Shawn's Favorite Five: Pro Football

     Shawn's Favorite Five will be a series that will look at my five favorite coaches from a sport that isn't my pick for the five greatest or best coaches; it's just a list of my five favorites in no particular order.

Pro Football will be the center of this version of Shawn's Favorite Five.

1: Buddy Ryan, Philadelphia and Phoenix 

The irascible and downright hilarious master of the "46" defense, Buddy Ryan, built one of the best defenses ever with the 87-90 Eagles, and it was Ryan who gave the Cardinals their first non-losing season (8-8) in the first of his two years in Arizona.

A terrific judge of talent, Buddy Ryan only had one problem as a head coach- he didn't like offenses, and it often hurt his teams in the clutch.

Ryan was 0-3 in the playoffs for Philadelphia, and his teams were known for playing up or down to their competition.

Still, I loved Buddy Ryan and his willingness to take on anyone ( he called Eagles owner Norman Braman "The Guy In France" and as the Houston Oilers defensive coordinator, he punched coaching staff member Kevin Gilbride during a game) and in his own way, Buddy Ryan was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin a decade before telling off your boss was cool.

Except that Stone Cold eventually won the championship.

2) George Allen, Los Angeles Rams, Washington, USFL Chicago, and Arizona

Known for his fanatical obsessions in looking for every advantage and his willingness to stretch the rulebook (Allen once traded draft picks that his team didn't own), Allen despised younger players lacking the patience to develop them for the future, famously uttering the phrase "The Future is Now!"

Allen traded draft picks like kids trading sports cards and usually obtained players near the end of their career, building a franchise with veterans known as "The Over The Hill Gang".

The vaunted Dallas-Washington rivalry was one created by Allen, who emphasised the games against the Cowboys to a manic level, and his greatest victory came versus Dallas, Washington's 26-3 victory in the 1972 NFC Championship.

Allen's clean-cut but intense style made him wear out his welcome in his NFL stops in Los Angeles and Washington, and when he received a second chance in Los Angeles in 1978, Allen lasted only two preseason games and would never coach in the NFL again.

3) Jerry Glanville, Houston Oilers and Atlanta.

Glanville's star blazed quickly through the NFL as he led the Oilers to multiple playoff berths and even the Falcons to a playoff victory, but "The Man in Black" would never coach in the NFL again after the Falcons fired him after consecutive 6-10 seasons following the 1992 season.

Glanville's teams were known for his quick wit, dressing in all black, and were known for their "aggressive" defensive play.

After being fired by Atlanta, Glanville worked in NFL media until 2005, when he returned to coaching as Hawaii's defensive coordinator under former Glanville assistant June Jones.

Glanville's post-Atlanta coaching stops include head coaching stints at 1-AA Portland State, and minor league TSL Conquerors (The Spring League), and the Alabama Airborne (Major League Football), and defensive coordinator positions with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (CFL), Tampa Bay Vipers (XFL) along with his current job at Division II Northwestern Oklahoma State.

4) Dan Reeves, Denver, New York Giants, Atlanta

A winner at all three stops, Reeves's teams always ran into better teams in the Super Bowl.

A Tom Landry protégé, Reeves was a bit more fiery than Landry and won with both great quarterbacks (John Elway), very good quarterbacks (Phil Simms), and average quarterbacks (Chris Chandler).

Reeves coached iu four Super Bowls, three with Denver and one with Atlanta losing all four to better teams (Denver losing to the 86 Giants, 87 Redskins, and 89 49ers, Atlanta losing to the 98 Broncos).

Reeves's teams may have fallen short in the Super Bowl, but they were usually reliable in big games other than the biggest games.

5) Bum Phillips: Houston, New Orleans.

"Bum", known for his cowboy hat for outdoor games that he wouldn't wear for home games because both teams that he coached played inside domed stadiums, took the Houston Oilers to their first three playoff appearances in the NFL, and two AFC championship appearances, and the start of the "Luv Ya Blue" Oilers behind the power running of Earl Campbell.

Phillips was surprisingly fired by Houston after the third playoff appearance in 1980, and after a few unsuccessful seasons with the New Orleans Saints, he retired from coaching.

