Top 10 Sports "Spoke Too Soon" Moments

Bill Terry

January 24, 1934, 90 years ago: Interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune, Bill Terry, the manager and hard-hitting 1st baseman for the previous year's World Series winners, the New York Giants, says, "Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Chicago will be the teams we'll have to beat. I don't think the Braves will do as well as they did last year."

Asked of his team's local rivals, "Do you fear the Dodgers?" he says, "I was just wondering whether they were still in the league."

In the public mind, this got twisted into, "Brooklyn? Is Brooklyn still in the league?"

At the time, it seemed like a reasonable question. The Dodgers had won the National League Pennant in 1920, and had finished 2nd in 1924. In the 9 seasons since, they had finished an average of 20 games out of 1st place.

The players were called "The Daffiness Boys," and this was also around the time that they began to be called "Dem Bums," and not with affection. Three years later, at a time when there were only eight teams in each League, Brooklyn Eagle sportswriter Bill McCullough wrote, "Overconfidence may cost the Dodgers seventh place."

It was the Great Depression, which compounded the effects of earlier financial issues. Team part-owners Charles Ebbets and Ed McKeever had both died in 1925, a few years after Ebbets had to place his shares of the team with a bank to protect them from being taken in his very messy divorce. So they were bad in the boardroom, too: They couldn't sign good players, and couldn't provide proper upkeep on Ebbets Field. That would change in 1938, when the bank hired Larry MacPhail.

But, in the meantime, there was the very real threat that the Dodgers -- and also the American League's St. Louis Browns -- might well go out of business.

Top 10 Sports "Spoke Too Soon" Moments

Note: I am not including the 2004 American League Championship Series, or Super Bowl LI in 2017. Because, in each case, the New England team cheated.

I know, I know: It has never been proven that the Patriots cheated in Super Bowl LI. But they have forfeited the presumption of innocence.

10. January 24, 1934: "Is Brooklyn still in the League?" Yes, they were. They finished 71-81, 6th place. Not good, but a 6-game improvement over the season before. And in the last 2 games of the season, they beat the Giants. The Giants ended up losing the Pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals by 2 games. Dodger fans never let Giant fans forget this.

Oh, yes: The Dodgers' manager would eventually -- after leaving Brooklyn -- manage his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Casey Stengel.

9. January 21, 1979: Super Bowl XIII. Three years earlier, in the same stadium, the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Pittsburgh Steelers had beaten the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl. Now, they would play each other in the big game again.

Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw had frequently faced accusations of low intelligence. Cowboy All-Pro linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson told the media, "He couldn't spell 'Cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a.'" Henderson also predicted the Cowboys would win, 31-0.

He got the Cowboys' 31 right. What he didn't get right was the Steelers' 0: With Bradshaw throwing 4 touchdown passes, the Steelers won, 35-31. Bradshaw was named the game's Most Valuable Player. He told the press, "Ask Hollywood how dumb I am now."

There are 10 members of that Steeler team in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Bradshaw. There are 6 members of that Cowboy team in the Hall. Henderson is not one of them.

8. October 12, 1978: World Series, Game 2. After losing to the New York Yankees in 6 games in the previous year's Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers thought they were the better team this time. They seemed to prove it, taking the 1st 2 games at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the 2nd when rookie Bob Welch struck Reggie Jackson, the Yankees' "Mr. October," out with the bases loaded and 2 out in the top of the 9th inning.

The Yankees won the next 4 games. In Game 6, with the game pretty much decided, Reggie faced Welch again, and hit a ball that might still be in orbit around the Earth. Neither team won their respective Pennant in 1979 or 1980, but in 1981, the Dodgers finally got some measure of revenge.

7. September 23, 1952: Heavyweight Championship Fight. Jersey Joe Walcott was 38 years old, and for a long time to come he would be the oldest Heavyweight Champion ever. On this night, at Municipal Stadium (later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia, he knocked contender Rocky Marciano down in the 1st round.

But Marciano got up, and stayed toe-to-toe with Walcott until the 13th round, before a short but powerful right hand to the chin, knocked Walcott out. Marciano would retire 4 years later, 49-0 for his career.

6. June 28, 1939: Heavyweight Championship Fight. Tony Galento sure didn't look like a boxing contender. Arthur Mercante, one of boxing's top referees (but not the one for the fight in question), recalled, "He seemed 5-foot-8, whichever way you looked at him." A guy like that had no business getting in the ring with the Heavyweight Champion of the World, especially when it was Joe Louis.

Sure enough, Louis knocked Galento down in the 2nd round at Yankee Stadium. But in the 3rd round, he knocked Louis down. The world was shocked. Louis shook it off, and destroyed Galento in the 4th round.

Even afterward, the newsreel cameras caught Galento saying, "I shoulda knocked him out." In a 1977 interview, Galento finally admitted, "I was never gonna knock him out."

5. October 7, 1977: National League Championship Series, Game 3. The series was tied, 1-1, and the fans at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia had rattled Burt Hooton of the Los Angeles Dodgers so much, he walked 2 runners home in the 1st inning, and had to be taken out.

But for fans of the Philadelphia Phillies, this would be known as Black Friday. With the Phils leading 5-3 in the top of the 9th, needing 1 more out to get within 1 win of the Pennant, they fell apart, and got "help" from a blown call at 1st base by umpire Bruce Froemming, which allowed the tying run to score. They ended up losing, 6-5, and the Dodgers won the Pennant the next day.

That year's American League Championship Series could also qualify: The Kansas City Royals led the New York Yankees 1 game to 0, 2 games to 1, and led 3-1 in the top of the 8th inning of Game 5. But the Yankees came back, and won Game 5, 5-3, and won the Pennant, before beating the Dodgers in the World Series in 6 games.

4. October 19, 2006: National League Championship Series, Game 7. In the top of the 6th inning, the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals were tied, 1-1 at Shea Stadium. Endy Chavez robbed Scott Rolen of a home run with one of the greatest catches anyone had ever seen. Met fans were sure that this catch meant that they were going to win the Pennant.

Just 3 innings later, it was still 1-1, and Yadier Molina hit a home run that gave the Cardinals a 2-1 win and the Pennant. Met fans have had to endure many hard defeats, and this was one of the most crushing of all.

3. January 31, 1988: Super Bowl XXII. The Denver Broncos led the Washington Redskins, 10-0 early in the 2nd quarter. It looked like the Broncos would get their 1st Super Bowl win. It looked like it would be the latest in a string of Super Bowl blowouts.

It was -- the other way. In just 13 minutes, Washington quarterback Doug Williams turned it into a 35-10 Redskin lead. They would win, 42-10. It would take the Broncos another 10 years to win a Super Bowl, after losing their 1st 4 appearances.

2. July 7, 1974: World Cup Final. The Netherlands had dazzled the world with their "Total Football" performance, led by the amazing Johan Cruyff. They got into the Final, but had to play the hosts, West Germany. In the 1st minute of the game, the Dutch were awarded a penalty, and Cruyff converted it.

But the Germans scored twice before the half, and the Dutch came a little unglued. The 2-1 score held, and West Germany won. It seemed grossly unfair that a team that was supremely competent but boring had beaten a team that was wonderful to watch. Well, welcome to the 1970s.

1. October 25, 1986: World Series, Game 6. A home run by Dave Henderson in the top of the 10th inning gave the Boston Red Sox a 5-3 lead over the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. There would, in the end, be 13 separate pitches on which the Sox could have gotten the last out that would have clinched their 1st World Championship in 68 years.

All over New England, people were saying things like, "I've waited my whole life for this!"

According to Dan Shaughnessy, the Boston Globe columnist, in his book The Curse of the Bambino, somebody later calculated that the odds of the Red Sox blowing a 2-run, 2-out, 2-strike lead at that point were 320-1. Three hundred and twenty to one. Think about that for a moment: A baseball regular season lasts 162 games. So if you had those conditions every single game -- 2 outs, 2 strikes on the batter, and you're up by 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning, or later -- the odds are that you would win every single game in a season, and nearly every single game in a 2nd season, except for one.

Another source said that the Mets' chances of winning the World Series were:

* 5 percent when the bottom of the 10th began;
* 0.8 percent when they were first down to their last strike;
* 2 percent after Gary Carter's single;
* 5 percent after Kevin Mitchell's single;
* 11 percent after Ray Knight singled home Carter;
* and 35 percent after Bob Stanley's wild pitch tied the game.

And that was before any broadcaster had any reason to mention the name of Bill Buckner.

Red Sox fans would have to wait another 18 years. And then, their team had to cheat.

March 6, 1983: The USFL Begins Play

March 6, 1983, 40 years ago: The United States Football League plays its first games.

You don't remember the USFL? Even if you're over 40, that's not surprising. Its detractors called it the USeless Football League and the Undeniably Sorry Football League.

It could have succeeded. Indeed, the timing seemed to be right: The NFL was coming off a season in which there had been a strike, canceling almost half the season. Fans should have been willing to take something new: A professional football league playing in the Spring, when there was no pro football to watch.

But the timing wasn't right, at least according to the calendar. The 1st season started on March 6, when the NBA and NHL seasons were coming down the home stretch. The Championship Game was held on July 17, just as baseball's 2nd half was getting underway.

Had the league started in early May, by which point all but a few teams would have been eliminated from the NBA Playoffs and the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Championship Game on August 28, the last Sunday before the NFL season started, then, for most of the season, they would have only had baseball to contend with, as the North American Soccer League was already fading into irrelevance.

