Fran Tarkenton had the best regular season of his Hall of Fame career in 1975, when he won the MVP award. Did he deserve it? Who were the other contenders that year? Let’s break down the top finishers on the 1975 NFL MVP ballot: THE TOP THREE 1)Fran Tarkenton (QB, Minnesota)Completion Percentage: 64% (1st)Yards-Per-Attempt: 7.0 […]
In 1974, the Cardinals had ended a quarter-century drought that encompassed time spent in two cities, Chicago and St. Louis. They won a competitive NFC East, beating out good teams from Washington and Dallas. To show it was no fluke, the 1975 St. Louis Cardinals did it again. CORYELL’S OFFENSE TAKES FLIGHT Don Coryell was […]
Ray Meyer spent the early-to-mid 1970s gradually building the DePaul basketball program back into prominence at a time when Al McGuire’s Marquette and Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame teams ruled the roost for Catholic college hoops in the Midwest. The 1975 DePaul edition was getting closer—while they wouldn’t what make was then just a 32-team NCAA […]
Notre Dame basketball came into the 1975 season off a ’74 campaign that had marked a historic breakthrough. The breakthrough came from Digger Phelps, in his third season, getting to the NCAA Tournament for the first time and reaching the Sweet 16. The historic part came from ending the 88-game winning streak of John Wooden’s […]
The AFL’s merger with the NFL in 1970 had not been kind to the Houston Oilers. A franchise that had won the first two AFL titles in 1960-61, and contended consistently throughout the decade, fell on hard times after the merger. In the first five seasons of the 1970s, the Oilers went 16-52-2. But a […]
Paul Brown is one of professional football’s all-time legends. He built the Cleveland franchise over a 17-year stretch in the pre-Super Bowl era when he brought the city three NFL championships, and the team was named after him. A rift with owner Art Modell got him fired after the 1962 season. Brown stayed out of […]
Marquette was coming off a breakthrough Final Four appearance in 1974, but Al McGuire’s program had some rebuilding to do. Maurice Lucas, their great power forward, had left early for the NBA. The only senior starter, center Jerry Homan, didn’t average in double figures. The Warriors didn’t match their ’74 performance. But with the emergence […]
The Miami Dolphins came into 1975 as a dynasty, but also as a team facing significant transition. Under the leadership of Don Shula, the Dolphins were on a run of five straight AFC East titles. That included three trips to the Super Bowl and two championships, including a historic perfect season in 1972. They continued […]
The Baltimore Colts had been in a three-year funk. After winning the Super Bowl in 1970 and reaching the AFC Championship Game in 1971, the Colts had fallen hard. Over 1972-74, they went a combined 11-31. The front office started over. Ted Marchibroda came in as the head coach. Second-year quarterback Bert Jones came into […]
Is this the year the Bills make their Super Bowl breakthrough? Or is decline about to set in? Let’s take a look.
The early part of the 1970s had been difficult ones for legendary DePaul basketball coach Ray Meyer. A tenure that saw him turn out consistently good teams over a career that started during World War II, had gone sour. The Blue Demons had consecutive losing seasons in 1970 and 1971. Over the next two seasons, […]
Digger Phelps had Notre Dame basketball on the upswing coming into the 1974 college basketball season. While he inherited a program in 1972 that had just gone to consecutive Sweet 16s, every single notable player from those teams was gone. Starting from scratch, Phelps won just six games in his first year in South Bend. […]
