Help me out football historians: what was going on in football in the late 1960s?

[stirs]

6 minutes ago, panthers55 said:

I was a huge fan of Minnesota and the purple people eaters. Alan Page and Jim Marshall was my favorites on the DLine and of course Run for your life- Fran Tarkenton on offense. That was in the early to mid 60s. In 1967 and 1968, the amazing Joe Capp was the quarterback. Then Fran came back in the 70s and made a few Superbowl runs.But never won it.

Oh I remember, didn't know a thing about Tarkenton until he returned.  Then I knew every player, especially on the D.

Page, Larsen, Eller, Marshall

Winston, Siemon, Hilgenberg

Krause, N Bryant, J Bryant and I am missing a safety, could look it up but too lazy

I did my high school research paper on Fran Tarkenton.  UGA guy that wanted to play baseball but tore something in his arm and could no longer throw the baseball from his infield position. The tear did not effect his arm throwing football, and the rest is history

[panthers55]

15 minutes ago, Kevin Greene said:

The Super Bowl, NFC vs AFC started in 67 but whatever.

Now you do know Namath was drafted in 67 by the Cardinals and the Jets swooped in and grabbed him instead?

Yeah but like I said, until that year or Superbowl 1969, the NFL was really the only conference that anyone paid attention to unless you had an AFL team in your town. 

The fact that Namath was drafted  was news because he played for Alabama and Bear Bryant. The fact he went to the AFL instead of the NFL was considered a measure of his greed since he was signed to a unprecedented contract of 447000 and ushered in the beginning of bidding wars often for  players who were not worth the money the following year in 1966. That was followed by the NFL and AFL poaching one another's players and trying to sign players already under contract to one league or the other. The financial shenanigans led to the merger in 1970. Teams couldn't afford the competition while players loved it.

[stirs]

One analogy could be from the fans of the game then when people like Unitas and others defined the game, then, along came Namath and looked incredibly cocky, dressed pretty wild, etc.  Old school vs new kid.  Similar to Cam Newton vs old school. 

As far as your book goes, the GI's would have a lot of profanity laced conversations I am sure about Namath

[tiger7_88]

29 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

looks like they added the saints in 1967 too

The Falcons were added in 1965 (first season 1966) as well.

This doesn't work for 1968, but in 1969 the Saints kicker was Tom Dempsey.  He was notable for 2 reasons (1) he only had half of a right foot (his kicking foot... he had no toes on that foot) 

And (2) he kicked the longest field goal ever in the NFL (at that time) of 63 yards to beat the Detroit Lions (in 1970).  This record stood for 43 years until Matt Prater kicked a 64 yarder in 2013.  Plus, it is still the FG kicked from farthest away on the field (from the opposite 37 yard line) because at that time the goal post was still on the goal line.

Also, the 1963 winner of the Heisman Trophy, Roger Staubach, *still* had not started his career in the NFL, 1968 being his last year of active duty (Naval Academy graduates owed their country 5 years of active duty, so he was in the Navy from 1964-68).  He had been chosen in the 10th round of the 1964 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys and he finally reported to their training camp in 1969, on his way to a Hall of Fame career.  He did, however, use his Navy leave in 1968 participating in the Cowboy's rookie camp.

[Jimmy]

The Heidi Bowl

[Jump Zone]

CBS had the NFL games and NBC had the AFL games on Sunday. This was before Monday Night Football began, We were an NFL household but we would watch the late AFL games too. In the late '60s, the Packers dynasty was ending and strong Colts, Rams, and Vikings teams were on the upswing. The Raiders and Chiefs were good as well as Broadway Joe's Jets. Pro football was a long way from the TV rating monster it has become with NBC's willingness to switch from the Raiders-Jets game in progress to show  Heidi.

[Mr. Scot]

Here's what I can tell you of my earliest football memories:

The Cowboys, Steelers and Raiders were the teams that got the most talk. Even back then, in my uninformed youth, I still had the good sense to hate the Cowboys.