Here were the original 12 teams, in alphabetical order, and what else they had to compete with nearby at the time:

* Arizona Wranglers. No NFL, MLB or NHL at the time, just the NBA's Phoenix Suns. Played at Sun Devil Stadium, which was (and is) owned by Arizona State University, so even if there had been an NFL team playing there at the time, it couldn't have kept the Wranglers out. This was a good market for the USFL.

* Birmingham Stallions. Nothing: No MLB, no NBA, no NHL, and while the State of Alabama considers college and high school football to be a religion, there is no NFL team there. (This is also the case for several other Southern States, and for basketball in Kentucky. It is also why the Pacers have never been more popular than IU and Purdue in Indiana, and why no pro basketball team has succeeded in North Carolina.) Played at Legion Field. This was a good market for the USFL.

* Boston Breakers. Everything: The Celtics and Bruins, both perennial postseason teams at that point, and the Red Sox in April. Played at Nickerson Field, the 21,000-seat stadium of Boston University, where the Patriots played in their first few AFL seasons. The Patriots wouldn't let them play at what was then named Sullivan Stadium (formerly Schaefer Stadium, later Foxboro Stadium), and Boston College wouldn't let them use their Alumni Stadium, which was also larger than Nickerson. This franchise should never have been placed in Boston, even though the Patriots were a joke franchise at the time.

* Chicago Blitz. Everything: The Bulls and Blackhawks, both perennial postseason teams at the point, and the Cubs and White Sox in April. Played at Soldier Field, which was (and is) city-owned, so the Bears couldn't keep them out. Too many distractions for the fan dollar, but Chicago was the 3rd-biggest market and a football-mad one, so they had to have a Chicago team.

* Denver Gold. There was then no MLB or NHL team, but the NBA's Nuggets were a perennial postseason team. Played at Mile High Stadium, which was city-owned, so the Broncos couldn't keep them out. Still, the Broncos were a good team at the time, and the "Broncomania" that began with their 1st good season in 1973, and was seriously hyped up during their run to the Super Bowl in the 1977 season, had hardly abated. So this was a bad market for the USFL.

* Los Angeles Express. Everything: The Lakers and Kings, both perennial postseason teams at that point, and the Dodgers and the team then known as the California Angels in April. Played at the Los Angeles Coliseum, which was (and is) city-owned, so the Raiders, then using it as their home field, couldn't keep them out. Plus the Rams were still in the area, playing at Anaheim Stadium. But L.A. was the 2nd-biggest market, so they had to have an L.A. team.

* Michigan Panthers. Everything: The Pistons and Red Wings weren't very good at this point, but had solid fan bases that would not abandon them; and the Tigers in April. Played at the Silverdome, which was owned by its municipality, the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, so the Lions couldn't keep them out. The Lions were a good team at this point, and playing football in nice weather got canceled out by the dome, so as much as the State of Michigan loves its football, putting a franchise there was a bad idea.

* New Jersey Generals. Everything: The Knicks, Rangers and Islanders, all perennial postseason teams at that point, plus the Nets, who were (unusual for them) in the middle of back-to-back Playoff seasons; the Devils, finishing their terrible 1st season; and the Yankees and Mets in April. Played at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, which was State-owned, so the Giants couldn't keep them out. But New York was the biggest market, so they had to have a "New York" team, yet they took advantage of the ill feelings of New Jerseyans (including myself) who were mad at the Giants for moving to the State but not changing their names. More on this in a moment.

* Oakland Invaders. No NHL team then. The NBA's Golden State Warriors were pretty weak: New York sportscaster Spencer Christian called them "the Golden Stink Warriors." Neither the San Francisco Giants nor the Oakland A's were any good at the time. The 49ers across San Francisco Bay had just had a letdown season after winning the Super Bowl the season before, and no one foresaw the Niners becoming the NFL's dominant team over the next decade. And the Raiders had split down the Coast a year earlier, leaving the Oakland Coliseum, then as now owned by Alameda County (so the Raiders couldn't have kept them out anyway), available for football all year long. And they would pick up all the Raider fans still angry about the team abandoning the East Bay. So the nation's 4th-largest market was a good one for the USFL experiment.

* Philadelphia Stars. Everything: The 76ers and Flyers, both perennial postseason teams at that point, and the Phillies in April. Played at Veterans Stadium, which was city-owned, so the Eagles couldn't keep them out. But Philly was in a rare period where all its teams had recently been good, so while the Eagles had collapsed the preceding fall, the timing was still bad for a Spring football team based in Philadelphia. But Philly was a market both big and football-mad, and so the team was put there.

* Tampa Bay Bandits. Nothing: No MLB, no NBA, no NHL, and the NFL wasn't starting again until September. Played at Tampa Stadium, "the Big Sombrero," which was city-owned, so the Buccaneers couldn't keep them out. And the Bucs stunk then, so this was a good market for the USFL.

* Washington Federals. No MLB team at that point, but the NBA's Bullets (now Wizards) and the NHL's Capitals; neither was then good, but both were there. Played at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, which was owned by the federal government, so the Redskins couldn't keep them out. But while putting a team in the Nation's Capital seemed like a must, putting a team in the same town as the Redskins -- who were not only a wildly popular institution in the town but had just won the Super Bowl a few weeks before -- was financial suicide.

A league needs big names. At first, the biggest names were the coaches. New Jersey was coached by Chuck Fairbanks, who had led the University of Oklahoma to 3 Big Eight titles and the Patriots to their first AFC East title. Jim Stanley had led Oklahoma State to a Big Eight title, and was appointed to coach the Michigan franchise. Chicago was coached by George Allen, who had led the Redskins to the 1972 NFC title.

Oakland was coached by John Ralston, who had won 2 conference titles each at Utah State and Stanford, and had guided the Broncos to NFL respectability. Ralston's successor with the Broncos was Red Miller, who led them to the 1977 AFC Championship, and was hired to run the Denver franchise. Philadelphia was coached by Jim Mora Sr., who was not yet a big name, but he had coached at Stanford, UCLA, and the universities of Colorado and Washington, and had been an NFL assistant; he coached Philadelphia.

Tampa Bay was coached by Steve Spurrier, not yet "the ol' ball coach" who led his alma mater, the University of Florida, to SEC dominance and a National Championship, but was already a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, a respected college assistant, and the biggest living name in Florida collegiate football -- unless you want to count actor Burt Reynolds, a Florida State alum, and a part-owner of the team. The team was named after his character in Smokey and the Bandit, although their logo was a Wild West desperado on a charging horse. The Bandits were Spurrier's 1st head coaching job.

Burt is dead now, and he was never a particularly good actor. It's hard to explain to kids today just how big he was in the late Seventies and early Eighties. Like another guy who played college football in Florida, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson -- but with a Southern drawl, a classic mustache, and a series of toupees that changed with the styles of natural hair.

"For the good old American life: For the money,

for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money."

Los Angeles was coached by Hugh Campbell, who was not yet a big name in the U.S., but had coached the Edmonton Eskimos to the last 5 Grey Cups, the "Super Bowl" of the Canadian Football League (and had also played on a Grey Cup winner with the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1966). His predecessor with the Esks (now the Edmonton Elks) was Ray Jauch, also not yet a big name in the U.S., but he had coached the Esks to the 1975 Grey Cup (and had also played on a Grey Cup winner with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1959); he coached the Washington franchise.

Boston was coached by Dick Coury, who had previous insurgent-league experience, coaching the Portland Storm of the 1974-75 World Football League. Birmingham was coached by Rollie Dotsch, a respected assistant under Dan Devine at the University of Missouri and Notre Dame, and in the NFL under Fairbanks in New England and Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh. Arizona was coached by Doug Shivley, who'd been an assistant in New Orleans and Atlanta and at several colleges.

*

I was 13 years old when the USFL began, and I was very excited about the New Jersey Generals. At the time, I hated the Jets, because most of their fans were Met fans, and I hated the Mets. This was due to geography (both then played at Shea Stadium in Queens and also tapped into the Long Island fan base) and timing (both arrived in the early 1960s, just in time to take on Baby Boomers not steeped in Yankee & Giant traditions, and both won their leagues' championships in calendar year 1969). Until the Mets and Giants both won their leagues' 1986 championships (in that season if not that calendar year), it would never have occurred to 95 percent of Met fans to root for the Giants.

And I hated the Giants because of their refusal to acknowledge that they played in my home State by changing their name. The Generals admitted that they were based in the New York City market, but playing in New Jersey. They had Herschel Walker, one of the best running backs the college game had ever seen, a smart, personable young man. (It would be a long time before we knew about his personal demons, which, thankfully, haven't ruined him.) And I loved their helmet logo, a five-star general's ring of stars with leaf clusters.

As Theodore Roosevelt said about his 1912 Progressive Party, "Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people, to sweep away old abuses." To me, and to many other fans, especially after the Strike of '82, the NFL represented established interest, corporate power, regimentation. True, I wasn't yet mature enough to think in those terms, but I could certainly feel it, watching games of what was already being called the No Fun League.

The USFL represented a clean slate. A chance to have a team without the connections to the Giants, then 27 years without a title and pretty frustrating since then, even if you did like them; or to the Jets, who had just come within 1 game of the Super Bowl, but were symbolized by Mark Gastineau, whose long hair, "porn 'stache," and obnoxious behavior made him the favorite player, and the Jets the favorite team, of "ginkers," what we called metalheads in East Brunswick in the Egregious Eighties.

