OT (which here means 'Old Timers'): NFL Game Films, 1976 Patriots

[oldrover]

I'd been following the Pats since they drafted Plunkett in 1971, but this was the year I became OBSESSED with them. Great season... marred only by the bogus 'roughing the passer' call on Hamilton. 25 minutes of retro Pats fun... to all my fellow old-timers: enjoy.

 

[upstater1]

My first season watching the Patriots. I was 8 years old and just moved to New England from Virginia.

 

[Zeus]

Best Patriot team not coached by Bill Belichick.

 

[SEA_Pat]

Boy I loved that team. Can still remember the joy of watching that pass go incomplete and then hearing someone say something about a flag...bloody Ben Dreith.

 

[SacPete1]

That roughing the passer call on Sugar Bear was the day I became a Pats fan....for life.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Worked with this big Sicilian guy John, a rabid Pats fan. Told us how he was watching the game with family including his Sicilian grandfather "just off the boat" from the old country who had no clue about American football. Dreith (may he burn in Hell with Goodell) makes the call and John slams down his big fist, shattering the coffee table laden with Italian goodies. Grandfather has near coronary totally in the dark about what the hell had happened with his grandson. Lots of screaming and gesturing by Italian grandmother, mother and sisters trying to calm everyone down. Epic!

 

[tuckeverlasting]

awwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....i was there...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr !!!

 

[Mack Herron]

One of my favorite teams, and one of the most talented throughout the lineup. Being able to run the ball down anyone's throat was particularly satisfying. The first Oakland game was their coming out party and one of the most satisfying games I have seen.

 

[Horace's Ivories]

Was 13 and just moved back from living overseas. Watched that team, rationalized that I lived in NE ( Fairfield cty CT - not really), and became a deeply committed lifelong fan.

 

[Zeus]

One of my favorite teams, and one of the most talented throughout the lineup. Being able to run the ball down anyone's throat was particularly satisfying. The first Oakland game was their coming out party and one of the most satisfying games I have seen.

That offensive line just plain assaulted people. Haven't seen anything like it before or since.

 

[oldrover]

One of my favorite teams, and one of the most talented throughout the lineup. Being able to run the ball down anyone's throat was particularly satisfying. The first Oakland game was their coming out party and one of the most satisfying games I have seen.

The only game the Raiders lost that year... technically. This game was a DISMANTLING of Oakland. LOVED IT!!!!

 

[AQPE]

My son asked me not too long ago, what was the more painful sports memory for me, seeing the Pats lose the perfect season or seeing the Sox lose Game 6 to New York. My answer was "neither," it was the Ben Dreith playoff loss.

Obviously this game was not for the championship as were the other two, but it was my first direct experience with a loss of this magnitude (I was too young to really follow the Sox in 1967) and (unlike with the Sox in 1975) it was a win that was (in my view) taken from them by a corrupted referee/officiating crew rather than based on what a player or the team as a whole actually did or didn't do on the field. From that point forward, as much as I've loved following sports, and still do, I've never fully believed things in the major professional sports were "unquestionably on the level," and my "sports BS meter" is too often alerted to the "favored story lines" (*cough* Peyton Manning *cough*).

Little did I know at the time that I'd be witness to the 1978 Sox collapse/Bucky Freakin' Dent, Bruins too many men on the ice, Len Bias, Game 6, Celtics lottery woes, G.M. Mike O'Connell, Victor Kiam/Sam Jankovic/Rod Rust, and the Parcells Super Blow (not a typo) ... and then came Belichick and Brady.

 

[upstater1]

Game 6, even for a football first fan like myself, was inexplicable and crushing. The 18-1 super Bowl was a slow asphyixiation. There was no moment like that 2 outs in the 9th inning meltdown.

 

[p8ryts]

Wait, Sam Bam, don't run out of bounds!!!! Damn

 

[RobertWeathers]

I was only 4 but have watched this game on NFL films, etc.

Incredibly talented team

It was complete ********.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Game 6, even for a football first fan like myself, was inexplicable and crushing. The 18-1 super Bowl was a slow asphyixiation. There was no moment like that 2 outs in the 9th inning meltdown.

I still have a scar on a knuckle on my right hand from punching a wall and hitting a nail. Dumb things you do at 15 years old.

 

[1960Pats]

My son asked me not too long ago, what was the more painful sports memory for me, seeing the Pats lose the perfect season or seeing the Sox lose Game 6 to New York. My answer was "neither," it was the Ben Dreith playoff loss.

Obviously this game was not for the championship as were the other two, but it was my first direct experience with a loss of this magnitude (I was too young to really follow the Sox in 1967) and (unlike with the Sox in 1975) it was a win that was (in my view) taken from them by a corrupted referee/officiating crew rather than based on what a player or the team as a whole actually did or didn't do on the field. From that point forward, as much as I've loved following sports, and still do, I've never fully believed things in the major professional sports were "unquestionably on the level," and my "sports BS meter" is too often alerted to the "favored story lines" (*cough* Peyton Manning *cough*).

Little did I know at the time that I'd be witness to the 1978 Sox collapse/Bucky Freakin' Dent, Bruins too many men on the ice, Len Bias, Game 6, Celtics lottery woes, G.M. Mike O'Connell, Victor Kiam/Sam Jankovic/Rod Rust, and the Parcells Super Blow (not a typo) ... and then came Belichick and Brady.

I remember when I was a kid and the Giants games were force fed to us on the boob tube. The first time I saw Jim Brown I became a fan of the Browns.

Then came the Pats and we had our own team. The first Pats game that I attended was with my dad at Fenway Park against big Ernie Ladd and the Chargers.

The 1976 Dreith theft actually was for the championship. In the 1 oclock game that day the Steelers (another team we had already beaten that year) won but lost both of their RB's, Rocky Blier and Franco Harris, for the next game. The Raiders easily won the AFCC and the SB against the Vikings.

I remember hearing Archie Manning on radio the morning of the 2007 season's SB with the Giants, and he was whining about the fact that Fran Tarkenton was in the HOF and he wasn't. One of his kids was playing in the SB and he was talking about himself. What a tool.

And speaking of Mannings, there's no better sign of the NYJFL trying to manipulate things than to see the way they rescued PEDton from the big bad evil AFCE, when they created an all expansion division for his team and called Indy a south team.

None of them saw Brady and Belichick coming. Btw, it is Brady and Belichick and not the other way around that has led to their success. After Brady is gone we'll see the truth of that statement. Well, you folks will be seeing it. I won't be watching any more.

 

[1960Pats]

I was only 4 but have watched this game on NFL films, etc.

Incredibly talented team

It was complete ********.

The thing that gets lost in the case for the Pats with the youngins is that at the time they didn't call roughing on such a ticky tack play. A QB would have had to be hit late and hard, and Stabler got neither.

I started to watch the video, but as soon as I saw Darryl Stingley I couldn't watch it any longer.

 

[Galeb]

Old bastids. I was barely toilet trained in 1976.

 

[oldrover]

Old bastids. I was barely toilet trained in 1976.

How about now?