Saturday, September 08, 2007

Are You Ready For Some (Classic) Football?

A full slate of NFL games is just one day away, and to help get you in the mood for all of the fun, I thought I'd point you in the direction of some classic video from the past.

Hurry, though. It's quite possible that these clips will be pulled from Youtube before you even get a chance to enjoy them. The NFL doesn't like having any of their precious clips available for public consumption. Heaven forbid. So watch these before they go away.

The clips come from someone named WIICTVFAN, a Pittsburgh sports fan apparently. He's posted complete Super Bowl footage as the games actually aired. This is priceless stuff!

We're talking Super Bowls IX, X, XIII, and XIV, plus the 1978 AFC Championship game as well. There's even footage of the last Stanley Cup Finals game the Blackhawks played in, the deciding game four loss at home to Pittsburgh in 1992 -- a game I attended.

Rather than try to link every single game, etc., just go to this dude's video page, and you can figure out the rest.

I can't tell you how stoked I am that these clips are here -- even though they may only be available until I finish typing this sentence.

Whew, just checked, they're still there (for now).

The first Super Bowl I remember watching was Super Bowl XIII, and at that time, it didn't get much better than Pittsburgh vs. Dallas. Tremendously exciting game featuring the top two teams in the league during that era. Plus, as an Eagles fan, I hated the Cowboys. I still have the t-shirt from my youth of the eagle pooping on the Dallas helmet. So, watching Jackie Harris drop that touchdown pass was bliss.

These were some of my first football memories, and to see classic games the way they aired is a real treat. Even the simple stuff is cool, like in the Super Bowl X footage, the CBS theme music being played each time they went to commercial. Or, how about the promo for the Mary Tyler Moore Show? Too cool.

I was too young to remember the first Pittsburgh/Dallas Super Bowl (X), so to see it here as it originally aired has been as big an online thrill for me since the day Vanessa Hudgens emailed me those pictures of her.

The Super Bowl X video has been my favorite so far. Summerall and Brookshier. A Super Bowl played during the day. A setting that seems so simplistic compared to Super Bowls today -- it's all about the game, not the pomp and circumstance. Commercial breaks that aren't more than 90 seconds long. Lambert. Staubach. Bradshaw. Pearson. And in the clip I'm posting below, Lynn Swann's amazing catch, easily one of the 10 best catches in league history (it comes at about the 6:43 mark).

There's just something about seeing this stuff as it aired. Chills.

Each of these clips is about 10 minutes long, so for some games there could be as many as 15-20 parts. A minor flaw. For something this good, I don't mind the extra clicking.

This is what should be on NFL Network. And it should still be part of the basic cable package on Comcast. At the very least, it should be left alone on Youtube.

Please.

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