The Generals had no past, and while this meant that we couldn't glory in their 1932, 1947, 1956, 1961 or 1977 titles (as we could with the Yankees), it also meant there was no dark age (as the Giants and Knicks were still in and the Yankees had been in from 1965 to 1975). There was no glory, but no shame, either.

And this was coming on the back of the Nets, who were in New Jersey and (all too briefly) winning; and the Devils, who were wrapping up their 1st season, playing horribly, but the novelty hadn't worn off yet, so we new Devils fans didn't care. The Generals, playing in a league where all the teams were expansion teams, would have a chance to win right from the start.

I was excited. I was buzzing. I was jazzed.

I was monumentally disappointed.

*

Is it possible for a league to be made by one game? People who study the history of the NFL seem to think so: It was when Red Grange took his "Galloping Ghost" fame from the University of Illinois into the Polo Grounds in 1925 and sold it out, and, although his Chicago Bears beat the Giants that day, the gate receipts from a 70,000-seat sellout saved the Giant franchise, thus making football in the New York market viable, thus making professional football in America viable. (This probably also killed off the best chance professional soccer had to make it in America for half a century.)

Is it possible for a league to be ruined by one game? From my perspective, it was. The Generals had signed the league's biggest coup, the sitting Heisman Trophy winner, Herschel Walker, lured out of his senior season at the University of Georgia and being a sure top pick in the 1984 NFL Draft by money and lots of it. But the Generals had no defense, and their 1st game, televised live on ABC, with the great college football voice Keith Jackson doing play-by-play, ended with the Los Angeles Express beating the Generals, 20-15, in front of just 32,008 fans, meaning the Coliseum had over 60,000 empty seats.

Other 1st-week games in the USFL: In the 1st game to be played, Tampa Bay beat Boston 21-17; Michigan beat Birmingham 9-7, Philadelphia beat Denver 13-6, Chicago beat Washington 28-7, and Oakland beat Arizona 24-0.

The Generals lost their 2nd game, too, losing 25-0 to the Stars at the Vet. They lost their 3rd game, their 1st home game at the Meadowlands (or, I was I was calling it then, "Generals Stadium"), 32-9 to the Bandits. They lost their 4th game, 31-21 to Boston at the Meadowlands.

As Stars coach Mora would later say when he was coaching the Indianapolis Colts, "Playoffs? Don't talk about Playoffs! You kidding me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game!"

Finally, the Generals went on a bit of a hot streak: They beat Arizona in Tempe, 35-21; then lost a home game to Michigan, 21-6, then got their 1st home win, 23-22 over a pathetic Washington squad; then lost in overtime in Chicago, 17-14; then beat Denver at Mile High, 34-29. Winning 3 out of 5 is good.

Then they lost their next 3, killing their momentum. They closed the season doing what a New York-area team should not do: They lost to a New England team, losing 34-10 in Boston. In the USFL's 18-game regular season, they finished 6-12, and didn't make the Playoffs.

Philadelphia won the Atlantic Division, Michigan the Central, Oakland (with a mere 9-9 record) the Pacific, and Chicago (tied for the Central lead but lost the tiebreaker) got the only Wild Card berth for the Playoffs. Philly beat Chicago at the Vet, Michigan beat Oakland in Pontiac, and in the USFL Championship Game, played on July 17, 1983, on neutral ground at Mile High in Denver, the Michigan Panthers, starring former University of Michigan receiver Anthony "The Darter" Carter, beat the Philadelphia Stars, 24-22.

Carter and the Panthers

*

The standard of play wasn't great, but it wasn't abject misery, as claimed by the media, which was in the pocket of the NFL. Don't forget: While ABC did the USFL's games, it also did Monday Night Football, and thus had a vested interest in the NFL's dominance. Even so, it was the 3rd-largest network, and both CBS and NBC had it in their interest for the USFL to fail.

If a sportswriter wanted to be interviewed for his football knowledge on a major network, he had to treat the USFL like a minor league. And not like in soccer, where England's 2nd division (now oddly named "The Championship") is a standard not that far below the 1st division ("The Premier League"), which would have been close to the USFL's actual performance level: The USFL was treated by the national media as if it was, truly, minor-league. And, as baseball pitcher turned sportscaster turned author Jim Bouton taught us, "The minor leagues are all very minor." (Though Bouton made an exception for Triple-A baseball's Hawaii Islanders.)

In management terms, the USFL was a colossal mess. The Denver Gold were a prime example: Red Miller feuded with management, so they fired him in midseason, and brought in his former Bronco quarterback, Craig Morton, who had just retired as a player, and had never coached before.

The L.A. Express were losing money left and right, and made a huge mistake the next season, signing Steve Young, the Brigham Young University quarterback who had nearly won the Heisman Trophy the year before, to an enormous contract, comparable in its excess to that of Alex Rodriguez, in its deferred payments to that of Bobby Bonilla, and in its results to that of Kevin Brown, who, lest we forget, was once considered good enough of a pitcher to get MLB's 1st contract worth a total over $100 million.

Steve Young, wondering if the money

he was promised was worth it

The USFL was also failing spectacularly at the box office. Leading the league in percent of stadium capacity filled were the Boston Breakers, with 61 percent -- but that meant they were getting 12,817 at Nickerson, which seated 21,000 at the time. Denver, which hadn't played to an unsold seat at a Bronco game since 1976 (and still hasn't, except for the Scab Year of 1987), had the highest average attendance, but even their 41,736 was only 56 percent. Tampa Bay had 39,896, but that was just 55 percent.

New Jersey (35,004), Oakland (31,211) and Arizona (25,776) also topped 25,000, but Birmingham's 22,046 was shockingly low for the football-mad State of Alabama, and L.A.'s 19,002 and Chicago's 18,133 were unacceptable for big markets. Even the teams that made it to the title game weren't packing 'em in: Michigan averaged 22,250, Philadelphia 18,650. These would have been unacceptable attendances even by the standards of 1983 baseball. Washington bottomed out at 13,850, in contrast to the Redskins, who hadn't played to an unsold seat since World War II.

Birmingham coach Dotsch, perhaps, said it best:

Every good coach has a game plan. In this case, the USFL got away from the game plan. There's no question we did, or I'll say the USFL did. I don't think we (meaning the Stallions) did, or Tampa Bay did. Hindsight is much better than foresight, I know, but things were done that hurt us. We didn't go crazy. We lost the fewest dollars of any USFL team. We were always the poorest team in the playoffs, but we held our own, and I'm proud of that. We did a good job with what we had. We won a lot more than we lost, and that's the biggest thing.

*

Clearly, the smart thing for the USFL to do would have been to look at which markets were doing well, and which markets didn't have as much competition in other sports, and move the failing teams (even if they were playing well) to lesser-tapped markets for the Spring of 1984.

Clearly, the USFL did not do the smart thing.

They moved the Breakers from Boston to New Orleans, where the only major league team in place was the Saints, who stunk at the time, and didn't own the Superdome. (The State of Louisiana did, and still does.) That wasn't a bad move, and attendance did jump to 30,557.

John Walton, who quarterbacked in the Continental Football League,

the WFL, the NFL (Philadelphia) and the USFL (the Breakers).

But the league made a huge mistake in expanding from 12 to 18 teams. A tremendous sub-mistake was making one of the added teams the Pittsburgh Maulers, who signed Heisman winner Mike Rozier of Nebraska. Ed DeBartolo, owner of the NHL's Penguins, and father of 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo, seemed like the right guy to own a Pittsburgh team in the USFL... if putting a USFL team in Pittsburgh had been the right thing to do.

It wasn't. It wasn't just that the Pittsburgh area had lost so many jobs, and with it so many people, who went elsewhere to look for work. It was that the Steelers owned that market. In Western Pennsylvania, here's how sports popularity went at the time: 1. Steelers; 2. Penn State; 3. Pirates; 4. University of Pittsburgh football; 5. Uh, do we still have a hockey team?

Giving the Maulers purple uniforms didn't help. And what's a "mauler," anyway? The helmet logo was a guy in a hard hat swinging a sledgehammer, suggesting a factory or mill worker. Right, remind the people of Western Pennsylvania of the jobs they'd been losing like crazy for the last 20 years.

Rozier, looking for a pass from Glenn Carano, while Jim Lohmann blocks.

You've never heard of Carano or Lohmann? That's not surprising.

The Maulers' 1st game saw them lose to Birmingham, whose quarterback was Cliff Stoudt, reviled as Terry Bradshaw's inadequate backup with the Steelers, and the locals at Three Rivers Stadium threw snowballs at him. Rozier, a native of Camden, New Jersey, did not have the same impact in the USFL as Walker, and his pro career was a disappointment (although not an outright bust, as he later did all right for the Houston Oilers). The Maulers finished tied with Washington for the league's worst record, 3-15.

Seeing the Southeast as underserved -- Texas and Florida had NFL teams, but the rest of the old Confederacy then had only Atlanta and New Orleans in the NFL -- and seeing how Birmingham was working out, the USFL expanded to include the Memphis Showboats and the Jacksonville Bulls, playing at the Liberty Bowl and the Gator Bowl, respectively.

Memphis was respectable mainly for one reason: Defensive end Reggie White, who played in the State at the University of Tennessee. They were coached by Franklin "Pepper" Rodgers, who'd done well at the stadium for Memphis State (now the University of Memphis). But Lindy Infante, already a respected NFL assistant, couldn't get much out of the Bulls.

