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Remembering Pop Bowl I

Today’s game between the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers isn’t the marquee matchup of Week 6; that honor goes to either Dallas at Philadelphia or Buffalo at Kansas City.

For me, though, it’s a pretty big deal.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl**

As a Jets fan, the opportunity to pull off a road upset and improve to 4-2 is quite appealing, although if I told you I was confident about such a result, I’d be lying.

More important than my rooting interest, though, is that the contest will be the 14^th Pop Bowl.

What’s the Pop Bowl?

I’m glad (I’m pretending) you asked.

My dad was a Packers fan, explaining to me they became his favorite NFL team when Don Hutson signed in 1935. Hutson had played college ball at Alabama, and Pop enjoyed following the pro exploits of guys who had ties to the state. By the time Bart Starr – another former Crimson Tide player and future NFL legend – was drafted in 1956, he was fully committed to the team no matter where it got its players.

As a kid I was drawn to the high-octane, draw up plays in the dirt offenses showcased in the American Football League, quickly glomming on to the New York Jets and anointing guys like Joe Namath, Emerson Boozer, Matt Snell and Don Maynard as my gridiron heroes.

Pop enjoyed the AFL, too – and was happy when the Jets were successful because it made me happy. But with the two leagues separate until the 1970 merger (and they weren’t on each other’s schedule in 1971 or 1972), there was no chance the teams would meet short of a title game.

But finally – on September 17, 1973 – Pop and I had the chance to battle each other for braggin’ rights when the Green and Gold and Green and White faced off.

It was the season opener, with the Pack coming off an NFC Central title and the Jets finishing 7-7 (and having the misfortune of sharing the AFC East with the perfect Miami Dolphins).

I was convinced Namath and company would have a bounceback year in ‘73, while Pop was happy to see former Alabama signal caller Scott Hunter (who Namath helped recruit) behind center for Green Bay.

“If Hunter hadn’t gotten hurt in college (a separated shoulder his senior season) he’d be one of the all-time great passers,” Pop would often tell me.

This was a Monday Night Football presentation, and that made things even better. MNF was still in its relative infancy and seemed especially important to me due to the presence of Frank Gifford, Don Meredith and Howard Cosell in the booth.

“This is like the Super Bowl,” I said.

“If the Jets win,” Pop said, “we’ll call it the Scooter Bowl.”

(“Scooter,” if you’re wondering, was one of my nicknames as a youth).

“And if the Packers win,” I said, “we’ll call it the Pop Bowl.”

We spent the whole game giving each other a hard time (in a good-natured fashion) and he had a whole lot more reason to cheer than I did. I don’t remember a lot of the details, but the Packers won, 23-7, at Milwaukee County Stadium.

Chester Marcol kicked three field goals for Green Bay, Hunter threw a touchdown pass, and Namath was picked off once and the Jets had three turnovers in all.

Thus, “Pop Bowl I” went to, well, Pop.

With the infrequency of their meetings (and the fact that neither team was a natural choice in the Birmingham TV market) this never became an annual event. They didn’t meet for a second time until 1979, and squared off only seven times over the next 15 seasons.

Still, I’d always remind Pop of their upcoming games, and we’d discuss them while sharing the Monday newspaper when I lived at home or over the phone when I had moved away and was working for a newspaper.

Even when the Jets won (and they hold an 8-5 series lead) I’d still call it the “Pop Bowl” because that’s just how I like to think of it.

The last time he had a chance to “trash talk” me came on November 13, 1994, when the Packers managed a 17-10 victory at Lambeau Field. He razzed me as best he could – he loved saying things like, “I’d hate to lose a game to a team whose quarterback is named Boomer (Esiason)” – but his voice was weak and for the first time I could ever recall, he seemed feeble.

Three weeks later he was diagnosed with cancer, and on December 25, 1994, he died.

We watched a lot of football together over the years – college and pro – and even when the teams we rooted for lost, it still made for special memories because we always had fun together.

But Pop Bowl I? That was extra special.