The folksy Phillips was perfect for two southern franchises and helped to make his teams easy to root for, even for fans without a dog in the fight.

A Thanksgiving Bonus

Thanksgiving brings many names and memories to mind.
It's part of a holiday that at its best is built around family and friends and other than the odd early-season college basketball tournament from an exotic location, the sports landscape is pretty spartan other than football.

For all of the great players that have played in the NFL's two (and now three) Thanksgiving games through the years, there is one name that I always think about on Thanksgiving Day above the rest- and that player was hardly a star.

On Thanksgiving Day 1974, your author was a first grader of six years of age and in those six years, had rooted for two different teams in football.
It's funny looking back as in almost all other sports, my teams have mostly stayed intact, but the NFL has changed my loyalties a few times.
As a pre-schooler, I rooted for Dallas as they were on television often, but soon after I began to root for the Redskins as my dad has always been a fan of the Washington teams that he grew up with-the Senators and Redskins.
Even then, I wanted something to share with my dad and I was a Redskins fan (in the NFC) through my home years.
Redskin football and especially Maryland basketball were the two things that my dad and I shared and connected over in my youth.
I've never been an outdoors person, preferring to read my books, play my sports board games and watch television.
My dad isn't like that (other than television) so I had to have subconsciously been looking for something to talk to him about.

When you grew up in the "country" in 1974, there was one event that would bring people that you rarely saw such as friends of my grandfather, neighboring folks, and other family members- "Butchering".
This would mean preparing a cow or pig and by preparing, I'm pretty sure you are following my meaning of what is going on!
Thanksgiving Day back then meant no Black Friday, no people working, and no stories open, so it was an event that brought rural communities together because there wasn't any worry about coordinating schedules.
Everyone needed to prepare for the upcoming winter and butchering always needs to be practiced in a narrow window- too hot and you take the risk of meat spoiling during the all-day event, too cold and it can be difficult to stay outside in order to complete the task at hand, so Thanksgiving weather with a nip in the air, yet not crazy cold, generally falls perfect in its place on the calendar.
From start to finish, this can run from in the morning before the sun rises to place kettles, tables and other workstations to well into the evening when you are wrapping, labeling (I bet my parents had packages labeled "Tenderloin 78" for years in their freezer!) and organizing the massive freezer for the meat to be placed after all the work was completed.
I was hoping that everything would be finished before the Redskins game in Dallas with my dad, a Redskins fan, and my uncle, an avowed Cowboys fan ( he's also a Yankees fan. Have you ever noticed how many people are both Yankees and Cowboys fans) hoping to watch the game as well.

This sets the scene for the late game and in the seventies, there was no divisional rivalry that had the cachet' of Tom Landry's Cowboys and George Allen's Redskins.
There were divisional rivalries, but only the Cowboys and Redskins had the added advantage of both teams being involved in the playoff race every year in the time that would accept only one wild card.
Pittsburgh-Oakland had a big rivalry, but they weren't in the same division,  and the Vikings and Rams had the type of rivalry that was alive during the time because they usually matched up in the postseason.
Minnesota and Los Angeles were placed into weak divisions and they almost always won their divisions in a romp.
For reference, Minnesota won the NFC Central every year but one in the 70s (Green Bay 1972), and after San Francisco won the first three NFC West titles in the decade, it was the Rams winning every championship thereafter.
From 1973-1977, when the NFL moved to the sixteen games and two wild card formats, other than the Cardinals, who replaced Dallas in 1974 and Washington in 1975, the NFC playoff teams were the same four- Dallas, Washington, Los Angeles, and Minnesota.
Only the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry could claim that both teams would play each other at home and that often those games decided the division championship and playoff berth.

The 1974 season saw a change for the Dallas Cowboys, who were starting the transition from the Bob Lilly era to the Randy White (White would be drafted in 1975) era on defense and were moving to the passing game on offense as Tom Landry resurrected the shotgun formation to make up for an injured and soon to be WFL bound Calvin Hill and an aging Walt Garrison at running back.
The Cowboys started the season 1-4 but entered Thanksgiving at 6-5 as only a 28-21 loss in Washington blemished their record and after a week six trade of veteran quarterback Craig Morton (a Forgotten Superstars alum) to the Giants for a 1975 first-rounder (That would be used on Randy White), the Cowboys were rising, even if their rally would prove to be too late to save a playoff streak that dated back to 1965.