Reggie White

The USFL also expanded into the Southwest. Putting a team in Dallas to compete with the Cowboys would have been lunacy, but the Oilers were awful at the time, so they put in the Houston Gamblers, coached by Jack Pardee, a former linebacker who'd been an All-American at Texas A&M and All-Pro with the Rams and Redskins, and had coached the Bears and Redskins to Playoff berths. The Gamblers signed University of Miami quarterback Jim Kelly, and won the Central Division.

Jim Kelly, apparently trying to invent an alternative to the huddle

Putting a team in San Antonio seemed to make sense, as the city had only the NBA's Spurs. But longtime Texas A&I (not A&M) coach Gil Steinke couldn't get the Gunslingers into gear. Putting a team in Oklahoma, where they could peel off Sooner fans, and fans who were a long way from Dallas and Kansas City, seemed to make sense, and hiring former Steeler defensive coordinator Woody Widenhofer as head coach and former Buccaneers quarterback Doug Williams were good moves. And the Oklahoma Outlaws had cool uniforms, black jerseys with a nasty-looking desperado on their helmets. But they went nowhere.

Doug Williams had Jimmie Giles in Tampa before this,

and Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders in Washington after this.

In Tulsa, he had... the other Mel Gray.

And in the oddest transaction in pro football history, the owners of the Chicago Blitz and the Arizona Wranglers traded their entire franchises. Including rosters, coaching staffs, and front office personnel. Where Chicago had been good and Arizona terrible in '83, the reverse was true in '84.

L.A. got Steve Young, and former San Diego Charger quarterback John Hadl as coach, and they won the Pacific Division. Philadelphia had the best record in the league at 16-2, edging New Jersey for the Atlantic Division title.

The Generals had been sold to Donald Trump, who brought in Walt Michaels, who'd coached the Jets to the AFC Championship Game in the '82 season, and former Cleveland Browns quarterback Brian Sipe, thus giving the Herschel-centric offense more diversity.

One of these men would later be treated for mental illness,

and the results are inconclusive. The other hasn't been treated

for mental illness, but became President.

(Supposedly, Trump originally wanted to lure Don Shula away from the Miami Dolphins, but balked when Shula wanted a free condo in the newly-opened Trump Tower. Somehow, I suspect, the older Trump would have accepted this, as the means to an end.)

The Generals lost to the Stars in the 1st round of the Playoffs, as former Penn State quarterback Chuck Fusina, running back Kelvin Bryant, and linebacker Sam Mills flattened Jersey's team. In the longest game in the history of professional football, one which went to a 3rd overtime (Sports Illustrated's article on it was titled "It Was a Game and a Half"), Young led Los Angeles to dethrone defending champion Michigan, 27-21. Birmingham beat Tampa Bay, 36-17, and Arizona beat Houston, 17-16.

Kelvin Bryant. Like the Phillies, the Stars had uniforms

that really clashed with the horrid artificial turf at The Vet.

Unlike the Phillies and especially the Eagles, the uniforms

went great with the stadium's seat-color scheme.

In the Conference Championships, Arizona beat L.A., 35-23; and Philly beat Birmingham, 20-10. The title game was played at Tampa Stadium, and Philly beat Arizona, 23-3.

This is what a USFL Championship ring looks like.

*

Did the USFL learn from its '83 and '84 mistakes? Partly. The league was contracted to 14 teams. Chicago and Pittsburgh were out. Michigan and Oakland were merged, keeping the Oakland Invaders name. Oklahoma and Arizona were merged, becoming the Arizona Outlaws, with the colors somewhat merged and Oklahoma's logo kept.

There were moves. To take advantage of the fact that the Baltimore Colts had been moved to Indianapolis, the USFL should have moved the Washington Federals to Baltimore. Instead, they moved their most successful team, the Philadelphia Stars, down Interstate 95.

But a legal wrangle prevented them from moving to Memorial Stadium for 1985, so they went to Byrd Stadium at the University of Maryland, inside the Capital Beltway in College Park. So while they had the name "Baltimore Stars," they were a lot closer to Washington. This cut their per-game attendance in half, from 28,668 in '84 to a dismal 14,275 in '85.

The Federals were moved, to Central Florida, an untapped market, to become the Orlando Renegades. Their coach was Lee Corso, a big name in the State, as he'd been Florida State's coach. Did this work out? As Corso would say in his later ESPN punditry career, "Not so fast, my friend!" The 'Gades finished 5-13, with an average attendance of 24,136. Each figure was better than they achieved in Washington, but still awful.

And the Breakers were moved again, to Oregon, where they became the Portland Breakers. True, Portland only had the NBA's Trail Blazers, but anybody who was an NFL fan in Oregon was either a Seattle Seahawks fan, or rooted for a faraway team like the Raiders, Steelers or Cowboys. And the L.A. Express crashed and burned: Their owners were bankrupt, and even with Young, they were just 3-15, with an average attendance of 8,415.

In the quarterfinals, Birmingham beat Houston 22-20, Memphis beat Denver 48-7, Oakland beat Tampa Bay 30-27, and Baltimore beat New Jersey 20-17 -- another Heisman winner, quarterback Doug Flutie, then considered "too short for the NFL," getting the Generals into the Playoffs, but no further.

One is a very small man. The other is a Heisman Trophy winner.

Alas, Flutie was a Republican, and continues to support Trump.

Trump was the first "Flutie Flake."

In the semifinals, Baltimore beat Birmingham 28-14, and Oakland beat Memphis 28-19. In the Championship Game, Baltimore (formerly Philadelphia) beat Oakland (sort of getting revenge on Michigan for the first title game), 28-24, at Giants Stadium.

The date was July 14, 1985. The USFL never played another game. Although this occurrence was suspected by many at the time, and knowing it would have surprised very few people, no one knew it for sure.

*

Later that year, the USFL announced that their challenge to the NFL was going to be full, starting in 1986: They were going to a Fall schedule, going head-to-head with the big boys. And they had sued the NFL on antitrust grounds. The USFL sought damages of $567 million, which, under antitrust law, would have been tripled to $1.7 billion if the jury found in their favor.

The USFL gave the NFL a chance to settle, proposing 2 remedies: Either force the NFL to negotiate new television contracts with only 2 networks, or force the NFL to split into two competing 14-team leagues, each limited to a contract with one major network.

Each NFL franchise was named as a co-defendant, with the exception of the Raiders, whose owner Al Davis was a major witness for the USFL, and had been excluded from the lawsuit in exchange for his testimony.

ABC announcer Howard Cosell was also a key witness for the USFL -- and this, more than his personality, his drinking, or his referring to Alvin Garrett of the Redskins, a black receiver, as "that little monkey" during a recent game, probably doomed him to being fired from Monday Night Football.

The lawyer for the USFL, Harvey Myerson, had what he felt were 3 "smoking guns":

1. A memo from March 1973 to NFL broadcasting director Robert Cochran, from attorney Jay Moyer, stating that an "open network" might be open to the "invitation to formation of a new league."

2. A memo from August 1983 from Jack Donlan, NFL management council executive director, to his staff. The memo laid out plans for NFL teams to "increase salary offers to USFL to existing players or run the risk of losing them."

3. A memo from a Harvard University professor named Michael Porter, which included a plan to "Conquer" the United States Football League.

The case went to trial in the Spring of 1986, and lasted 42 days. On July 29, 1986, the jury handed down its verdict: They declared the NFL a "duly adjudicated illegal monopoly," and found that the NFL had "willfully acquired and maintained monopoly status through predatory tactics." In other words, guilty as charged.

However, the jury rejected the USFL's other claims. They found that the USFL had changed its strategy to a more risky goal of a merger with the NFL. Furthermore, the switch to an Autumn schedule caused the loss of several major markets. It has been established that Trump, as owner of the Generals, specifically wanted to force a merger, knowing that the majority of teams would be eliminated.

Most importantly, the jury found that the NFL did not attempt to force the USFL off television. In essence, the jury felt that, while the USFL was harmed by the NFL's de facto monopolization of pro football in the United States, most of its problems were due to its own mismanagement. (In each of these cases, the emphasis is mine, not the jury's.)

The jury awarded the USFL only one dollar in nominal damages, which was tripled under antitrust law to three dollars. It later emerged that the jury incorrectly assumed that the judge could increase the award.

Almost immediately upon announcement of the verdict, the USFL accepted that it was a Pyhrric victory, and announced it was suspending operations for the 1986 season, with the intent of returning in 1987. Players signed to contracts were free to sign with NFL (or other professional) teams immediately.

The USFL was now some $160 million in debt. With nearly all of its players under contract to the NFL and the Canadian Football League, Commissioner Harry Usher announced the league would stay shuttered in 1987 as well. In 1990, now basically a shell of a corporation (if not a "shell corporation," a term with which Trump is well familiar), the USFL finally received a check for $3.76 in damages, the additional 76 cents representing interest earned while the ultimately failed appeal had continued. (Factoring inflation in, that's about $8.41 in 2022 money.)

*

So what is the USFL's legacy? Actually, when you look at it, it could hardly be seen to have been a waste of time:

* Four players from the league made the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Steve Young went on to quarterback the 49ers to a title, Jim Kelly led the Buffalo Bills into 4 Super Bowls, Reggie White became a terror on defense for the Eagles and helped the Green Bay Packers win a Super Bowl, and Los Angeles Express offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman protected John Elway for 2 Bronco titles.

* The Redskins used some players who'd gotten their profiles raised in the USFL to win the title in the 1987 season. Oklahoma/Arizona's Doug Williams became the 1st black quarterback to play in, and the 1st to win, a Super Bowl, throwing passes to Jacksonville's Gary Clark and Houston's Ricky Sanders, and handing off to Philadelphia/Baltimore's Kelvin Bryant.

