How Far This Franchise Has Come

jaytyme said:

i love this thread

i feel like a newbie, only been a pats fan since '86. one memory is:

on squish the phish sunday, 16 of us played a morning snow/mud football game destroying a field in tewksbury. the game/party that followed was epic. the night ended with 5 of us driving to warwick (drunk of course), to welcome home our conquering heros. i can't describe the feeling as grogan and tippett stepped off the plane around 1 am with 1000+ rabid pats fans cheering every step of the way. the police seemed happy to yell "kill" to their trained german shepherds as the crowd surged toward our invincable heros. meanwhile, the players seemed to overcome the shock of such a big receiving party and managed to high 5 every fan in sight

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Tricorn Hat said:

After 5 yrs this thread prompted me to stop merely lurking and write.
When I was 7, I hated Keith Lincoln with a passion.(206 or so rushing yards against the Pats in the '63 title game)
I was one of the sink pissers at the exhibition with the Giants that opened Schaefer stadium.
I'm still pissed at Chuck Fairbanks, and I wouldn't brake for Joe Kapp, or Mike Taliaferro, for that matter

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shmessy said:

Welcome aboard, man! (I'm assuming your gender from the pissing in the sink part, but ya never know).

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hallfamebrady said:

I remember my father would go on the roof and point the antenna towards Portland ME so we could watch the game. Portland was outside the black out zone. I grew up in Ipswich so it was possible to get somewhat of a signal. It was filled with static but it did not matter since I was able to watch the game.

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Omega Supreme said:

I remember watching a Patriots game on TV when I was in first grade and then being a fan from then on out. My parents got me a notebook for school that had helmets of all of the NFL teams. I memorized all of the teams and circled the Patriots helmet on that notebook. I wish I still had that thing, if nothing else than for the nostalgia. Plus it'd be a trip seeing the "Baltimore Colts" and "L.A. Rams" helmets.

Ohh....almost missed the "Creature Double Feature" reference! I used to absolutely LOOOOVE watching that, even though just about every movie they showed would end up scaring the crap out of me. Actually, come to think of it, I may have been more scared of the intro than of any of the movies...

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Tricorn Hat said:

When I was 7, I hated Keith Lincoln with a passion.(206 or so rushing yards against the Pats in the '63 title game)

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The Boston Patriot said:

Oh God,

You had to remind me. I lost an entire months paycheck on that game! I was
in the army and that one hurt really bad....

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Patriotic said:

I remember when the Pats didn't come on TV I'd race upstairs to turn on the radio in my bedroom to listen to the game. The signal from WBZ Boston into Western Mass wasn't very strong especially on a Sunday afternoon. I felt like the only kid in my town that listened to a Pats game.

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Dagg said:

I was a fan because my grandfather who lived in CT liked them, being in Western NY, I got to see them once a year when they played Buffalo. Neither team was great at the time (1981). I think NE finished 2-14. None of my friends could understand why I liked such a horrid team.

In fact I think we lost to Buffalo that year on Hail Mary pass from Joe Ferguson and I cried (hey I was only 9!)

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Flying Fungi said:

or when the AFC was generally ridiculed as the 'lesser' league

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jaytyme said:

i love this thread

the night ended with 5 of us driving to warwick (drunk of course), to welcome home our conquering heros. i can't describe the feeling as grogan and tippett stepped off the plane around 1 am with 1000+ rabid pats fans cheering every step of the way. the police seemed happy to yell "kill" to their trained german shepherds as the crowd surged toward our invincable heros. meanwhile, the players seemed to overcome the shock of such a big receiving party and managed to high 5 every fan in sight

Click to expand...

hallfamebrady said:

I remember my father would go on the roof and point the antenna towards Portland ME so we could watch the game. Portland was outside the black out zone. I grew up in Ipswich so it was possible to get somewhat of a signal. It was filled with static but it did not matter since I was able to watch the game.

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Murphys95 said:

Aw man, the dreaded blackout. Seemed like it happened all the time. I used to go to the games with my dad in the 70's and 80's. Anybody remember this stuff about Schaefer/Sullivan....

*No cheerleaders for about two years during the early 80's (I think it was '82-'83). For at least one of those seasons they kept that acrobat squad and trampoline team. Anybody remember the cheerleader's routine to Herbie Han****'s Rock-It? They did it in between quarters in front of each end-zone.

*LA Beer - They started selling it at the concession stands for a while. I guess it was "a third less alcohol than the regular beer" type of a brew. The fans hated it, it just prompted most guys to get even more hammered before the game.

*The Jets games were always brutal - the fights easily tripled. I once saw a fan getting kicked in the head repeatedly in the South end zone section. Rough crowd back then.

*The two most common banners during that time period - "Grogan's Heroes" and "In Rod we TRust" - and of course, Mosi's Mooses. When's the last time they've let a crazed fan in a moose hat run on to the field to lead a cheer?

In all those year's and of all those games, I think the best game I saw was the Pats 17-13 comeback win over Miami in 1985. The 56-3 drubbing of the Jets in '79 was a close second.

Great thread guys - keep the stories coming.

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Bannoman said:

I was at a couple of "classic" games:

-A MNF game against the Broncos. There were so many fights in the stands that the city of Foxboro outlawed night games for quite a few years (talk about tough stadiums...that's never happened to the Eagles or Raiders! )

-A freezing Sunday against Tampa Bay. We actually won in OT. I think up until that game, we had the worst OT record in the league: something like 0 and 17.

-A game against San Diego that was interesting because during halftime, the fans got to vote on a proposed new logo. It was this ridiculous patriot head with a long flying hat. (At that time, no one noticed the resemblence to a certain dead "King" of rock and roll). The fans overwhelmingly voted the new logo down. I remember being a little ticked off that the same logo came out quite a few years later...without any fan vote!!

-One game I wish I could have been at was the famous "Toilet Bowl". I forget the year, but it was the last game of the season against the Baltimore Colts. Both teams had only 1 win and whoever lost the game would get the first round pick. Of course, the Pats won. Back then, we couldn't even LOSE RIGHT!!

IT worked out okay though, because I believe that was the year Elway was available, and he basically told the Colts that if they drafted him, he would play Major League baseball...LOL Stuck it right to em!!

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Pats726 said:

THAT was the case...and it was really almost laughable the way the AFL was treated...teh NFL was superior in every way....I really do NOT think those who were not football fans at the time of the AFL undesrtand the merger and the importance of Joe Namath to it all.
the Pats?? They had some good early teams..but the AFL?? THAT was the league that was of cast offs and hardly was given a chance in the early years....laughed off by the NFL.
Yes..the lesser league....
It's funny that a FEW rules..were brought into the NFL after the merger...
1----The 2 point conversion...an AFL rule that the NFL just didn't think would make sense..although NOT used much, it's an exciting tool to have...
2----the on teh field clock being the official time...strangely enough for all OLD NFL games..the clock was NOT the official time. THIS of course made it even harder to know what was going on in close games at the end. A player seemingly down and with time left, sometimes had the gun sound afterwords. A VERY dumb rule always...but..teh NFL was like that.
3----Names on the back of jerseys...the NFL liked this as well but many liked the anonymity of numbers...in time and many teams did not make use of that for some time...

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