The Oakland Raiders were a regular part of the NFL elite, winning the Super Bowl in 1976 with John Madden at coach and Ken Stabler at quarterback. But they missed the playoffs in 1978, Madden’s final year, and again in 1979 under new coach Tom Flores. The 1980 Oakland Raiders made a major change, trading away Stabler, and they made an improbable run all the way back to the top of the NFL.
The 1980 San Diego Chargers may have been the best time in the franchise’s “Air Coryell” era, where head coach Don Coryell, with a big assist from offensive coordinator Joe Gibbs, produced an explosive offense on the cutting edge of the NFL’s relatively new pass-friendly rules. They went all-in to win the Super Bowl, but defensive problems cut the dream short.
The 1980 Dallas Cowboys represented a new era in franchise history. Legendary quarterback Roger Staubach retired after the 1979 season and Danny White took over. The long-time understudy proved he was more than capable of being the leading man, and even though White didn’t get the Cowboys back to the Super Bowl, they remained in the NFL elite.
The football-crazed city of Cleveland was hungry in 1980—maybe not starving, as is the case today—but the Browns were on a bit of a dry spell. After making the playoffs in 1971-72, Cleveland had been out of the money, while the rival Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls in that same timeframe. The 1980 Cleveland Browns returned to the playoffs and in memorable fashion, with a series of exciting wins that gave them the nickname “The Kardiac Kids”
Chuck Knox became head coach of the Buffalo Bills when they were coming off a 3-11 season in 1977. This was a franchise that had some good moments—three straight winning seasons, including one playoff trip, from 1973-75, with O.J. Simpson. They came within one game of reaching the first Super Bowl in 1966. The 1980 Buffalo Bills, Knox’s third team brought the postseason back to Buffalo, even if they couldn’t bring the Super Bowl.
The Atlanta Falcons have never won a Super Bowl and have only made it there once. That means there’s some heartbreak littered in the history of the franchise, and a prime example was the 1980 Atlanta Falcons. They earned the #1 seed and looked on their way to a playoff win before the rug was cut out from under them.
The Minnesota Vikings were in their second year of the post-Fran Tarkenton era in 1980. After making regular playoff appearances and four Super Bowl trips from 1969-78, the franchise slipped out of the postseason in the first year without the Hall of Famer. The 1980 Minnesota Vikings didn’t arrest the long-term decline of the team, but they did squeak back to the top of a weak NFC Central division.
Houston made a big trade in the offseason, swapping quarterbacks with the Oakland Raiders. The Oilers gave up Dan Pastorini in exchange for Ken Stabler. In the mid-1970s, Stabler had lost two straight AFC Championship Games to Pittsburgh before getting over the top against the Steelers in 1976 and winning in the Super Bowl. The Oilers wanted the veteran lefty to bring that same know-how to the rest of the time.
For better and for worse, the 1980 Los Angeles Rams were a team that returned to form. The Rams spent most of the 1970s as a good team that kept coming up short in the playoffs. In 1979 they became a mediocre team, but one that scraped into the postseason out of a weak division…and they somehow made the Super Bowl. Los Angeles was improved in 1980, going 11-5, but that was small consolation when they again lost in the playoffs.
The New England Patriots became a consistently good team in the latter half of the 1970s. They made the playoffs in 1976 and 1978, and had winning seasons in 1977 and 1979, a period that covered two head coaches, Chuck Fairbanks and Ron Erhardt. The 1980 New England Patriots continued the pattern of winning, but they also came up short of the postseason.
The 1980 Pittsburgh Steelers marked the end of one of the great dynasties in NFL history. The Steelers had won the Super Bowl in four of the previous six years, including both 1978 and 1979. Pittsburgh won the old AFC Central division each year from 1972-79 and at least reached the AFC Championship Game six times. In 1980, age caught up with the Steelers and the era came to an end
The loyal and passionate fan base of the Washington Redskins had endured frustration from 1977-79. All three seasons saw the Redskins be in position to make the playoffs on the final week of the season, only to come up short. The 1980 Washington Redskins solved the problem, but not in the way anyone wanted