Podcast — Ron McDole — AFL Champion Bills, Over The Hill Gang Redskins

Tag: Super Bowl
Posted on in Podcasts

Podcast — Ron McDole — AFL Champion Bills, Over The Hill Gang Redskins

  Ron McDole joins us on The Game Before the Money Podcast. The all-time interception leader for defensive linemen remembers winning the AFL Championship with the Bills, and facing the Chargers Ron Mix in the 1964 and 1965 AFL Championship Games. He also talks about George Allen and the Over the Hill Gang, of which he was a part. Hear the inside story about the most famous play in Super Bowl 7, when Mike Bass returned a blocked kick and subsequent Garo Yepremian interception for a touchdown. He talks about the Washington/Dallas rivalry and a time when pro football teams held training camps at a hotel. Ron played college ball at the University of Nebraska, with Pat Fischer and Mick Tingelhoff. Ron has a new book available on Amazon.com. You can also order The Game Before the Money: Voices of the Men Who Built the NFL on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. You can listen in the player at the top, and also […]

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Posted on in This Might Surprise You

This Might Surprise You — After Merger, Only 4 AFL Teams Have Won Super Bowls

Let me start by saying I love the American Football League and its history. I also believe the league was on par with the National Football League. The Super Bowl, however, has clearly been dominated by original NFL teams. Only four AFL franchises have won Super Bowls after the AFL-NFL merger. Crazy huh? When we entered the 2000s, only three AFL franchises had won Super Bowls. Those three teams were the Miami Dolphins, Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders, and Denver Broncos.  The New England Patriots joined the club in the early 2000s. The Super Bowl started when both the American Football League and the National Football League agreed to merge. The NFL was generally thought of as superior, and most experts expected NFL teams to crush the AFL in Super Bowls. The Green Bay Packers, coached by Vince Lombardi, made good on those predictions in Super Bowl 1 and Super Bowl 2. The Packers outscored their AFL opponents by a combined 44 […]

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Posted on in Best I Remember

Best I Remember: Super Bowl Moments

As always, I’ll preface this segment by saying these are the best I personally remember as I type this column. I might be forgetting the obvious. Also, I’m too young to remember the Dolphins back-to-back wins and remember only part of the Steeler dynasty — SBs 13 and 14. That said, I have watched 39 Super Bowls, starting with Super Bowl 11. My most vivid memory of that game was Raider defensive backs Jack Tatum and Skip Thomas hitting Vikings receiver Sammy White so hard that White’s helmet flew 10 yards downfield. Most impressive was that White held on to the ball. I don’t remember Willie Brown’s interception return (forgive me, I was 6 years old), otherwise that might have made this list. As always, I won’t base this list on “That’s my favorite play because my team scored” kind of memories, but you sure can in the comments section! Let’s get to it! The Top 10 10. Super Bowl […]

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Posted on in This Might Surprise You

This Might Surprise You — The NFL’s Coaching Elite (Pt 1)

In “QB Reality – Why Most Teams Stand No Chance,” I pointed out that a small number of quarterbacks own the majority of championship rings. Today I’ll tell you about an even grander elite class – the championship coaches club. Of the first 30 Super Bowls, only 4 winning coaches won only one Super Bowl. Free Agency seemingly levels that statistic out at first glance — with the next 19 Super Bowls handing the Lombardi award to 11 one-time winners. Dig deeper, however, and you’ll find that very few coaches even make the Big Game, let alone win it.  A total of 49 coaches have coached in the 49 Super Bowls, averaging one compounded appearance per game. The vast majority of coaches who make a championship game make multiple appearances, or they played for or worked under one of those frequenting Super Bowl Sunday. When I say vast majority, I mean just about every single head coach. The trend dates […]

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Posted on in Current News and Commentary, Historical Analysis, This Might Surprise You

This Might Surprise You: What Was the World Like Last Time Your Team Won a Title? Part 2

This is part 2 in a series. Knowing how much I love history, my wife bought me a birthday card listing facts about the year I was born. I started wondering what was happening the last time certain teams won a championship. Let’s find out, and I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had researching. We started with the NFC East and NFC North Divisions. We cover the rest of the NFC here. Not too many championship rings in this bunch, San Francisco 49ers not withstanding. NFC SOUTH ATLANTA FLACONS – The Falcons franchise debuted in 1966, with first-overall draft pick Tommy Nobis from Texas leading the charge. The Falcons continue searching for their first championship nearly 50 years later. The team showed promise during the Steve Bartkowski and Alfred Jenkins years, but the Cowboys, Rams, and Vikings always proved better. Atlanta’s lone Super Bowl appearance was against the Broncos in Super Bowl 33 on January 31, […]

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Posted on in Historical Analysis, This Might Surprise You

THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU: WHAT WAS THE WORLD LIKE LAST TIME YOUR TEAM WON A TITLE?

This is the first in a four-part series. Knowing how much I love history, my wife bought me a birthday card listing facts about the year I was born. I started wondering what was happening the last time teams won a championship. Let’s find out, and I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had researching. We’ll start with the NFC East and NFC North Divisions. Some of the most decorated trophy rooms in football reside here, their championships might seem longer ago than one might think. As Bruce Springsteen says, “Glory Days – They’ll pass you by.”   NFC EAST DALLAS COWBOYS – Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, and Company dominated, winning 3 out of 4 Super Bowls. For their last title, the Cowboys topped Carnell Lake (remember him?) and the rest of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl 30.  That January of 1996. Bill Clinton’s first term in office. Hootie and the Blowfish had the number one […]

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Posted on in Historical Analysis, Thinking Out Loud

Thinking Out Loud — Johnny Manziel

The NFL hasn’t experienced rookie hoopla like Johnny Manziel since, well, since Tim Tebow. There’s a reason why players dub the league “Not For Long.” Tebow had his fifteen minutes of Tebow Time in the NFL and it’s over. Debating whether Manziel will prove a star or another Tebow (or Colt McCoy, or Heath Shuler, or Ryan Leaf) is a hot topic. The real answer is that nobody knows, not even Johnny himself. Maziel gave the finger to the Washington bench Monday night. Speaking on the Mike and Mike show, Washington safety Ryan Clark, leaked the trash talk that set Manziel off. It was akin to, “Hey kid, this ain’t college. We’re all faster than you.” Nothing much more than one of my favorite sayings: “The fastest player in college is the slowest player in the NFL.” Few rookies break into the NFL with complete poise, but many shake off such comments. Other rookies undoubtedly heard similar things this weekend. Finger Gate tells me one very important thing about Manziel: the […]

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Posted on in Current News and Commentary, Historical Analysis

QB Reality – Why Most Teams Stand No Chance

UPDATED: Super Bowl 48 was a bit of an anomaly. Maybe. We’ll see if Russell Wilson wins another Super Bowl, which he’s already in position to do. Stark reality looms for teams without a quarterback sporting a championship ring: Out of nearly 50 Super Bowls, only 31 quarterbacks have won. Of those 31 quarterbacks, 11 have won multiple Super Bowls. That equates to 28 of the 48 Super Bowls, roughly 60 percent of the games. The trend stays fairly steady through the Free Agency Era. Multi-winning quarterbacks have won 11 of the 21 contests, and only 15 quarterbacks won championships. Before Free Agency, 16 quarterbacks won those 27 SBs. Dawson in Super Bowl 4. Wilson and Joe Flacco won the last two, perhaps slightly bucking the trend. In the Super Bowl era, however, Super Bowls 3-5 were the only three straight SBs in which the winning quarterback didn’t win multiple times on Super Bowl Sunday. Even that statistic’s a stretch, […]

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