As I recall, most of the better teams were in the AFC by that time, though I could be wrong. There definitely wasn't parity like there is now. Some teams were always good while others always sucked.

There were only 28 teams and six divisions, so two divisions were short (AFC Central and NFC West I think). The Sunday games were on CBS and NBC. I preferred CBS. 

The now hated Falcons and Saints were mostly afterthoughts in the NFC West. New Orleans did have this really good QB named Manning though.

Joe Namath was popular, but he never really got back to the level of his Super Bowl year.

There was some guy named John Madden coaching the Raiders. He seemed a little crazy.

I was a big Rams fan. Loved guys like Lawrence McCutcheon, Fred Dryer, Jim and Jack Youngblood and John Cappelletti. I also remember this quarterback named Ron Jaworski but he went to the Eagles later. Mid 70s they got a kicker named Tom Dempsey who only had half a foot. I thought that was kinda cool.

Liked the Steelers too. Bradshaw, Swann, Franco and a lesser known guy named Rocky Bleier were cool on offense; Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Joe Greene on defense.

I remember hating the Vikings. I liked Tarkenton, but they beat my favored Rams in a heartbreaker so I despised the team. Particularly disliked a receiver named Sammy White who made a big play in that game.

Remember the first time I saw an ad for this new sensation called ABC Monday Night Football starring some guy named Howard Cosell. I thought I'd found the coolest thing ever. Threw a fit if anyone in my family wanted to watch something else.

There was no such thing as free agency, so you never lost your favorite players unless they got cut or traded. No sports channels either. I eagerly awaited the Tuesday newspapers so I could check the standings.

And I swear it seemed like nearly every team had a great quarterback.

Don't know how much those memories help, but maybe there's something you can use there.

[csx]

Mean Joe Green was drafted.....that's all I have.

[Mr Mojo Risin]

They actually played football in the 60's so there's that

[The Pieyed Piper]

Whole lotta drugs were done.

[Kevin Greene]

1 hour ago, panthers55 said:

Yeah but like I said, until that year or Superbowl 1969, the NFL was really the only conference that anyone paid attention to unless you had an AFL team in your town. 

The fact that Namath was drafted  was news because he played for Alabama and Bear Bryant. The fact he went to the AFL instead of the NFL was considered a measure of his greed since he was signed to a unprecedented contract of 447000 and ushered in the beginning of bidding wars often for  players who were not worth the money the following year in 1966. That was followed by the NFL and AFL poaching one another's players and trying to sign players already under contract to one league or the other. The financial shenanigans led to the merger in 1970. Teams couldn't afford the competition while players loved it.

Fug it's all Namath's fault.

Philly, I'd change your book.

[DaveThePanther2008]

3 hours ago, PhillyB said:

It's still the offseason so I feel comfortable posting this.

Simple question: what was going on in the NFL in the 1960s? Answers can include anything, from trivial poo between particular teams, player controversies, or whatever, or big stuff like major rule changes or team location changes. You name it. Tell me anything you got.

I'm writing a screenplay set in April 1968 and I need a group of guys to be having a conversation about football, which I will use as a way to provide exposition on their characters and situation, but I need some good anecdotes to turn into a narrative.

@Mr. Scot I'm counting on you!

I could see an excellent conversation about Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh moving from the NFL to the AFL which would turn to the NFC /AFC.  Those were the three old school NFL teams that were moved to the AFC(AFL) to even out the team once the merger was created. 

Or Just a conversation about the two leagues because the AFL really forced its way into the NFL.

[t96]

Jim Brown was a bad mother shut yo mouth even before Shaft came along.

[panthers55]

1 hour ago, Kevin Greene said:

Fug it's all Namath's fault.

Philly, I'd change your book.

What a stupid comment. No one said anything was Namaths fault. You must be related to be so defensive. But signing guys like Namath to the AFL in 1965 began the intense competition between the league's and legitimized the AFL especially when he later won the Super Bowl. It forced the NFL to take the AFL seriously as real competition.