* Herschel Walker is not in Canton, but he should be: It's the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not the National Football League Hall of Fame. He gained 8,225 rushing yards and 4,859 receiving yards in the NFL, scoring 82 touchdowns. Put that together with his USFL stats, and that's 13,787 rushing yards, 6,843 receiving yards, and 143 touchdowns. Those are easily Hall-worthy numbers.

His NFL career is best remembered for the Cowboys trading him to the Minnesota Vikings for 5 players and 6 draft picks, which became a huge part of the Cowboys' quasi-dynasty of the 1990s. Herschel never won a ring, but he made the Playoffs with the Vikings, the Eagles and a return to the Cowboys, where he closed his career after the 1997 season. He also returned to the Meadowlands in 1995, with the Giants, but they didn't make the Playoffs that year. (The less said about his 2022 run for U.S. Senator from Georgia, the better.)

* Steve Spurrier moved on to Duke University, and revived their football program, giving them one of their few good periods, before going home to Gainesville and leading the University of Florida to glory.

* Doug Flutie was signed by the Chicago Bears after the USFL folded, but coach Mike Ditka didn't give him much of a shot. So he went to the CFL, and won Grey Cups with the Vancouver-based BC Lions, the Calgary Stampeders and the Toronto Argonauts.

Finally, the Bills gave him a shot, and, as Kelly's successor, he led them to the Playoffs. He would also do so with the San Diego Chargers, and closed his career in with his "hometown" Patriots (he grew up in Natick, on the opposite site of Boston from Foxborough, but was actually born outside Baltimore), backing up Tom Brady, and pulling off a trick that would have been in character for the USFL: On New Year's Day 2006, faking an extra point attempt as the holder, he dropped back and scored on a dropkick, something that hadn't been done, or even tried, in the NFL since 1941. That left...

* Sean Landeta as the last former USFL player still active. He'd been the Stars' punter, and won 2 Super Bowls with the Giants. He then bounced around, but reached the Playoffs with the Buccaneers, Packers, Eagles and Rams, before wrapping it up with the Giants in 2006, 21 years after the last USFL game.

* Houston's Jack Pardee and Darrel "Mouse" Davis (who took the Denver Gold reins in '85) both took the Gamblers' "run-and-shoot offense" elsewhere, Pardee racking up big scores as head man at the University of Houston, and Davis becoming the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions, helping them to what remains their last decent period.

* The USFL, like the 1960s AFL and the 1970s WFL, used the 2-point conversion. The NFL finally adopted it in 1994.

* Many high school football teams named the Panthers adopted the Michigan Panthers' helmet design for their own, and some still use it, decades after the Panthers folded.

* Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the USFL is its stock footage. Rather than pay the NFL the enormous licensing fees for use of their games, many TV shows and advertising agencies (for their commercials) have used USFL game footage to simulate people watching football games.

As Billy Joel, who released his album An Innocent Man shortly after the USFL's 1st season, would say, "There are not many who remember. They say a handful still survive." And many of those who do remember would like to forget.

Not me. On the 20th Anniversary, I wrote this piece for the song-parody website Amiright.com.

Long live The Three Dollar League!

Top 10 Super Bowl Quarterback Surprises -- and Flop 10

Today, we will watch Super Bowl LVI, played at SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, California, between the NFC Champion Los Angeles Rams and the AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals.

The Rams very nearly had home-field advantage in Super Bowl XIV in 1980, playing at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, but it didn't help: They lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The San Francisco 49ers very nearly had home-field advantage in Super Bowl XIX in 1985, played at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California, but it didn't matter: They would have beaten the Miami Dolphins even if the game were played in the Orange Bowl.

But now, after 52 Super Bowls played at what were intended to be, and turned out to be, neutral sites, we have the 2nd straight Super Bowl in which a team is actually playing in it on their own home field. Cliché Alert: Home-field advantage is worth 3 points. The Rams are favored by 4 points. Which should mean that the Bengals are just about a match for them.

The referee is Ronald Torbert. This is the 1st time he's refereed a Super Bowl. He is a graduate of Michigan State University and... Harvard Law School, and he practices law during the off-season. (Former Nebraska quarterback Clete Blakeman, who refereed Super Bowl 50, is also a lawyer.)

The Rams haven't won a World Championship in 22 years, and that was in their exile in St. Louis. No L.A.-based team has won one since the Raiders, 38 years ago. The Bengals are in their 44th season, and have never won one, having lost the Super Bowl 40 and 33 years ago. Cliché Alert: Something's got to give.

Every now and then, a great performance will be put up in the Super Bowl by a player other than the quarterback of the winning team. But of the 1st 53 Super Bowl Most Valuable Players, there have been 1 cornerback, 1 safety, 1 defensive tackle, 2 defensive ends (1 a co-MVP), 4 linebackers (1 a co-MVP), 1 kick returner, 7 running backs, 7 receivers, and 31 awards to 22 different quarterbacks (including 1 pair of brothers).

More than pitcher in baseball, more even than goaltender in hockey and goalkeeper in soccer, the game of American football is dependent upon the quarterback. A quarterback can be the difference between the sport's ultimate glory and its ultimate humiliation. As the late, great John Madden taught us, "The biggest difference is sports is between the winner and the loser of the Super Bowl. The losing team often feels worse than the teams that didn't make it."

I present to you 10 quarterbacks who rose to the occasion -- and 10 who crumbled before it.

20. Flop: Tom Brady, New England Patriots, Super Bowl LII, 2018

You'll notice that I don't have Brady in the Top 10. Anywhere. Even though he's won 7 Super Bowls, with 2 different teams. There's a reason for that: He's a cheater. You'll notice I did not put Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks on the bad side of this list, for his interception that gave Brady one of his wins, because he didn't call that play himself.

Brady is also the only quarterback ever to lose a Super Bowl to the Philadelphia Eagles. How lame is that? Yes, he put on one of the greatest performances any quarterback has ever had in this game. And he still lost. To the Eagles. Who were using their backup quarterback. In the Super Bowl. 

While we're on the subject:

19. Top: Nick Foles, Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl LII, 2018

He had to take over for an injured Carson Wentz 3/4 of the way through the season, and was brilliant. In the Super Bowl, with the unenviable task of having to outscore Tom Brady, against a defense coached by Bill Belichick, knowing that Brady and Belichick were both unrepentant cheaters, he went 28-for-43 for 373 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. He also caught a touchdown pass from Trey Burton on the "Philly Special" trick play. The Eagles won, 41-33.

Did I mention he beat Tom Brady? And Bill Belichick? And that both men cheat? Yes, yes, I did. Did Foles win the game anyway? Yes, yes, he did.

18. Flop: Peyton Manning, Denver Broncos, Super Bowl XLVIII, 2014

Only 3 quarterbacks have ever led 2 different teams to the NFL Championship. One was Norm Van Brocklin, before the Super Bowl era. One is Tom Brady, who cheats, so throw that out the window. The other is Peyton: Super Bowl XLI with the Indianapolis Colts, and Super Bowl 50 with the Broncos. (Number 50 is the only one that doesn't have a Roman numeral, because, in football, the letter L doesn't stand for "50," it stands for "Loss.")

But in between, hoo, boy. Can't blame the Meadowlands wind for letting a center snap go right over your shoulder, Peyton: It was your audible that caused that. The result was a safety, and it was all Seattle from there: The Seahawks won, 43-8.

17. Top: Eli Manning, New York Giants, Super Bowl XLII, 2008

After this game, Eli affirmed his status as an "elite quarterback," and as nobody's little anything. He went 19-for-34, for 255 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception. The stats don't tell the whole story. That last drive, with the David Tyree helmet catch and the touchdown catch by Plaxico Burress, gave the Giants a 17-14 win over Belichick, Brady and the Patriots.

True, the Giants' defense deserves a lot of credit. But if Eli hadn't put that last drive together, the Giants would have lost.

16. Flop: Kerry Collins, New York Giants, Super Bowl XXXV, 2001

Trent Dilfer of the Baltimore Ravens has been called the worst quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl. Which is sort of like catching the biggest fish on your fishing trip, and having the other guys question your bait.

But the worst quarterback ever to start in a Super Bowl has got to be Collins, and the only reason he doesn't rank higher on this list is because he wasn't that good to begin with. The Giants had a good running game and a great defense, but the Ravens torched them for a 35-7 win, the only Giant points coming on a kickoff returned for a touchdown.

Collins on the day: 15-for-39, 112 yards, no touchdowns, 4 interceptions, no offensive points, and a quarterback rating of 7.1. That is not a typographical error: Seven-point-one. Dilfer, "the worst quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl"? His quarterback rating that day was 80.9.

15. Top: Steve Young, San Francisco 49ers, Super Bowl XXIX, 1995

After 2 rings as backup, Young finally got out from Joe Montana's shadow. Even Montana never threw 6 touchdown passes without an interception in a Super Bowl. Young did that in this game, going 24-for-36 for 325 yards. The 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers, 49-26.

14. Flop: Neil O'Donnell, Pittsburgh Steelers, Super Bowl XXX, 1996

Before this, the Steelers had been in 4 Super Bowls, all quarterbacked by Terry Bradshaw, and won all 4. Bradshaw would be called dumb all season long, and then, 4 times in 6 years, turned out to be the smartest man in the stadium. And 2 of those wins were over the Dallas Cowboys.

