The 1989 Los Angeles Rams Reach The NFC Championship Game
The passing of Jim Everett and the running of Greg Bell took the Rams into the postseason and produced two road playoff wins. Read the game-by-game narrative.
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1989 Kansas City Chiefs: The Schottenheimer Era Begins
The 1989 Kansas City Chiefs began the Marty Schottenheimer Era of franchise history. The Chiefs had been an irrelevant franchise for nearly two decades, with only a lone playoff appearance in 1986 to show for their efforts in that timeframe. Schottenheimer’s first team established a clear team identity, nearly snuck into the playoffs and set […]
The Dashed Hopes Of The 1989 Philadelphia Eagles
Buddy Ryan looked like he had the Philadelphia Eagles coming around after a breakthrough NFC East title in 1988. They spent much of the following season looking ready to keep building on that success before some late disappointment ended the season and proved to be a harbinger of things to come. Here are the highlights […]
The 1989 New York Giants Return To The Top Of The NFC East
Since winning the Super Bowl in 1986, Bill Parcells and the Giants had gone through some tough times. The strike-torn season of 1987 was a disaster for Big Blue. 1988 saw some recovery, but a crushing loss to the Jets in the finale cost the Giants a playoff berth. They needed to get back into […]
The Highs & Lows Of The 1989 Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins were on relative hard times for the Don Shula era coming into 1989. They had missed the playoffs each of the previous three years, bottoming out with a 6-10 finish in 1988. The ‘89 team got back into contention and even though they ultimately came up short, set the stage for another […]
1989 Minnesota Vikings: A Bold Move Doesn’t Deliver
The 1989 Minnesota Vikings were a team looking to get over the hump. In 1987 and 1988 they had been a solid playoff team and were widely considered to have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL. They did everything they could to reach the final plateau, including a midseason trade that lives […]
The Stunning Collapse Of The 1989 Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears of Mike Ditka were as good as it got in the NFL from 1984-88. In that five-year stretch they won the NFC Central each year. They played in three NFC Championship Games, including 1988. And their 1985 Super Bowl championship team was one of the most iconic squads of its generation. That’s […]
The Magical Run Of The 1989 Green Bay Packers
An entire generation of NFL fans have grown up with the Green Bay Packers as a benchmark of success, with great quarterbacks from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers leading the way. But it wasn’t that way in the world of the late 1980s. The 1989 Green Bay Packers were the heirs to a recent franchise […]
Raymond Berry’s Last Year: The 1989 New England Patriots
In the days before Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, even before Bill Parcells and Drew Bledsoe, the expectations for the New England Patriots were a lot more modest. Raymond Berry had taken the franchise to what was then its heights in the late 1980s. They reached the Super Bowl in 1985, won an AFC East […]
Highlights Of The 1989 NFL Playoffs
The 1989 NFL playoffs marked the definitive statement that the San Francisco 49ers were the team of the 1980s. The 49ers won their fourth Super Bowl and did it with the great playoff runs in the history of any sport. Here are the key highlights from that postseason. *San Francisco demolished Minnesota, the Los Angeles […]
The Rise & Fall Of The 1989 Cincinnati Bengals
The 1989 Cincinnati Bengals came into the season looking to finish the job, after losing the previous year’s Super Bowl in the final minute to the San Francisco 49ers. Instead, the Bengals went through and up-and-down year that ended up just short of the playoffs. Boomer Esiason was coming off his MVP season of 1988 […]
Best Final Four Games Ever: Seven To Remember
Final Four Saturday was a good one, with both games coming down to the final minute. I don’t know that either game reaches the absolute top rung of best Final Four games ever—both Gonzaga and North Carolina seemed in control for extended stretches before it suddenly got close. But two games being extremely compelling did […]