Tom Harmon Revisited

Perfection. In the history of the NFL there has been just one team, in one incredible season 50 years ago, to win every regular season game and every playoff game. That team was the much-celebrated 1972 Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0 that magical year including a 14-7 victory over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII. End Zone Insight will take a unique look at the way that great team was constructed from scratch, going from struggling expansion team to Super Bowl champion in just seven years. The hero of the story is player evaluation extraordinaire Joe Thomas, whose work in the front office acquiring talent has been unfortunately overshadowed by legendary head coach Don Shula and his wonderful team. 

If ever there was a football coach who wanted no part of rookies, it was George Allen. When he arrived in Washington with an unlimited expense account, which he quickly exceeded, he acquired every available veteran player he could find. He traded for, signed, or cajoled them into joining the Redskins. When the dust settled, so to speak, the roster was unrecognizable and given the nickname of the “Over the Hill Gang.”

Paul and Bob take their listeners on a strange trip on which an outlandish number of tie games threw the NFL divisional title races into near chaos. Learn how the Pittsburgh Steelers missed winning the East partly due to a warped goalpost, while their three ties almost dethroned the New York Giants despite having four fewer wins.

Now playing in the modernistic So-Fi Stadium, the NFL Chargers have returned to their Los Angeles birthplace. But the Chargers left L.A. after only one season in the old American Football League to boldly bring bigtime sports to a bright, new, and growing city, San Diego. END ZONE INSIGHT relives the time when the Chargers redefined offensive football under the brilliant guidance of head coach Sid Gillman and stars like Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln, Don Norton, Ron Mix, Ernie Wright, Jack Kemp, and Tobin Rote.

After 68 years of crowning unofficial and 61 years of voting for the college football national championship, fans now have the soon-to-expand College Football Playoffs. But are the playoffs the best solution for naming a champion? The Pigskin Pod Cats look back at how the AP Writers’ and UPI Coaches’ crowned a title-winner and debate what the future holds for a sport in the middle of change and upheaval.

In this episode, End Zone Insight debates the merits of a few of the greatest games in the history of the National Football League.  Bob and Paul break down the reason why a particular game deserves its ranking or should be moved higher or lower.  The list was compiled by the NFL and Associated Press and is now presented by Pro Football Reference.  Many of the big games of the past are discussed including The Catch, The Ice Bowl and The Immaculate Reception.  Where does your favorite land and who is number one on the list?

The NFL had never staged a sudden death overtime to decide a championship game. But, late in 1958, the Baltimore Colts beat the New York Giants in the late day gloom of Yankee Stadium to win an overtime thriller. Many have called it “The Greatest Football Game Ever". END ZONE INSIGHT hosts Paul and Bob weigh in on that claim and discuss the ramifications in the years that followed.

The NFL is clearly America’s most popular sport, but fans were led to believe it happened overnight. The magic moment is said to be the overtime thriller in the 1958 NFL title game, won by quarterback Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts over the New York Giants. It helped that 40 million TV viewers were electrified by Colts-Giants that day, but Paul and Bob show how it was inevitable that the NFL would leave Major League Baseball in the dust.

Given the NFL’s humble beginnings in 1920, it would seem impossible that pro football could ever topple the college game as America’s favorite form of football. In time, wise NFL owners and commissioner Bert Bell overcame foolish policies to lay out the blueprint for unrivaled success. It helped that rulers of college football inflicted a stupidly democratic TV plan and dull “ironman football” just as the NFL was doing the opposite.

The Pigskin Pod Cats turn back the clock to describe a trio of great Army-Navy games. In 1946, West Point was one impressive win from an unprecedented, third straight, undefeated national title. Navy had other plans, however. The mysterious “Lonely End” was unveiled by the Cadets in 1958 and carried Army to a come-from-behind win over Navy. In 1963, Navy, led by Roger Staubach, had one of its greatest teams, and fought through another nail biter with its rival.