So when the Steelers played the Cowboys in this game, even though the Cowboys had won Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII, and had nearly everybody back, and the addition of Deion Sanders, there was a sense that the Steelers couldn't lose, because they always beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. This sense overlooked 2 things: 2 games is a small sample size, and Neil O'Donnell was not Terry Bradshaw.

O'Donnell went 28-for-49 for 239 yards, 1 touchdown, and 3 interceptions. All 3 were by Larry Brown, and 2 were converted into 2nd-half touchdowns. The Steelers were only down 20-17 with 4:15 to go, but O'Donnell blew it.

13. Top: Jeff Hostetler, New York Giants, Super Bowl XXV, 1991

Phil Simms got hurt in the NFC Championship Game, so the Giants had to win that and, if successful, go into the Super Bowl with their backup quarterback. Jeff Hostetler did just enough to win the Championship Game: The Giants won 15-13, no touchdowns but 5 field goals.

In the Super Bowl, with head coach Bill Parcells giving him the ideal ball-control offense, "Hoss" held the ball for over 40 minutes, going 20-for-32, with 222 yards, 1 touchdown and no interceptions. The Giants hung on to win, 20-19. But if we give credit where it's due, then we must also debit:

12. Flop: Jim Kelly, Buffalo Bills, Super Bowl XXV, 1991

The stats don't stand out: 18-for-30, 212 yards, no touchdowns, but no interceptions, either. Certainly getting your team to score 19 points, and no more, against a defense coached by Bill Parcells at his peak and the young Bill Belichick isn't exactly shameful.

What was shameful was this: Trailing 20-19 with 2:16 to go, and needing all the time he could get, Kelly chose to keep going up the middle, with passes and runs, instead of throwing toward the sideline where the clock could be stopped. The Bills only needed a field goal, but, apparently, they needed it to be closer than 47 yards, and Scott Norwood missed. It wasn't the worst quarterbacking performance in Super Bowl history, but it was the most short-sighted.

11. Top: Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers, Super Bowl XXIV, 1990

Take your pick of Joe Cool performances: He was 4-0 in Super Bowls, winning 3 MVPs, including this one. The game the year before, when he had to launch a 92-yard drive with 3:16 minutes to go, was certainly more dramatic. But this was his masterpiece: 22-for-29, 297 yards, 5 touchdowns, no interceptions. This game still holds the records for points scored by the winning team and winning margin: The 49ers beat the Denver Broncos, 55-10.

10. Flop: Ron Jaworski, Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl XV, 1981

Long before he was an ESPN analyst nicknamed "Jaws," he was a quarterback out of the small towns around Buffalo nicknamed "The Polish Rifle." He had gotten the Eagles to 3 straight Playoff berths, and now, he had gotten them into the Super Bowl.

To be fair, the Oakland Raiders just plain shut the Eagles down. But Jaworski didn't help his own cause: 18-for-38, and while the 291 passing yards were a good total, he only threw 1 touchdown pass, and 3 interceptions.

9. Top: Earl Morrall, Baltimore Colts, Super Bowl V, 1971

If any football player ever needed redemption, it was Morrall after Super Bowl III. The Colts did get back into the big game 2 years later, but it was Johnny Unitas who started. And then he got hurt in the 2nd quarter, and Morrall had to step in against the Dallas Cowboys.

This time, he was up to the task. The stats don't say that -- 7-for-15, 147 yards, an interception and no touchdowns -- but the result does: Colts 16, Cowboys 13. He gained a little more redemption 2 years later, when, with the Miami Dolphins, he had to fill in for an injured Bob Griese for half the season, and they went undefeated, and he got to play in Super Bowl VII -- and VIII, both of which the Dolphins won.

8. Flop: Fran Tarkenton, Minnesota Vikings, Super Bowl XI, 1977

Fran the Scrambler was in his 3rd Super Bowl. The 1st time, he had to face Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain; the 2nd, Dallas' Doomsday Defense. The Oakland Raiders' defense was not the equal of those, and he now had the experience that was necessary to win the big one. Result: 17-for-35, 205 yards, 1 touchdown, 2 interceptions.

7. Top: Phil Simms, New York Giants, Super Bowl XXI, 1987

After John Elway's performance with "The Drive" to lead the Denver Broncos to victory in the AFC Championship Game, he was the headline quarterback, even over a New York team. And he didn't do badly, going 22-for-37 for 304 yards, with 1 touchdown and 1 interception.

But Simms had as close to a perfect game as a quarterback can have: 22-for-25, 268 yards, 3 touchdowns, no interceptions. The Giants won, 39-20.

6. Flop: Dan Marino, Miami Dolphins, Super Bowl XIX, 1985

In just his 2nd NFL season, Marino had broken the single-season records for passing yards and touchdown passes. Everyone was talking about him becoming the greatest quarterback of all time. He wasn't even the best quarterback in this game: His "quarterback rating" was 66.9, while Joe Montana's was 127.2, nearly twice as high, as he led the San Francisco 49ers to a 38-16 win.

This was the 2nd of Montana's 4 Super Bowl wins, and the 2nd of his 3 Super Bowl MVP awards. Marino would play another 15 seasons, and reach only 1 more AFC Championship Game, and lost it.

5. Top: Joe Namath, New York Jets, Super Bowl III, 1969

"Broadway Joe" didn't just say there were 4 or 5 quarterbacks in the AFL better than Earl Morrall of the Baltimore Colts, the NFL MVP that season. He said, "We're gonna win, I guarantee it!" The pressure was really on him: Had he said nothing, and lost, few people outside the New York Tri-State Area would have cared; but had he lost after saying those things, he would have looked like an idiot in front of the entire country.

And you know what? He wasn't that great that day. He went 17-for-28, 206 yards. No interceptions, but no touchdowns, either. The Jets' only touchdown was on a run by Matt Snell, and they got the extra point and 3 field goals from Jim Turner. Those 16 points would only have won 24 of the 1st 55 Super Bowls.

But they were more than enough to win this one. And when Joe walked off the field at the Orange Bowl, waving that "We're Number 1" finger, he walked off it a legend, one far bigger than his stats -- on the day or for his career -- would suggest.

4. Flop: Joe Theismann, Washington Redskins, Super Bowl XVIII, 1984

The year before, Theismann had led the 'Skins over Miami in Super Bowl XVII. And there was plenty of reason to believe they would repeat. They looked better than they were the year before. And when Joe was on the cover of Sports Illustrated after winning the NFC Championship, his pose made it look like the headline was coming right out of his mouth: "BRING ON THE RAIDERS!"

His big mouth had gotten him in trouble before, but, this time, it was his arm that did it: 16-for-35 and 235 yards wasn't that bad, but 2 interceptions and no touchdowns was. The 2nd interception was a particularly dumb pass, deep in his own end, taken by linebacker Jack Squirek, who was able to just waltz into the end zone, and make the score 21-3 Raiders just before the half. This was an ugly game, and the Silver & Black beat the Burgundy & Gold, 38-9.

The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx, maybe? During the next season's training camp, Theismann was on the cover again. This time, there was tape over his mouth.

3. Top: Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers, Super Bowl XIII, 1979

The Dallas Cowboys were defending Champions. Some of their players had won 2 Super Bowls already. But so had most of the Steelers, including Bradshaw. Nevertheless, Cowboy linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson predicted the Cowboys would win, 31-0; and, apparently believing the stories about Bradshaw being dumb, said, "Bradshaw couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him on the C and the A."

Terry went 17-for-30, for 318 yards, 4 touchdowns and 1 interception. The Steelers won, 35-31. Terry was named the game's MVP. He said, "Ask Hollywood how dumb I ham now." He was probably better the next year, and was named MVP again, but, if you divide by pressure, this was his greatest game.

2. Flop: Earl Morrall, Baltimore Colts, Super Bowl III, 1969

When Johnny Unitas, already considered by some to be the greatest quarterback of all time, went down with an injury before the 1968 season began, many observers thought the Colts were finished. But Morrall stepped up, won the NFL's MVP, and led them to the NFL Championship.

Joe Namath of the AFL Champion New York Jets was not impressed: "We've got 4 or 5 quarterbacks in the AFL who are better than Morrall." Morrall did more to prove Namath's point than Namath did: 6-for-17, 71 yards, no touchdowns and 3 interceptions. It may have been the worst performance in a big game, in any sport, by any player, ever.

True, the Colts only lost 16-7, but all that means is that the game was there for the taking, and neither Morrall nor Unitas, who came off the bench in the 2nd half after not playing all season, was up to it (although Unitas did lead the Colts' only touchdown drive of the day).

1. Top: Doug Williams, Washington Redskins, Super Bowl XXII, 1988

The 1st black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl, Williams probably had more questions in the buildup than any quarterback since Namath -- and, unlike Namath, it wasn't his own fault. And he had to face the Denver Broncos, with their Orange Crush defense, and an opposing quarterback, Elway, looking for redemption.

Williams had a 1-yard rushing loss. But, on passes, he went 9-for-11, for 228 yards, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 5th drive that ended with a rushing touchdown. That was just in the 2nd quarter. The Redskins won, 42-10, and Williams was named the MVP.

January 31, 1988: Doug Williams Writes an Answer

January 31, 1988, 30 years ago: Super Bowl XXII is played at what was then known as Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Fans were expecting a quarterback to put on a big show.

A quarterback did put on a big show. But not the quarterback that most people were expecting.