And since they were his favorite team, I won’t be too sad if the Packers come away with the victory this afternoon.

I’ll just be sad I can’t give Pop a hug when it’s over.

The WFL’s path to Memphis

The Memphis Southmen were arguably the most notable team in the brief history of the World Football League. They shocked the sports world by luring Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kiick away from the NFL champion Miami Dolphins, counted Elvis Presley as one of their biggest fans, and even met payroll – a rarity in the WFL.

What’s interesting, though, is the Southmen (also known as the Grizzlies) were actually the second WFL franchise awarded to the land of the Delta Blues. And Memphis city officials initially wanted no part of this new league at all.

Gary Davidson formed the WFL in late 1973, touting a league that would be international in scope. But as the fledgling circuit moved closer to a July, 1974, launch date, it became apparent that its flagship clubs would be in North American cities.

San Francisco sports promotor Steve Arnold, who was involved with other Davidson ventures such as the American Basketball Association, World Hockey Association and World Team Tennis, owned the Memphis entry. He was officially granted the franchise on January 15, 1974, and said his first order of business was to get local people involved.

A local person not involved, however, was Memphis mayor Wyeth Chandler.

“Nobody from that league (the WFL) has contacted me,” Chandler told the Associated Press. “My aim is to get us into the NFL. At the present time, I think Memphis will only support big league sports and that means the National Football League.”

The NFL Expansion Committee was slated to meet just days after Davidson gave Arnold rights to the team, and Memphis, Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Tampa and Honolulu were considered leading candidates to land one of two new NFL teams expected to begin play in 1976.

The president of Mid-South Sports Inc., Mike Lynn (who went on to become an executive and minority owner of the Minnesota Vikings and president of the World League of American Football) certainly didn’t want the sport’s biggest league to have a reason not to come there.

“The community would boycott any move at this time to bring in a World Football League franchise,” Lynn told AP. “It would be an economic disaster unlike any that has ever been seen in the history of professional sports.”

While Arnold faced resistance from the mayor, he did get a slightly warmer reception from the Memphis Park Commission, which operated Memorial Stadium. As the NFL continued to consider its expansion options, the commission in February voted to negotiate with Arnold about use of the stadium on Wednesday and Thursday nights when WFL games would be played.

But the commission decided not to discuss the negotiations again until a March meeting, which was just four months before the new league’s July 10 launch.

Arnold considered that a stalling tactic and believed the commission wanted to wait until the NFL made a firm decision on 1976 expansion before getting in bed with the WFL. So instead of waiting around, he decided to take his franchise to Houston.

With the WFL out of the picture Memphis could put all its energy behind an NFL push, and for a time it appeared to be a smart move. At a February meeting Lamar Hunt, head of the expansion committee, had high praise for the Bluff City and hinted that when the NFL announced an expansion decision in April, pro football fans in Tennessee might just hear some pretty good news.

Instead, only Tampa was named as a future NFL franchise and the second team for 1976 wouldn’t be determined until June. Still, Lynn told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in late April he had heard from “the highest possible source” that Memphis would join the exclusive NFL club on June 4. NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle denied the report, saying “there has been no decision of any kind relative to expansion that was not publicly announced.”

But Memphis’ WFL story was not over.

John Bassett, owner of the WFL Toronto Northmen, had caused a seismic quake in the sport by signing Csonka, Warfield and Kiick for the 1975 season. That deal demonstrated that the new gridiron business was serious about being a major league but pressure from the Canadian government – who wanted to keep the Canadian Football League safe from an American football invasion – prompted Bassett to take his franchise south of the border.

Just as news broke that Memphis was apparently headed to the NFL, Northmen officials began touring Memphis and scouting the city as a possible relocation site.

Had Memphis officials received a public commitment from the NFL, the Toronto club would’ve continued to search for a new home in the United States. But on May 2, 1974, Chandler and members of the Park Commission met with Bassett to discuss a non-exclusive contract for Memorial Stadium, which was home of the annual Liberty Bowl.