Washington entered the game 8-3 and one game behind the surprising St.Louis Cardinals in the NFC East.
That one-game lead was really a two-game margin as two of the Redskins three losses were to St.Louis, so in the event of a tie, the Cardinals held the tie-breaker.
Washington was trying to get by with a running back by committee approach as only two years after Larry Brown had won the NFC MVP,  the high workload of Brown had worn him out and he would average a tiny 2.6 yards per carry in 1974.

The first half saw four field goals as all of the scoring would be credited to the kickers- three of those by Washington's Mark Moseley and the other by Dallas kicker Efren Herrera for a 9-3 halftime lead.
After the half, Washington moved to a 16-3 lead after a name from Cowboy past (and another Forgotten Superstar from the past) Duane Thomas grabbed a Billy Kilmer screen pass and scored from nine yards out.
Dallas would then lose Roger Staubach to a concussion as Diron Talbert drove Staubach out of the game as Talbert had predicted that he would do in the week before the game and the only backup passer available was rookie Clint Longley after the trade of Craig Morton to the Giants.

Longley had entered the supplemental draft before the 1974 season, and was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals before being traded to Dallas for a fifth-rounder in the 1975 draft, so his entry into the game was the first of Longley's career.
Longley quickly led a five-play drive that was finished by a 35-yard pass to tight end Billy Joe Dupree for the first Dallas touchdown of the day and trimmed the score to 16-10.
The Cowboys held Washington and on the next Cowboys possession, Dallas moved seventy yards and took a 17-14 lead into the final quarter on a one-yard Walt Garrison dive.

In the fourth quarter, it was the Redskins that rallied to take the lead on another Duane Thomas touchdown, this one a nineteen-yard scamper into the corner of the end zone, and on the next Dallas drive, a fumble gave Washington possession in Dallas territory with a chance to move their lead to two possessions, but Ed "Too Tall" Jones deflected Mark Moseley's field goal try to maintain the Washington lead at 23-17.


Longley again began to move Dallas down the field for the winning score, but after Longley completed a pass to Drew Pearson to the Washington 25, Pearson would fumble and the Redskins could clinch the game with a first down.
The "Doomsday" defense wouldn't allow that after three plays. three Dallas timeouts and a Washington punt left the Cowboys without a timeout and 1;45 to remaining.
After a fourth-down conversion, Dallas held the ball at midfield with 35 seconds to go, Longley threw a bomb down the middle of the field, splitting the Redskins secondary and Drew Pearson grabbed it for the game-winner for the Cowboys, 24-23.


That game was the high point for Clint Longley, who would only throw a handful of passes for Dallas in 1975 and another cameo for the Chargers in 1976 after Longley was traded to San Diego.
Longley was traded to the Chargers after losing a fight to Roger Staubach in training camp and following that up by giving Staubach a black eye as Staubach had his arms raised as he put his shoulder pads on.
Longley ran to his car after popping Staubach and was suspended before the trade to the Chargers.


How did things finish?
Dallas would split their final two games to finish 8-6 and out of the playoffs.
Washington would win their two remaining games to finish 10-4, which would finish them in a tie for first with the Cardinals, who lost two of their final three to complete the season with the same record, but those two Cardinals victories would cost Washington the division via the tiebreaker.
Had the Redskins survived and won the "Longley game". they would have won the division and hosted the Vikings in the first round of the playoffs.
Instead, the wild card Redskins would go on the road and lose in Los Angeles to the Rams 19-10.

How does all of this relate to Thanksgiving and me?
Well, we moved a small portable black and white set to the basement corner with its rabbit ears pointed toward Washington to follow the game as all the work from the day continued around it.
I likely wasn't doing a lot of work, other than occasionally perhaps writing something on the package, and the most valuable thing I was doing was likely keeping my dad and uncle informed on the game.
I remember that basement as being so large at the time to a six-year-old and yet the same basement today seems so snug that I have a hard time believing that seven adults and a six-year-old could function and work there.

