces Williamson on the program early in the season.

The NFL is reportedly intent on organizing a six-team league in Europe starting in 1975. That will come to pass in 1995.

Jack Kent Cooke becomes the majority stockholder of the Redskins after the last of deceased founder George Preston Marshall's stock is retired.

After her breast-cancer surgery in late September, the Redskins present first lady Betty Ford with a football.

The Raiders' Bubba Smith, in his second year away from the Colts organization, sues for the incident in Tampa two years before that led to him missing a full season (see NFL '73 entry). Official Ed Marion and the NFL are on the other side of a $2.5-million lawsuit, as is local man Robert Lastra, who had been hired to hold the first-down marker. One version of the story is that Smith hit the marker and Lastra didn't let go.

Ed Meadows, who as a Chicago Bears defensive tackle in 1956 was infamous for a late hit on Bobby Layne of the Lions, one that ignited an already hot discussion about football violence, shoots and ends it all Oct. 22. He was 42, and he had played for four teams over six years.

Don McCafferty, the Lions' head coach, dies of a heart attack July 28.

Does it feel a bit drafty? A selection of hockey events from the '74-75 season is coming Sept. 27.

[EDIT 5:59-6:02 a.m.: A couple of sources seem to differ with the account of Schnellenberger's firing. I am removing a few details that Football Hall of SHAME may have embellished.]

[EDIT 9-8, 11:32-33 p.m.: Changed font size.]

[EDITS 9-9, 9:28-9:50 a.m.: The Super Bowl was on NBC that time, not CBS. Also, made some adjustments.]