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 that 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 not, but the USFL's arrival opened up options not seen since the mid-1970's 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 a number of 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 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), who the Blitz shared the Central Division championship with.
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 that 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...
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