Just five days later, the movers and shakers in Memphis had become convinced the NFL was, in fact, not ready to set up shop in Tennessee. Seattle’s construction of a domed stadium and the NFL’s chance to grow the league in the Pacific Northwest had apparently moved that city next in the expansion line.

So, on May 6 the commission voted 3-1 to lease the stadium to the WFL entry, angering NFL proponents who saw the move as a death knell.. In fact, on the same day Bassett held his news conference announcing the Northmen’s southern move, Mid-South Sports filed a class action suit in an effort to void the WFL stadium lease.

Millionaire grain dealer Ned Cook was hoping to be part of an NFL ownership group but said those dreams were shattered by the commission’s vote.

“Well,” he told United Press International, “Memphis just kissed the NFL goodbye.”

Chandler, who was quick to oppose the WFL’s first flirtation with Memphis, told the Commercial Appeal the situation had changed dramatically due to the NFL’s indecisiveness.

“I think I would have to have from Mr. Rozelle a statement to the effect that the NFL will come to Memphis,” he said. “I think we’ve heard this other and we’ve heard it up to our ears prior to this (expansion committee) meeting in New York.

“Everybody said, ‘Chandler, you’re in, just hang in there.’ And then I went to New Orleans and got the word that we weren’t in, we weren’t out – we were in limbo, and that’s even worse.”

Chandler added that Bassett leading the ownership group and changed his opinion of the WFL.

“Steve Arnold came here to sell a franchise,” Chandler said. “He owned the franchise, he lived wherever it was (San Francisco), he had no intention of ever moving to Memphis or anything else. He was coming here merely to try to get a stadium agreement on the front end and then try to sell the franchise to somebody. We didn’t have any idea who it might be or who we were dealing with or anything else. He was a seller.

“Now the guy we dealt with here (Bassett) is a businessman, the son of a very wealthy man and, of course, apparently wealthy in his own right who, together with other identified parties, also well-to-do businessmen in Canada, are now the buyers. They’re not selling anything.”

On June 5 the NFL granted Seattle an expansion franchise, and Chandler told AP that meant allowing the WFL to set up shop was the proper move.

“It would appear we made the right decision,” he said. “We felt that the NFL was keeping us hanging loose while they negotiated with Seattle. The NFL hasn’t contacted me since the WFL moved here. It just shows that there weren’t enough votes to get an NFL franchise then (in April) or now.”

The Southmen had the best regular season record in the WFL’s 1974 season (17-3) and won the Central Division before being upset by the Florida Blazers in the playoffs. They averaged 21,505 fans per game.

The league itself was a financial dumpster fire but was reinvented in 1975, allowing Csonka, Warfield and Kiick to show off their abilities seven times at Memorial Stadium, pulling in 19,695 fans per game. The trio’s star power notwithstanding, with no national TV contract the “new” WFL had no chance at survival.

It folded on October 22, 1975, and Memphis – along with the Birmingham Vulcans – announced they were applying for membership in the NFL.

That’s another column for another time …

The NFL growth chart

Although the circuits wouldn’t play as one for four more seasons, the 1966 announcement that the National Football League and American Football League had agreed to merge created pro football’s first 600-pound gorilla.

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was hoping it would soon grow into King Kong.

Part of the agreement between the 14-team NFL and 10-team AFL was that the combined organization would expand to 26 franchises by 1969 and 28 for the 1970 campaign.

The addition of New Orleans (NFL, 1967) and Cincinnati (AFL, 1968) took care of the first deadline, but the NFL was still at 26 and holding by 1970.

Rozelle, however, predicted a major growth spurt by the end of the decade – featuring up to 32 clubs with Honolulu and Mexico City in the expansion mix.

“I would think that within the next decade we would probably go to 32 teams,” Rozelle said during a Q&A with Associated Press in January, 1971. “When one considers that in a little over 10 years professional football has gone from 12 to 26 teams, you are not forced to stretch the imagination to envision six more being added. But it will not be in the immediate future.”

