1971 NFL season discussion

[7DnBrnc53]

Why was he not coaching in 1973?

I think he just got sick of the meddling from the front office, from what I have read. Makes sense, because GM Russ Thomas was an incompetent.

[RichardBak]

Why was he not coaching in 1973?

I think he just got sick of the meddling from the front office, from what I have read. Makes sense, because GM Russ Thomas was an incompetent.

Spot on. Joe didn't need the money---he was a very successful businessman---and he sure didn't need the aggravation. He gave it his best shot as HC then moved on to other things. Life's too short to deal with the Russ Thomases of the world.

[JohnTurney]

1971 last year of hashes where they were...1972 they were narrowed and running game took over.

The less extreme of the wide side vs narrow side allowed runs either way ... teams no longer ran sweeps to the wide side majority of the side.

[GameBeforeTheMoney]

1971 last year of hashes where they were...1972 they were narrowed and running game took over.

The less extreme of the wide side vs narrow side allowed runs either way ... teams no longer ran sweeps to the wide side majority of the side.

Fantastic point. The number of 1,000 yard rushers doubled in a year. Then OJ topped 2,000 the year after that. Not to mention FG kickers were helped by the hash marks being aligned with the goal posts. Now they could just aim between the hashes near them rather than the faraway goal posts.

[nicefellow31]

George Allen's first season in Washington. NFL Films did a really good overview of their season that used to be on YouTube. Not sure if it still is. Basically knocked the Rams out of the playoffs on a late Monday Night Football win.

Dallas won their first Super Bowl and Shula took Miami to its first. A lot of interesting things about this season - KC's double OT loss seems like it was the beginning of the end for their great Stram teams. Kind of a fade edit between the Packers/Chiefs winning three of the first four SBs, into the era of Dallas and Miami combining for three straight SB wins - Miami three straight AFC Championships. There are seasons that are sort of page turners of history, and 71 seems to be like that.

I was four years old in 1971 so I don't have much memory of this season. However, I've read "The Future is Now" which documents the season and from about 1975 I can recall that I was fully following Allen's Redskins. The book is pretty much how I remember the Redskins in the 70's, always a threat but not quite good enough and how the fans got behind the team.