With all of that going on, I still remember my uncle cheering for Clint Longley, whom he had likely never heard of two hours before, and my dad groaning as he continued to pack meat in that small and cold basement.
It's funny how we remember things and connect them with friends and family forever through time, even if not every recollection may not be 100 percent perfect
Yet, every Thanksgiving that rolls around, and when I think of football, that day with my family is what comes to mind when they show the highlight of that Clint Longley bomb...

Forgotten Superstars: The 1983 Chicago Blitz

The USFL series continues with another addition to the Forgotten Superstars in the 1983 Chicago Blitz.

This installment follows the first edition (which I should have listed in chronological order, but I didn't think about doing the three-team series) which I wrote about the 1984 Arizona Wranglers.

If you read that piece, you'll understand how the switch from the Blitz to the Wranglers took place, so for the purposes of this post-I'm sticking with the 83 Blitz and what took place before that move.
I wrote in that same piece about why I picked the Blitz as my team when the league started, which was basically that I liked George Allen as the coach and general manager, the Blitz had a decent amount of former NFL players with two players that would have likely been first-round picks in the 1983 draft- Tim Spencer, a running back from Ohio State (that didn't hurt any) and Trumaine Johnson, a talented wide receiver out of Grambling.
Spencer would prove to have one other piece of TRS trivia-Spencer would be the only player who would play for all three teams (in three different cities) that I would root for in the three-year league history.
I decided to pick the Blitz over the runner-up Boston Breakers and went to that store at the mall that I mentioned in the Wranglers article- American Outfitters and bought the Blitz hat (the Super Stripe) to cement my fandom.

George Allen was well known for his tireless work ethic, and you had to figure that the Blitz were going to be talented because he was going to find talent, and veterans were going to want to play for the veteran head coach.

Allen signed the first player in league history as he signed UCLA tight end Tim Wrightman, who had been the Chicago Bears' third-round pick in 1982 but didn't sign in a contract dispute.
It was surprising that Wrightman would hold out for an entire season, as there weren't many options for players; they either signed or did not. But the USFL's arrival opened up options not seen since the mid-1970s WFL, and that would result in the huge increase in player salaries thereafter.
Allen's signing of Wrightman established that the league was for real and that NFL teams were going to have to take the USFL seriously as a legitimate player option, if not a challenger to the NFL's dominance.

The Blitz, mainly because of Allen and several recognizable names, were considered to be the pre-season favorites to win the USFL's inaugural season.
Accordingly, the first game on ABC for the national (non-ESPN) broadcast was the Blitz traveling to Washington, where Allen had coached the Redskins, to play the Federals at RFK Stadium.
Chicago crushed the Federals 28-7, and even though Washington would prove to be one of the weaker teams in the league, after week one, the Blitz did seem to be the class of the division, if not the league.


Allen's Blitz quickly proved that they weren't invincible with losses in their next two games that ranked among the most memorable in the 1983 season.
Chicago traveled to Tempe to meet the Wranglers and blew a 29-12 lead with eleven minutes to go in a 30-29 loss that features a two-point conversion quarterback chase by the Blitz racing after Arizona's Alan Risher that occasionally pops up in movies (you see a lot of USFL clips in films and television because their games are now considered public domain).


The following week saw the Blitz's first home game at Soldier Field on national television on ABC, and it was greeted with a snowstorm in a 16-13 loss to the Denver Gold.
You could blame the snow, but it did snow for both teams, and the league favorite was 1-2.



The ship was righted though as Chicago would win 11 of their final 15 with two whippings of Steve Spurrier's Tampa Bay Bandits (one of those the first defeat of the final undefeated team in the league), two overtime wins over Herschel Walker and the New Jersey Generals (Donald Trump would buy the Generals after the 1983 season) and a 31-7 season-ending win over the Pacific Division champion Oakland Invaders standing out among those wins.


Chicago was one of the more balanced teams with Tim Spencer and former New York Jet Kevin Long each rushing for over 1,000 yards on the ground, and the passing game was strong too, with former Detroit Lion Greg Landry and former New Orleans Saint quarterback Bobby Scott combining to throw for over 5,000 yards in the eighteen-game season.

Trumaine Johnson grabbed 81 passes for 1,300 yards and was one of the league's premier deep threats as the main receiver for Chicago.