Cities across the United States – and beyond – had clamored for franchise consideration throughout the 1960s. Rozelle admitted there were already frontrunners by the early 1970s.

“Cities such as Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Tampa, Birmingham, Memphis, perhaps the general area of the Carolinas, then Mexico City and Hawaii.

“I think we would first put franchises in mainland U.S. cities that merit them, but (an international flair) would be a decided plus for Hawaii and Mexico City.”

Rozelle was making the interview rounds as part of Super Bowl week and the annual “State of the League” address. And when he mentioned taking the league south of the border, it stood to reason that the NFL would strongly consider going north of the border, right?

Nah.

Even though the early 1970s was an era in which the Canadian Football League could compete with the American leagues for players, Rozelle was hoping the NFL and CFL could have a peaceful coexistence.

“I see no use in going up there and causing problems,” Rozelle said. “The reason we wouldn’t be interested in Canada is simply a matter of public relations, of international goodwill. And we have a number of cities down here that would have to be taken care of first.

“I’m not ruling out Canada and there’s no obligation against us moving there, but we wouldn’t consider it without the approval of the people up there, the fans and maybe even the government along with the league owners. We don’t want to take steps to kill off the Canadian Football League.”

By 1972 expansion talk centered mostly on Memphis, Phoenix, Seattle and Tampa, and Lamar Hunt – founder of the AFL and president of the NFL’s American Football Conference – suggested those hopefuls would get a hearing in front of NFL officials in 1973.

However, expansion never got beyond the talking stage and drug on into 1974, when the NFL found itself dealing with a competitor in the World Football League. The WFL put franchises in Birmingham, Honolulu and Memphis, cities that Rozelle had mentioned as possible expansion sites. Whether that impacted the NFL’s decision to grant Tampa and Seattle teams for 1976 is debatable, but the Bucs were formed in April, 1974, and the Seahawks joined two months later to give the NFL its 27^th and 28^th teams.

As for expanding to 32 by the end of the 70s, that, of course, didn’t happen. In fact, Rozelle had been retired for six years before the NFL hit the 30-franchise mark, that coming when the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars were added for the 1995 season.

The growth to 32 was ultimately realized as a byproduct of relocation. Cleveland, which lost its team when the franchise moved to Baltimore in 1996, was added as the NFL’s 31^st team in 1999 and rechristened the Browns.

The Houston Texans made the league a 32-franchise organization when they came on board in 2002; Space City lost the Oilers to Tennessee in 1997.

Of Rozelle’s original 1970s expansion teases, Portland, Birmingham, Memphis, Mexico City and Honolulu are still on the outside looking in (although Memphis got the Oilers for a stopover year while Nashville built a stadium).

So, while the National Football League has seen quite a few established franchises begin play in new locales during the modern era (Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles in 1982; Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis in 1984; St. Louis Cardinals to Phoenix in 1988; Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis in 1995; Raiders back to Oakland in 1995; Houston Oilers temporarily to Memphis in 1997 and permanently to Nashville in 1998; Rams back to Los Angeles in 2016; San Diego Chargers to Los Angeles in 2017; and the Raiders to Las Vegas in 2020), it has had 32 members for the last two decades.

From a strictly numbers standpoint it seems to be the perfect size: two 16-team conferences each with four divisions comprised of four teams.

But it’s hard to imagine the NFL standing pat forever, and you have to believe there will be further expansion in the not-too-distant future.

Now that London is a regular season stop and talk of expansion there has gone on for several years, the league might throw logistical caution to the wind and give England its own team (or teams).

Speaking of wind, the Windy City could conceivably be in line for a second franchise. With the Bears leaving Soldier Field, city leaders are already talking about getting a new tenant for its old gridiron cathedral.

St. Louis would love to be back in the NFL, as would San Diego and Oakland. Toronto always seems to be in the expansion conversation as well, and it doesn’t take a huge leap to picture the sport’s preeminent business growing to 36 teams.

Who knows?

As enormous as King Kong is now, he could still bulk up even more.