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Thread: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Speaking of that phony FG in GB, Baltimore complained about it so much the NFL raised the goal posts the following year and called it the Baltimore Extension.
That was an inside joke in re to all the bitching we did about the FG. They're still the same height today.
Shula beleived the game was fixed and NFL didn't want a backup RB as the premier QB in its showcase game.
So Colts went to Miami to play in the PO Bowl vs Dallas. Shula shocked the team during the week and said he was going to let Matte open it up. Everyone was shocked.
Before the game Shula watched Matte's warmups standing next to Tex Schram who kept laughing at all his high misses. Matte over-threw everything in practice just like Dilfer did before SB 35.
But in the end Matte beat Dallas by 30 points and tore apart Landry's famous flex defense.
Shula laughed on the plane ride home saying Matte didn't even know what a flex defense was.
The press and NFL were pissed at Shula for running up the score but he didn't give a damn.
He had a point to prove.
He would have won that Championship game with a backup RB to Lenny Moore as the premeir QB.
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12-18-2012, 11:05 AM #26Regular 1st Stringer
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Oh!!! I remember that GB game in Green Bay. Kick was so NOT GOOD! I couldn't read the paper for weeks after that loss. It was such a terrible call by I think the ref was Jim Tunney or something like that. Just the first of many bad feelings I have had with the NFL that won't go away.
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12-18-2012, 11:09 AM #27Regular 1st Stringer
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12-18-2012, 11:12 AM #28Hall Of Fame Poster
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Great thread. My memory of the colts between 1977-1984 were limited to highlights and newspaper articles. Then once the 80s arrived so did the losses. The only personal connection I had to the Colts was having Joe Washington as my neighbor but briefly though. I actually rooted for the cowboys during this time and continued to do so until the Ravens arrived.
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Pre-internet and pre-ESPN/NFLN.. you had to rely on your scratchy AM radio and Chuck Thompson to have any clue what was going on at Memorial Stadium.
I seem to recall we finally got on TV at home when the Steelers played here in '83.. Oddly enough we were 6-4 or something like that and in the playoff hunt. Full house here by we lost by 10 or so.. And that was the last time the Baltimore Colts played to a full house at home.
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
I read about that game not long ago as that was the last TD thrown by Unitas on his 47 game streak.
http://fs64sports.blogspot.com/2012/...5-yard-td.html
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12-18-2012, 12:30 PM #31
Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Or go the the games. Tickets were plentiful. IIRC, we had only 4 sellouts per season during the height of Bert Jones era success with three straight division titles. We had upper deck 40 yard line seats for $10/game, but even then we had to buy exhibition tickets. I groused at the true cost being $12/game! (CPI has't come close to rate of increase for comparable Ravens season tix).
In a 2003 BBC poll that asked Brits to name the "Greatest American Ever", Mr. T came in fourth, behind ML King (3rd), Abe Lincoln (2nd) and Homer Simpson (1st).
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Oh we went to a lot of games.. Dad's best friend owned a restaurant in Elkton and had 4 season tickets in Lower 34. I think the face value of those was $18.
I remember the '82 strike year when the season finally resumed, I think the last game of the season was on New Years Day against the Dolphins. MAYBE 10,000 showed up for that one. You could hear conversations people were having 3 sections over. That and most of the people in the stands spent the whole day getting drunk and screaming obscenities at Frank Kush.
That's when you knew the gig was about up in B'more for the Colts.
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12-18-2012, 12:47 PM #33Regular 1st Stringer
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
Yea, that's right.
As I recall our last season ticket package was like
$140. Today guys are paying more than their mortgages for PSLs-lol.
You could get a coke and hot dog for 25 cents.
What's a beer today - $8 lol.d
Joe Thomas screwed the fans by adding the pre-season tickets to the regular season ticket packages. In the past most Colts fans never went to pre-season games. Seems we were the only fans in the country that knew the games were phony-lol.
So Thomas made them mandatory and a lot of old fans dropped their tickets including original season ticket holders.
In order to bring the team back, Bert Bell the Comish demanded something like 15,000 pre-sold season tickets. We had a team and they moved and were trying to get them back.
The city sold those tickets fast and we got the
old Dallas Texans. Bell then appointed Carroll Rosenbloom as the owner. He only had to put up a few thousand of his own money or something like that. He set $1M cash aside and said he would sell out when the money ran out. It never ran out. Years later he said I made more money in pro football than anywhere else.
When he sold the Colts to Irsay for $19M, Irsay quoted him as saying the team would be worth
$100,000 in a decade. Today the Colts are worth
$1B. It's Jimmy's only job, the only one he ever had.
I knew games were fixed during the 58 Championship game in sudden death. Unitas was driving for the game winning TD and was in field goal range to win it but Rosey was on the sideline
demanding that he go for the TD.
You see, Rosey gambled a lot on that game and he needed the TD to cover the point spread and he got it and the players got extra cash in envelopes under their doors. That's in Steadman's book.
When Rosey died swimming off his Florida beach front estate, Arty Donovan called Unitas and said mafia frogmen just killed Rosey.
Rosey owed Vegas millions. There was foul play called and even his wife Georgia was a suspect or questioned. No evidence of foul play was found and Georgia re-married before his body was cold.
She died not too long ago and her children recently sold the team. Remember when Rush Limbaugh tried to buy it and the players revolted-lol.
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Re: Anyone remember the 1977 season?
And here's another tidbit most fans don't know about. There's actually 2 SB trophies in town. Of course SB 35 is at the Castle but the Babe Ruth Museum has our SB 5 trophy.
Its the only replica of the trophy ever made and here's why.
When Rosey sold the Colts and got the Rams he took the trophy with him. Irsay was supposed to get everything including the trophy. He was furious and demanded it.
Pete Rozelle was afraid of Rosey so instead of investigating it he simply had a new one made.
Irsay returned the trophy to Bmore as part of settling the law suit the city filed vs him
for moving the team. He also promised to vote for an expansion team if it was held in 10 years.
The original SB 5 trophy was last seen
in Georgia's sun room.
ILMAO
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