The defense was filled with former NFL players as former Colt Joe Ehrmann led the team in sacks with 13.5 and two former NFLers led the team in interceptions with former Lion safety Luther Bradley picked off 12 passes (SIX of those in one game vs John Reaves and then the undefeated Tampa Bay Bandits) and Eddie Brown, who played for George Allen in Washington, intercepted six more.
CFL Hall of Famer Junior Ah You finished with eleven sacks, former Colts (and Ohio State) linebacker Stan White was the veteran crafty middle linebacker, but my favorite defender was former Bears corner Virgil Livers, who was this short corner that reminded me of former Redskin Pat Fischer, who was one of my favorites as a kid in the 1970's.

The biggest issue for the Blitz was losing both games to the Michigan Panthers (the eventual league champions), with whom the Blitz shared the Central Division championship.
Those losses would send Chicago to Philadelphia as the wild card for the four-team playoffs.
Had the Blitz been the division champion, they would have hosted the 10-8 Invaders instead.
It was time for another memorable game for the Blitz, and one long remembered by fans of the league.
The Blitz forced seven Philadelphia turnovers, four of those interceptions of Stars quarterback Chuck Fusina, and entered the fourth quarter leading 38-17.
That lead wasn't large enough vs Kelvin Bryant and the Stars as Philadelphia would score three fourth-quarter touchdowns to tie the game to force overtime, win the toss, and march down the field to end the Blitz's season with a 44-38 overtime loss.


Despite having one of the best teams in the league, the Blitz didn't really draw well and lost a lot of money with an average attendance of barely 18,000.

Those facts, the owner living in Arizona and wanting to own a team there, the off-season saw the strangest move in pro sports history, where the rosters and coaching staff were traded to Arizona for that of the 6-12 Wranglers.
If a championship contender drew 18,000 fans, a 5-13 team was going to attract even fewer, and that came true as the "new" Blitz averaged less than 7,500 customers.
Chicago, which was an important market (as Chicago usually is with any sports league), was essentially finished for the USFL and would not have a team for the league's third and final season.

My favorite Blitz memory (besides watching the games with my brother, as he was the only other local person that I knew who cared about the league)  from a personal standpoint was just before the season started.
I was a freshman in high school, and then, as now, I loved drafts, and with a startup league filled with such information in the non-Internet age, I devoured anything that I could get.
The Sporting News had a thin guide that came as a bonus to subscribers, the local paper had a list of players from the draft with the territorial assignments that the league used as part of the player process, and I constantly carried these things around with me to evaluate the league and who would be the league's contenders, etc.

For every minute that I spent in 7th period study hall (held in a beautiful cafeteria overlooking a hill, a dying creek, and a fence) spent on school work, I spent 40 minutes on USFL evaluation in the winter of 1982-83.
These stories show just how socially active I was as a high school freshman and just why I flourished in so many ways in 1983 (insert your snicker here), both socially and academically, as the USFL was more important to me than biology or algebra for sure.

Hope you enjoyed some memories of mine on the latest Forgotten Superstars in the TRS universe on the 1983 Chicago Blitz.
Sometime soon, I'll complete the final season of looking back at my three years and three favorite teams in the USFL with the 1985 Memphis Showboats...

Forgotten Superstars:The 1984 Arizona Wranglers

We return to the Forgotten Superstars universe with a look at one of my favorite teams ever that I rooted for in just one season, became my team under bizarre circumstances, and after that season was around, yet gone.

Confused?
Well, that's the story I'm about to tell of the 1984 Arizona Wranglers of the late and lamented United States Football League and it's one of those stories that only tends to happen in rebel leagues that attract rebel fans-like yours truly.

The USFL was the only league that started up when I could pick the team I wanted to root for from day one.
The ABA, WFL, and WHA were in existence in my childhood, but they started before I could understand, so I was picking my team to root from existing franchises.
Shane and I were the only people that we knew that were USFL fans and I remember watching as many games as possible on ESPN and the Sunday afternoon game of the week on ABC.
I bought/was sent several media guides from the different teams (including the pictured one above) and Shane and I each had USFL team hats from a store at the mall-American Outfitters, which was a clothing store that wouldn't have ranked high on any list of a retailer that would sell USFL hats!
To this day, I still have my battered Wranglers hat, it's not wearable anymore, but I still have it.

