Category: History and More

Thirty-three years ago today, Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly and San Francisco 49ers signal caller Steve Young put on an epic show for 64,503 fans at Candlestick Park – and millions more on  television.

In leading Buffalo to a 34-31 victory, Kelly hit 22 of 33 passes for 403 yards and three touchdowns.

Young, on the other hand, connected on 26 of 37 aerials for a career-high 449 yards and three scores.

They were hall of fame-worthy performances by two future Pro Football Hall of Famers.

“I guarantee you,” Kelly told the Reno Gazette-Journal, “no Super Bowl will be this entertaining.”

Added Young, “I don’t know what to say … honestly, I don’t.”

The teams combined for 1,086 yards, with 820 racked up via the passing game. There were no punts, a first in a regular season National Football League contest.

By 1992, both men had already established themselves as superstars on football’s biggest stage. Once they were done, they were regarded as two of the greatest to ever play the game.

Kelly spent 11 seasons in the NFL, throwing for 237 touchdowns and 35,467 yards and making four Pro Bowls.

Young had a 15-year career in football’s apex league, ending with 232 TD passes, 43 rushing scores, 33,124 yards through the air and six passing crowns. He was also a three-time Super Bowl champion.

Yet, while they’ll always be known as NFL legends, they first made their bones in the United States Football League. And on February 24, 1985, they went head-to-head in what has come to be known as “The Greatest Game No One Saw.”

It was the dawn of the third year of the USFL, and the renegade league was struggling. In August, 1984, owners voted to move to the fall and take on the NFL in what some fans saw as a suicide mission. With many ticket buyers seeing the handwriting on the wall, there was a palpable dip in enthusiasm for the product in 1985.

When Kelly and the Houston Gamblers came to California to take on Young and his Los Angeles Express in the season opener, only 18,826 people showed up at the Coliseum. And ABC – the primary TV partner of the spring league – had decided it would televise only one national game each Sunday. On this day, the network chose to showcase the Birmingham Stallions hosting the New Jersey Generals, with Doug Flutie debuting as the Generals’ quarterback.

But those who bought tickets to the game in the Coliseum witnessed history – and one of the wildest gridiron games ever played.

Houston won, 34-33, which suggests a nip-and-tuck affair.

What the final tally doesn’t tell you, though, is that the Gamblers rallied from a 33-13 fourth quarter deficit to steal the victory.

When the smoke cleared, Kelly had connected on 35 of 54 passes for five touchdowns and an all-time American pro football record of 574 yards.

His yardage total eclipsed Los Angeles Rams QB Norm Van Brocklin’s previous best of 554 yards set in 1951. (Canadian Football League quarterback Sam Etchenverry of Montreal had the overall pro passing record with 586 yards in a 1954 game).

Young managed 255 yards and a TD against two interceptions, and he was quite impressed with his counterpart.

“He’s a great quarterback,” Young said to the San Bernardino County Sun. “That’s a great offense … it’d be a fun offense to play for. I can really relate to that offense. They have guys running all over the place, and he just drops back and throws it. It reminded me of our offense at BYU (Young’s college team).”

Kelly’s performance helped him bolster his reputation as one of the best young field generals in the sport; he was both the USFL Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year in 1984.

Kelly was one of five quarterbacks taken ahead of Dan Marino in the 1983 NFL Draft, and the man who chose the USFL said he had no problem comparing numbers with the Miami Dolphins’ starter.

“I’ll bet you can call him up tomorrow and (Marino) will know my stats,” Kelly told the Sun. “Sure, build it up as much as possible. I’m not out for the glory, but if it comes to me, fine.

“I can’t say that I’m better. If he says he’s better, that’s fine. He’s proved how good he is. All I can say is I know how good I am.”

Kelly added that he had no regrets about joining the alternative league.

“Zero,” he said. “My goal was the NFL, but I got paid enough money to take care of my family. I’m just happy playing football. I love Houston, and that’s better than 40 degrees in Buffalo.”

As you probably know, the 1985 campaign was the last for the USFL. It’s demise paved the way for Kelly and Young to begin their sterling NFL careers.

Kelly joined Buffalo in 1985, and seemed to adjust to the cold just fine since he spent his entire time as an NFL employee there.

Young was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1985 and 1986 before signing with the 49ers in 1987.

And while their exploits playing for “The Shield” ultimately got them to Canton, their USFL clash forty years ago showed just how great they could be.

Too bad less than 19,000 people were there to see it.

Friday marked the first of seven international regular season games the NFL will play in 2025, with the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers mixing it up in São Paulo, Brazil. Fans who are  more accustomed to world class association football showed plenty of love for the top-tier tackle kind, with 47,000 watching the Chargers take a 27-21 victory at Arena Corinthians.

Other overseas stops this fall/winter include Dublin, Berlin, Madrid and three trips to London.

“The 2025 NFL season will see seven regular season games played outside of the U.S. – the  most ever regular season international games to date, including historic first games in iconic venues in Berlin, Dublin and Madrid,” NFL official Peter O’Reilly, who is in charge of international league events, said when the slate was announced. “The 2025 International Games schedule showcases an exciting selection of matchups featuring major NFL stars, bringing our game directly to fans around the world, and underscores our collective commitment to global growth as we continue our journey to becoming a truly global sport.”

Each year, it seems, the NFL expands its reach, and next year it steps into Australia with the Los Angeles Rams serving as the host team for a game in Melbourne.

“Expanding to Melbourne, Australia, a beautiful city with a rich sports history, underlines our ambitions to become a global sport and accelerate international growth,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a prepared statement. “Together with the Victorian State Government, Visit Victoria and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and with the Los Angeles Rams in 2026, we look forward to making history in what is an important market for the NFL and a significant next step in expanding our international footprint.”