They were expecting it to be John Elway. The Stanford University alumnus had put up big numbers with the Denver Broncos, and in the 1986 AFC Championship Game, he led them on a 98-yard drive to a tying touchdown in the last 2 minutes of regulation, not merely on the Cleveland Browns but in the direction of the bleachers at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which gained fame (or infamy, depending on how you view it) that season as "The Dawg Pound." The Broncos won the game in overtime on a field goal by Rich Karlis.

Then they lost Super Bowl XXI to the New York Giants. They got back to the AFC Championship Game for the 1987 season, and again faced the Browns, this time at Mile High Stadium in Denver. A late fumble by Earnest Byner sealed a 38-33 win for the Broncos, who again rode Elway's powerful right arm to victory, much more than their famed "Orange Crush" defense.

Now, they were in another Super Bowl, against the Washington Redskins. They had previously lost Super Bowl XII to the Dallas Cowboys, 10 years earlier, so Rocky Mountain fans were hoping the 3rd time would be the charm.

The Redskins had appeared in 6 NFL Championship Games in 10 years from 1936 to 1945, winning in 1937 and 1942. But after World War II, they went into a long decline. They emerged from it in the late 1960s, and won the 1972 NFC Championship, losing Super Bowl VII to the Miami Dolphins.

They went into a transition period, then hired Joe Gibbs to coach the team. With a tough defense, a receiving corps known as the Fun Bunch, and the most famous offensive line in football history, known as The Hogs, they exorcised some of their ghosts, beating their arch-rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, in the 1982 NFC Championship Game, then beating the Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII, for their 1st World Championship in 40 years. They lost Super Bowl XVIII to the Los Angeles Raiders, but remained one of the NFL's best teams, and advanced to Super Bowl XXII.

The Redskins' quarterback was Doug Williams. A student of coach Eddie Robinson at mostly-black Grambling State University in northern Louisiana, he finished 4th in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1977. He had gotten the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the 1979 NFC Championship Game, and into the Playoffs again in 1981. His offensive coordinator there? Joe Gibbs, who was then hired away by the Redskins.

But a salary dispute led Williams to leave the team, and he signed with the Oklahoma Outlaws of the United States Football League. Things did not go well for him: The Outlaws were a bad team, the USFL folded, and his wife Janice died of a brain tumor.

But Gibbs remembered. He signed a few former USFL players, including Williams, running back Kelvin Bryant of the Philadelphia Stars, and receivers Gary Clark of the Jacksonville Bulls and Ricky Sanders of the Houston Gamblers. They were all big reasons why the 'Skins got back to the Roman numeral game.

Still, the Broncos went in favored by 3 points. Was it because they were a team playing on natural grass, as this game was? No, because the Redskins were, too. Was it because, as an AFC West team, they had regularly played there, against the San Diego Chargers? I doubt it. Was it because they had more fans, and thus more of them likely to show up? Unlikely, as the Redskins also had a pretty big fan base. Was it due to experience? I don't think so: While most of the Broncos had appeared in the previous Super Bowl, the Redskins still had a lot of the players from Super Bowls XVII and XVIII. (Joe Theismann was their quarterback then, since forced into retirement by the Giants' Lawrence Taylor breaking his leg.)

No, the main reason for the short but noticeable spread was the quarterbacks. Elway was viewed as a better quarterback. Certainly, he was more talented, with the stronger arm. And he was awarded the NFL's Most Valuable Player award after the regular season. But that didn't necessarily mean he was better. After all, he had been outplayed by Phil Simms of the Giants the year before.

In contrast, Williams was not only in his 1st Super Bowl, but he was going to be the 1st black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl -- which he came within 10 points of doing 8 years earlier with Tampa Bay.

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This should not have taken until 1988 to occur. And, now that it had, it shouldn't have been a big deal. It had been 51 years and change since Jesse Owens shattered the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; nearly 50 years since Joe Louis wrecked unwilling symbol of Aryan supremacy Max Schmeling in 2 minutes at Yankee Stadium; 41 seasons since Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley and Bill Willis reintegrated pro football; 40 years and change since Jackie Robinson reintegrated Major League Baseball.

It had been 39 years and change since Larry Doby became the 1st black man to play on a World Series winner, and the 1st to hit a home run in World Series play; 37 years and change since Earl Lloyd, Charles Cooper and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton integrated the NBA; 34 years since Willie Thrower and George Taliaferro became the 1st black quarterbacks in the NFL; 33 years and change since Brown v. Board; 32 years since the Montgomery Bus Boycott; and 30 years since Willie O'Ree became the 1st black player in the NHL (there had previously been a Canadian player of Chinese descent).

It had been nearly 26 years since Baker v. Carr mandated "one man, one vote"; 24 years and change since Martin Luther King electrified the March On Washington; 23 years and change since the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 22 years and change since the Voting Rights Act of 1965; 21 years and change since Bill Russell became the 1st black head coach of a true major league team (the NFL could hardly have been called "major league" in 1920, when Fritz Pollard was both head coach and quarterback of the Akron Pros).

It had been 19 years and change since Marlin Briscoe became the 1st black quarterback to start in pro football, followed within days by the protest of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City; 13 years since Frank Robinson was hired as the 1st black manager in MLB; and 11 years since Bill Lucas was hired as the 1st black general manager in MLB.

Still, there was a perception that black men shouldn't be quarterbacks. They could play on defense, or as running backs, or as receivers, but not in a "thinking position" like quarterback. As if any other position on the field didn't require a man to be able to think clearly about what he had to do, and how to do it. And, since the aforementioned Fritz Pollard, there hadn't been a black head coach in the NFL. Art Shell would break that barrier with the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989.

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This was compounded by something that Jimmy Snyder, an analyst for CBS' NFL studio show, The NFL Today, had just said. "Jimmy the Greek" made his name on prejudice, but not against his own ethnic group or religion.

In 1948, already an established bookmaker, he bet $10,000 on Harry Truman to win a full term as President. His reasoning? Not that the power of incumbency helped, or that people remembered how Truman handled the end of World War II, or that he was handling the Cold War well, or that he was likable, or that he was a poor boy made good, or that people still didn't trust the Republican Party after the Great Depression. No, Jimmy bet on Truman because his opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, had a mustache, and "American women don't trust men with a mustache." (Clark Gable, William Powell, Cesar Romero and Vincent Price, couldn't be reached for comment.)

Jimmy got 17-1 odds. When Truman won, Jimmy won $170,000 -- about $1.74 million in today's money.

He invested his winnings in the energy sector, but it didn't work. So, in 1956, already in the American West, he went to Las Vegas, and established a sports betting line. He became well-known enough with this that he was hired for The NFL Today when it began in 1975. As sports betting was illegal outside of Nevada, he couldn't mention gambling, but he could predict results and scores, a backhanded way of saying, "Team A will win, and Team B will (or will not) cover the point spread." He became a national star in his late 50s.

But he went off the rails in the 1987 season. First, he predicted that the season finale, Super Bowl XXII (the game I'm talking about) would result in the Raiders beating the St. Louis Cardinals. No, Jimmy was not getting his sports mixed up: At the time, there was also a football team named the St. Louis Cardinals. But, in a season cut to 15 games due to a players' strike, they went 7-8, missed the Playoffs, and announced their move to Arizona. The Raiders, meanwhile, expected by most to bounce back from an uncharacteristic 8-8 in 1986, crashed to 5-10.

That should have wrecked Jimmy's reputation as a prognosticator. But it is mostly forgotten now, because of an interview he gave at the legendary (but now defunct) Duke Zeibert's restaurant in Washington on January 15, 1988, 16 days before the Super Bowl. (He wouldn't be covering it for CBS, anyway, because ABC had the broadcast rights.)

Ed Hotaling, a reporter for WRC-Channel 4, the NBC affiliate in Washington, was interviewing people in the legendary (but now defunct) Farragut North watering hole, long popular with politicians and sports fans. The subject was Martin Luther King's birthday, how they felt about Dr. King and his achievements, and what they thought the next step in civil rights progress should be.

Naturally, Jimmy's thoughts turned to his area of expertise, sports. No problem there. But then, probably already having done some drinking, he went into history and genetics, and it sealed his doom:

The black is a better athlete to begin with, because he's been bred to be that way. Because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back. And they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. And he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War, when, during the slave trading, the big, the owner, the slave owner would, would, would, would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have uh, a big, a big, a big black kid, see. That's where it all started!

I can't objectively say that it got worse, but he did violate the 1st Rule of Being In a Hole: Don't dig. He also said of black men, "If they take coaching, as I think everyone wants them to, there is not going to be anything left for the white people."

The remarks, as we said in those pre-social media days, hit the papers the next day, and before the Sun was down, Jimmy the Greek was fired. He would later sue CBS for age discrimination (he was 69), defamation and breach of contract. The suit went to trial, and he lost. He later admitted, "What a foolish thing to say."

Jimmy died in 1996. In 2009, ESPN aired a 30 for 30 documentary about him. Irv Cross, an NFL Today correspondent after a career as a Pro Bowl cornerback with the Philadelphia Eagles, said he, as a black man, didn't consider Jimmy to be racist. Frank Deford, writing for Sports Illustrated at the time of the firing, said that Jimmy had a habit of trying to sound more educated than he really was, and that this time, it got him in trouble.

(It's also worth noting that the host of The NFL Today was Brent Musberger, who, as a print journalist in 1968, skewered Smith and Carlos. Nearly half a century later, not only is he unrepentant for that, but, through his comments on Colin Kaepernick, he's shown he hasn't learned anything.)

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So, with that context, the question of what Williams was thinking, and how he would perform, was on people's minds, perhaps more than it should have been.