In the USFL, I could pick my team from any number of reasons-team colors, team names, the city the team was located in, coach,roster-whatever motivated you to be a fan of a team could be used because there were no restrictions!
In 1983, I looked at all of those factors and took the Chicago Blitz.
The Blitz had several former NFLers, signed some college stars (Running Back Tim Spencer of Ohio State of note for me) and they had hired George Allen as head coach, who I had liked as the Redskins coach and that made them my choice.
The Blitz was one of the early favorites to win the league and made the playoffs ( Four teams did in the initial season) with a memorable playoff loss in which the Blitz built a big lead (21 points) and then blew it in an overtime loss in Philadelphia to the favored Stars, who were the league's best team even though they would lose to Michigan next week in the championship game.

Here is where things go off the rails.
The Blitz was owned by a surgeon, Ted Dietrich, who had taken a massive money loss in season one in Chicago, who lived in Arizona and wanted to have a team closer to his home there.
This desire led to one of the craziest things in sports history.
Dietrich sold the Blitz to another surgeon in James Hoffman and then Dietrich bought the Arizona Wranglers (who went 4-14 in the 1983 season).
Dietrich now owned a team in the location that he wished to own it, but now had moved from one of the most talented in the league to one of the worst.
Considering the resources invested in the Blitz with some big contracts for top-notch players, this was a huge step backward, so something had to be done.
Whether it was friends helping friends or someone pulling a huge scam, Dietrich managed to trade almost the entire Wrangler talent roster (except quarterback Alan Risher, who had a contract clause that required his permission to leave Arizona) and coaching staff to Chicago for the same personnel from the playoff level Blitz and their staff, which included George Allen.
This was the rough equivalent of trading most of the Pittsburgh Steelers roster and coaches to the Jacksonville Jaguars for the same return-How happy do you think the Pittsburgh fans would be with such a swap?
Chicago fans didn't flock to see the playoff Blitz and with the "new" Blitz being a bottom feeder, the USFL was effectively finished in Chicago after this trade, but the Arizona fans welcomed a championship contender.
I had a choice to make-Should I stay with the uniforms and logo of the Blitz and continue my fandom with Chicago? Or should I follow "my"coach and players to Arizona?
I decided to pull for the Wranglers, after just one year of existence, deciding to stick to the team in the uniforms rather than the uniforms themselves.

The Wranglers featured an NFL veteran at quarterback in Greg Landry, who was solid if not great in his NFL years with the Lions and Colts, perhaps the best running game in the league with Tim Spencer, who likely could have been a first-round pick had he not signed with the USFL before the NFL draft and former Jet Kevin Long-both would rush for over 1,000 yards and a talented wide receiver in Trumaine Johnson ( 90 catches and well over 1,000 yards), another would be NFL 1st rounder that signed early with the USFL, the Wranglers could be a fun offensive team and the defense possessed several NFL veterans and Frank Minnifield, yet another would be high NFL pick and would later become a borderline hall of fame candidate as a Cleveland Brown.

The Wranglers generally played like the Blitz-as in beating the really good teams and losing games to awful teams such as losses to the terrible San Antonio Gunslingers at home and scoring just three points in a loss to the Oakland Invaders, another team with a losing record.
Arizona won just five of their first twelve games (5-7) before ripping off wins in five of their final six games to tie the Los Angeles Express at 10-8 for the Pacific Division title, but lost the tiebreaker and instead earned Arizona a wild card spot in the now eight-team playoff field.

The Wranglers were overlooked entering the Western Conference playoffs and would travel to a division champion to start the playoffs in Houston against Jim Kelly and the Gamblers.
The Wrangler offense did next to nothing for most of the game and the defense would struggle to contain Kelly but would manage to stiffen in the red zone as the Gamblers would kick three field goals by former Cowboy and Oiler Toni Fritsch with Kelly's offense only finding the end zone once.
Still, Arizona trailed 16-3 with only the final eight minutes to play and looked to be finished.
The offense began to turn the tide as Tim Spencer roared downfield on a twenty yard run for a score, the Wrangler defense stopped Kelly, forced a punt and then marched down the field for the winning score as Greg Landry flipped a scoring pass to former Dallas running back Doug Dennison with under two minutes to play to notch a shocking 17-16 win over the Gamblers.
I missed this game as ABC showed a few playoff games at the same time and we received the Birmingham-Tampa Bay game, but I was quite pleased to see the comeback through "updates from New York" from now HBO boxing voice Jim Lampley.


