Denbrnc
08-28-2009, 04:40 PM
In your opinion, what are some of the most pivotal moments in NFL history.
For me, one would be the Tuck Rule. If that got called correctly, the Raiders would have beat the Steelers and Rams to win the SB, Gruden doesn't go to TB, and the Eagles and Raiders play in the SB the next year, when the Raiders repeat.
What moments do you consider pivotal?
Seattle1
08-28-2009, 06:42 PM
Super Bowl XL. The league "crossed the rubicon" that day. They threw their championship game. That's the day the NFL became professional wrestling, a highly commercialized caricature of its former self.
Denbrnc
02-06-2010, 04:04 AM
I think that the 1976 playoffs were very pivotal, especially these games:
1. NE-OAK: The Patriots had some calls go against them in the fourth quarter which prevented them from winning a game that they should have won.
2. RAMS-MIN: The Rams scored a TD in the first quarter on a Ron Jessie reverse, but the officials marked him down inside the one when he was clearly in. That led to the blocked FG for a TD by Bobby Bryant, and it led to a Viking victory.
If the Rams and Pats win these games, and end up playing each other in SB XI, the NFL would have been much different:
1. A Ram SB win would mean that Chuck Knox would probably be in the Hall of Fame, and he would have stayed with the Rams into the 1980's. That may still have happened even if they would have lost. Also, the Rams may still be in the LA-Anaheim area today.
2. A Patriot SB win would have meant that Chuck Fairbanks probably wouldn't have left two years later to go to college football. Also, the Pats wouldn't have been known as choking dogs in the late 70's and early 80's, and the course of the franchise may have been so different from then on that the Belichick-Brady era of the 00's may never have occurred.
3. The Raiders from 67-77 are remembered as the best team never to win it all. The Broncos still beat them in the 77 AFC Championship, and Madden may have retired a year earlier. That team would have probably been broken up. You may have seen Stabler traded to the Falcons for Bartkowski, the Oilers for Pastorini, or to TB for their 78 #1, which they could have used to take long-ball thrower Doug Williams. Also, other players like Tatum, Van Eeghen, and Villapiano could have been traded away, and Biletnikoff may have retired a year earlier. That may have also butterflied away Plunkett's comeback in Oakland.