Michael Wilbon, then with The Washington Post, and since 2001 the co-host of Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, wrote down some of the questions Williams was asked:

"Doug, do you feel like Jackie Robinson?"

"Doug, would you have been able to handle all of this, especially the black thing, if you had made the Super Bowl a few years back, say, when you were 25?"

"Doug, has there been much progress in this country since 1970, when the schools you grew up in were finally integrated?"

"Doug, do you feel because of the black quarterback issue, that the whole country is looking at you and saying, 'Well, what are you going to do?'"

"Doug, would it be easier if you were the second black quarterback to play in the Super Bowl?"

"Doug, why haven't you used being the first black quarterback as a personal forum for yourself?"

"Doug, will America be pulling for the Redskins, or rooting against them because of you?"

"Doug, what were your reactions to what Jimmy the Greek said?"

"Doug, have you been contacted by the Rev. Jesse Jackson or any other black civil rights leaders?"

"Doug, are you upset about all the questions about your being the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?"

Wilbon wrote, "Actually, the craziest question of all could have been put to Mark May, a Redskins offensive lineman, who was asked, "How does it feel to block for the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?" (May, also black, started for the Hogs in all 4 Super Bowls they played in, and is now an ESPN teammate of Wilbon's, a studio analyst for college football.)

Wilbon added, "And that was followed closely by a newspaper person from Colorado asking me, "How does it feel to be a black writer covering the first black quarterback in the Super Bowl?"

Williams was calm throughout, never losing his temper or his patience. This would be matched by how he performed in the game.

However, at no time did anyone ever say to Williams, "How long have you been a black quarterback?" That was a myth that sprouted up in the days after the game, but no one said it.

His answer to that question depended on who was telling the story. The one I like best is, "It wouldn't make any difference if I were white. I don't think the football cares."

The night before the game, Williams had to have a root canal on an abscessed tooth. He was pronounced fit to start the game anyway.

*

The game began. The Redskins won the coin toss, but went 3-and-out on their 1st possession, and punted. On the Broncos' 1st play from scrimmage, Elway threw a 56-yard pass to Ricky Nattiel. The game was not 2 minutes old, and Denver had a 7-0 lead. At the time, it was the earliest score in Super Bowl history.

The Broncos forced the Redskins to punt. On the ensuing possession, Elway handed off to running back Steve Sewell, and then took off. Sewell threw an option pass, and Elway caught it. It was not the 1st time he had done this (he scored a touchdown on an option pass the preceding season), but it did make him the 1st quarterback to catch a pass in a Super Bowl. The Redskins managed to stop the Broncos at the 6-yard line, but Rich Karlis kicked a field goal, and it was 10-0 Broncos.

No team had ever overcome a deficit of 10 or more points to win any of the preceding 21 Super Bowls. Not until Super Bowl LI would a team overcome one of more than 10 points.

The Redskins were forced to punt again. Elway smelled blood, and a 17-0 1st quarter lead would have sealed the game. But Alvin Walton managed to turn Elway's scrambling ability against him, and sacked him for an 18-yard loss, pushing the Broncos out of Karlis' range.

It didn't seem to matter: Last in the 1st quarter, Williams twisted his leg trying to pass. The photo in Sports Illustrated showed Williams screaming in pain. He had to leave the game, and Jay Schroeder could do no better. The 1st quarter ended Denver 10, Washington 0.

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But I will never forget the next 2 pages in SI, with the headline, "AND THE ROUT WAS ON." What followed was the most shocking quarter of play in the NFL's 1st 100 years.

Williams went back into the game with 14:17 left in the half. On his 1st play back in, he threw to Ricky Sanders, who took it in, 80 yards. 10-7 Denver. On ABC, Dan Dierdorf, the Hall of Fame former offensive tackle for the Cardinals, said as they went to commercial, "If you wanted to see a good game, boy, did we need this!"

The Redskins forced the Broncos to punt, and got to the Denver 27. It was 3rd-and-1. The Broncos expected a run. Instead, Williams threw into the end zone, and Gary Clark made a diving catch. Just like that, it was Washington 14, Denver 10. After 15 minutes of not being able to do anything right, while the Broncos did enough to get the job done, the tables had completely turned.

The Broncos got close enough for a 43-yard field goal attempt. It should have been easy for Karlis. Although it would only have closed the gap to 14-13, it would have been an emotional lift, and made it a game again. But he missed. The Redskins got the ball, and ran 2 plays: a 16-yard pass from Williams to Clark for a 1st down, and a 58-yard run by Timmy Smith -- a rookie making his 1st NFL start -- for a touchdown. 21-10 Washington.

The Broncos couldn't mount a drive. Williams threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to Sanders. 28-10 Washington. It made Sanders the 1st player to catch 2 touchdowns in a single Super Bowl quarter.

Elway seemed to get his act back in gear, marching the Broncos into Redskin territory. But he was intercepted by Barry Wilburn on the Washington 21. Smith ran for 43 yards. Williams connected with Sanders twice more, to get to the Denver 7. And then, in their single-back, two-tight-end setup that had worked so well earlier in the decade, when the single back was John Riggins and the 2 tight ends were Don Warren and Clint Didier, Williams passed to Didier to make it Washington 35, Denver 10.

There was 1:04 left in the half. In 13 minutes and 13 seconds, Doug Williams had led 5 touchdown drives.

Williams had thrown 11 passes, completing 9 of them, for 228 yards, and 4 touchdowns. Sanders' catchers had accounted for 4 of those completions, 168 of those yards, and 2 of those touchdowns. Smith rushed for 122 yards and a touchdown. As a team, the Redskins gained 356 yards in 18 offensive plays, and scored 35 points, while holding the opposition scoreless.

In a single quarter.

How many times had the Broncos allowed 35 points in an entire game that season? One, and it was during the strike, with replacement players, in a 40-10 loss to the Houston Oilers.

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For those of us stunned by that 2nd quarter -- not even the entire quarter, just 13 minutes -- the 2nd half is a blur. There was no scoring in the 3rd quarter, and only 1 score in the 4th, a 68-yard Redskin drive that ended with Smith scoring from 4 yards out to make the final score: Washington Redskins 42, Denver Broncos 10.

Smith finished with 204 yards. This remains a Super Bowl record, 30 years later. He held out for more money for the next season, reported to training camp overweight, and was cut after the season. He last played in the NFL in 1990, failed in a comeback with the CFL in 1994, and finished his career with 602 yards -- 806 if you count Super Bowl XXII. He later served 2 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

Sanders had 193 receiving yards, a record that would be broken the next year by Jerry Rice. He had 235 all-purpose yards, a record since broken. The Broncos' leading rusher was Gene Lang, with just 38 yards.

Elway went 14-of-38 for 257 yards and a touchdown. Those aren't bad numbers, but 3 interceptions is. He would lose a 3rd Super Bowl 2 years later, before finally winning 2, Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, before calling it a career in 1999.

Williams answered the question of whether a black quarterback could win a Super Bowl.

*

Since then, the record of black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl is mixed. There would not be another for 12 years, until Steve McNair got the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, and they lost to the St. Louis Rams. Donovan McNabb got the Eagles into Super Bowl XXXIX, but they lost to the New England Patriots -- although, given what we now know about the Pats, you can put an asterisk on that.

Colin Kaepernick got the San Francisco 49ers into Super Bowl XLVII, but they lost to the Baltimore Ravens. Russell Wilson got the Seattle Seahawks into Super Bowls XLVIII and XLIX, clobbering the Broncos in the former, and losing to the Patriots in the other. (Another asterisk.) Cam Newton got the Carolina Panthers into Super Bowl 50, but lost to the Broncos.

So black starting quarterbacks are 2-5 in Super Bowls. There has yet to be a Super Bowl in which both starters are black.

Super Bowl XLI, in 2007, had black head coaches opposing each other, guaranteeing that, for the 1st time, a black coach would win a Super Bowl. Tony Dungy's Indianapolis Colts beat Lovie Smith's Chicago Bears. Mike Tomlin won Super Bowl XLIII with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Doug Williams entered the 1988 NFL season as the Redskins' starter, as well he should have. But he suffered knee and back injuries, had to have his appendix taken out, and was replaced as starter by Mark Rypien, who led the 'Skins to win Super Bowl XXVI in 1992 -- the last Washington team to win a World Championship, unless you count D.C. United in soccer. (UPDATE: The Washington Capitals won the 2018 Stanley Cup.)

After failing a tryout with the Raiders, Williams retired as a player in 1990, at age 35. He went into coaching, taking the helms of 2 high school programs in his native Louisiana, where his Northeast High School reached the Playoffs, where they knocked out Isidore Newman of New Orleans, quarterbacked by Peyton Manning.

Williams then served as an assistant coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, and as a scout with the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars. In 1997, the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta -- Dr. King's alma mater -- named him head coach. When Eddie Robinson finally accepted that he could no longer properly guide Grambling State after 57 seasons, Williams was appointed as his successor.

After 6 seasons, including 3 Conference Championships, he returned to the NFL, to work in the Buccaneers' front office. In 2011, Grambling hired him back, and he won 2 more Conference Championships. The Redskins then hired him for their front office, where he is now senior vice president of player personnel -- essentially, their chief scout.

He and his wife, Raunda, have 8 children, including Doug Jr., a.k.a. D.J., who played under him at Grambling, and Adrian, who played basketball at an Ivy League school, Brown University.

He's been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Ring of Honor, and the Washington Redskins Ring of Fame. Now 62 years old, I wonder if the voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame might elect him for his role as a pioneer.