The upset win in Houston moved the Wranglers into the Western finals against another division champion in the Los Angeles Express and another hall of fame passer in Steve Young for a game scheduled in Los Angeles.
However, the Los Angeles Coliseum was preparing for the upcoming Olympics in a few weeks and the Express was not allowed to play there.
That meant the wild card Wranglers would host the playoff game against the division winner on a Sunday afternoon game on ABC, but there was yet another wrench to come.
The normal heat in Arizona in July is not exactly conducive to football, but this weekend was especially oppressive and the league pushed the kickoff back to 8 PM, which put the game at 11 pm in the East, which guaranteed a tiny audience.
It also meant that Shane and I would be watching the game on a small black and white TV in a hotel room in Chincoteague VA late into the night.
I remember having to watch the game and be as quiet as possible as dad tried to sleep, which was pretty hard with rooting for the Wranglers.
This was also the weekend that my parents would roll their eyes about for years as they told people that we were the only kids in the world to be happy with pouring rain on vacation, so we could stay inside and watch Mid-Atlantic wrestling and the USFL!
They didn't remember the particulars, but they often referred to this weekend as "they would have rather watched television".

The game itself was somewhat similar to the game in Houston, although it was a little closer throughout than the win over the Gamblers.
The Wranglers offense wasn't running smoothly but kept the game close enough to have the game within reach, trailing 17-14 as the fourth quarter began behind two rushing touchdowns from Tim Spencer.
Arizona stepped up and dominated the fourth quarter as Kevin Long dove into the end zone on the period's first drive to gain a lead that they would not lose at 21-17.
The Wranglers forced a punt and scored again as Greg Landry hit Tim Spencer for a touchdown (Spencer's third of the game) before an Arizona interception of Steve Young set up a Mack Boatner score that ended with three touchdowns in eleven minutes that gave the Wranglers a 35-23 win.
The defense did their share in the victory as Arizona intercepted Steve Young twice and allowed him to complete just seven passes for the evening.


The Wranglers headed to Tampa for the championship against the Philadelphia Stars on my 16th birthday, which was spent watching the Wranglers play for the title.
Alas, the pattern was broken as the Wranglers continued their dull play in the first three quarters, but against the excellent defense of the Stars, the fourth quarter comebacks ended as the Stars won the championship in a dominant 23-3 victory.

The title loss would be the last professional game that George Allen would ever coach as, after the season, Ted Dietrich would sell the Wranglers to the owner of the Oklahoma Outlaws, Ted Tatham.
Tatham would hire his own coach (Frank Kush) and merge his Outlaws with the Wranglers to create the Arizona Outlaws, who would finish 8-10 in the 1985 season, the third and final year of the USFL.
For some dumb reason, the Tatham's (the Outlaws used Tatham's son as the GM) allowed most of the better Wranglers to leave in favor of Outlaws that had gone 6-12 in the 1984 season.
Tim Spencer was drafted by Memphis in an allocation draft, Frank Minnifield and Trumaine Johnson jumped to the NFL and Greg Landry retired rather than backup Doug Williams in Arizona to name just a few.

As for me?
I would move onto a new team to root for in the final season-the Memphis Showboats, but I enjoyed my days as a Blitz and Wranglers fan more as it was pretty clear as the 1985 season played out that the USFL was in trouble, thanks to Donald Trump (sound familiar?) and his skill at convincing people that he knew what he was doing and pushed the league into a fall showdown with the NFL.
Over 30 years later, I still have so many fond memories of those teams and that league, and thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, I can watch so many games now that either bring back memories or watch games that I've never seen before.
I hope you enjoyed this look back at the Wranglers and the USFL.
I have plans for eventual posts on the 1983 Blitz and 1985 Showboats, so if you liked this or want more of it, let me know.

Back next time with a cleaning of the inbox and soon the return of the TRS boxing rankings...