As
many of you are probably aware, since I’m assuming most of you are sports fans,
this past Sunday January 11, 1970 was the fourth annual Super Bowl. This year, it was
held at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. The two teams who were able
to make this this year were the Kansas City Chiefs, who were the AFL Champions,
and the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL Champions. The Chiefs were led this year by
their coach Hank Stram. Stram is well known to many of us, since he has coached
the same team since 1960 when the Chiefs were still the Dallas Texans.
With
Stram holding their reigns, the Chiefs seemed invincible during the game. The
way he taught his quarterbacks to use the moving pocket helped the Chiefs
tremendously. The moving pocket is when a quarterback reads the linemen’s
blocks and moves around them until he can get a clean pass off to a receiver.
Stram also utilized the triple-sack defense, a defense structure that gives
much more movement freedom to the linebackers. Both of these strategies helped
dominate the Vikings during the game.
On the other side of the ball, we had Bud
Grant leading the Vikings in his second year of coaching them. Grant is well
known in the league for his tough discipline and the way he treats his team.
When the National Anthem is played before game time, he requires all players to
stand at attention in a straight line on the sideline. He also does this before
every practice. A rather unusual tactic he uses is outdoor practices during the
winter to get his players use to the cold. What is even more unusual is that he
does not allow heaters on the sidelines.
Going into the game, the general consensus
of fans and sports writers was that the Vikings would win the game, due to the
belief that the NFL is better than the AFL. Instead, the Chiefs were able to
pull out a victory of 23-7. Not only did they win, but the Chiefs were able to
limit the Vikings to 67 rushing yards, took three interceptions, and recovered
two fumbles.
Unsurprisingly, the MVP of the game went to Kansas Chiefs’
quarterback Len Dawson. Dawson completed 12 of 17 passes for 142 yards, one of
which was a touchdown. He also had three rush attempts for 11 yards and threw
one interception. While this was an amazing game that shows how the AFL is just
as good as the NFL, two things stand out as a major change from previous Super
Bowls.
Instead of having local bands perform the half-time show, comedian and
actress Carol Channing performed a tribute to Mardi Gras, which is always held
in New Orleans. Coach Stram was also wearing a hidden microphone during the
game, the first time a coach has been able to broadcast what he is saying
during a live game. Who knows what this means for the future of sports?
Whatever it means, it is sure to be interesting.
Seems that it was an exciting game and the Chiefs were the underdogs. I had no idea that the American Football League even existed. I ended up googling it as AFL and only got Australian Football League which just shows how much time has passed since the AFL was discussed . Anyway, it’s interesting as well that this game was the first time a coach had used a microphone to broadcast what he was saying as it was happening. Nowadays, you can’t see a coach without his headset in a game. - Adriana Garcia
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty funny to see what gets lost and gained over time. This was actually one of the last AFL games before they were absorbed into the NFL. And you're right, the coaches are always wearing microphones now. It would be weird to see a game today where they don;t have one and we couldn't listen in on their conversations.
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ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to comment on the game, because I honestly do not understand anything about football. I do know a touchdown scores seven points though! But this game seems like it was a lot of fun for both the fans and the players. It is interesting that they put a microphone on the coach during the game and broadcast it to the nation. I wonder what the initiative behind that was. I wonder if other teams will steal tactics, it seems that this will change everyone’s game plan up as a result. It seems that with the half time show and the microphone on the coach, it must have been exciting to all occur at the Super Bowl game.
ReplyDeleteWow I did not realize that the NFL was not its own entity. Thats crazy to realize that there was an AFL back in the 70's. Nowadays its the NFC and AFC in the NFL. So does that mean the AFL and NFL were like the AFC and NFC of this time? It is cool to see in the picture that not much has changed like in the uniforms and gear and it is still pretty much the same game. Thats what makes football such a great sport anyways. It would have been super cool to attend a football game back then, it seems like it would be more intense because of less rules!
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