What the NFL is doing right now for foreign relations might well be enough. When the league goes to locales like London it’s always a major event, and being an annual visitor is a great arrangement for both the city and the league.

But remember, talk about putting a franchise (or franchises) across the pond has never gone away and has, in fact, been pushed by Goodell himself.

“I think there’s no question that London could support not just one franchise, but I think two franchises, I really believe that,” Goodell said at a fan gathering hosted by Sky Sports back in 2022. “And that’s from a fan perspective, a commercial standpoint, from a media standpoint, I think you (United Kingdom fans) have undoubtedly proven that, and thank you for that. We’re trying to see could you have multiple locations in Europe where you could have an NFL franchise because it would be easier as a division.”

I’ve pontificated on these matters before, because it costs nothing to do so. My last unsolicited idea – based on Goodell’s musings – was to expand the NFL to 36 franchises with a European Division consisting of two London teams as well as clubs in Frankfurt and Munich. Playing each division foe twice along with the balance of a 17-game schedule, that gives the international wing of the NFL 11 or 12 games on their side of the Atlantic in addition to five or six in the United States.

“The question I think is going to come down to, not so much the logistics about travel, that’s clearly a challenge, it really comes down to whether you can do it competitively,” Goodell said three years ago. “Where the team here or the teams in the States coming over can continue to be competitive and that was the challenge when we did the regular season games.”

OK, so let’s make it less challenging by expanding the NFL to eight European markets – London One, London Two, Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dublin, Glasgow and Paris. (You can plug in your own European cities here … I’m just using these as examples).

One four team division would go the NFC and the other to the AFC, splitting the NFL into two, 20-team conferences with five divisions in each.

To help with scheduling, the European teams would play each other twice during the regular season, accounting for 14 games of the 17-game slate. The remaining three would feature traditional NFL teams coming for a visit.

In other words, in addition to seven home and seven road games against European sides, the London Kings would also host, say, the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and New York Giants while the London Knights might welcome the New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans.

The winners of each European Division would earn a playoff spot and be guaranteed at least one postseason home game.

This unbalanced, all-European schedule would give the eight international teams a bit of a break in the regular season since they would face only a handful of legacy NFL foes (and avoid overseas travel), but hey – that’s life.

And since the NFL is a global brand, it could continue its international series in places like Brazil and Australia, utilizing franchises that aren’t traveling to play the European squads.

Of course, if something like this ever happens, it will be many years down the road. If and when it does, I’ll have shuffled off this mortal coil or be too old to care – or write about it.

Still, it’s fun to think about, and that’s what I’m thinking about as the National Football League begins a brand new season.

A long time ago – in a journalism galaxy far, far away – one of my go-to columns concerned the need for a major college football playoff. I started my daily newspaper career in 1987, and back then the mere mention of a postseason tourney was considered a mortal sin by the NCAA brain trust.

If memory serves, a lot of fans didn’t like the idea, either.

They were all-in on mythical championships awarded by votes from coaches and writers.

That same year – in early October – the NCAA Presidents Commission voted to oppose a Division 1-A (now Football Bowl Subdivision) playoff. University of Maryland chancellor John Slaughter said the idea was rejected because a postseason beyond bowl games would not be “in the best interest of intercollegiate athletics.”

Later that month, the Big Ten and Pac-10 jointly announced their opposition.

“The conferences are skeptical that a college football playoff is feasible,” Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen told the Associated Press. “It is hard to imagine how the logistics could be accomplished of moving fans and teams during the holiday period of December and early January. Also, a playoff would conflict with, rather than bridge, examination periods that occur during this time.

“We support the current bowl structure and appreciate their contributions to college football. We fear most bowls would be lost if a playoff of any nature was adopted.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah … whatever. In my mind, the championship should be determined on the field and my solution came in the form of a nice and tidy 16-team playoff.

Then there were nine D-1A conferences – the SEC, Big Ten, Pacific-10, Big Eight, Southwest, ACC, Western Athletic, Mid-American and Pacific Coast. So, champs of those leagues would earn an automatic playoff bid along with the top seven wildcard teams (based on rankings). The field would be seeded one through 16.

There were 18 bowl games in ‘87, and my plan incorporated 15 of them. The title game would be played in the Rose Bowl, the semi-finals in the Sugar and Orange, and the Cotton, Citrus, Gator and Fiesta Bowls would host the quarterfinals. I had the Peach, Sun, Hall of Fame, Astro-Bluebonnet, Holiday, Liberty, Freedom and Independence hosting first round games.

That was before the internet, so people who thought my idea was stupid had to either call me and tell me that, or contact me through snail mail. And since our antiquated phone system didn’t yet have caller ID, readers could insult me anonymously.

Sometimes I actually miss being called a dumbass via landline.

Anyway, here we are in 2025. When this college football season ends there will be 12 teams vying for a crown. Before it’s settled in the College Football Playoff National Championship in Miami, the Peach and Fiesta (semis) and Sugar, Rose, Orange and Cotton (quarters) will be part of the process.

The 12-team model, which was introduced for the 2024 season, isn’t bad at all. No way to prove it, of course, but my guess is that any team that has a realistic shot at winning it all is gonna be in the field of 12.

That wasn’t the case during the original four-team playoff (2014-2023), which I always called an invitational. It was obviously better than the Bowl Championship Series (1998-2013) that came before it, but the sample size of championship-caliber schools was far too small.

Yet, as clunky as my 16-team format might have appeared many years ago, there has now been discussion (prompted by Big Ten folks) of going as high as 28 teams.

And why not?

The Football Championship Subdivision has had a 24-team playoff since 2013 and it seems to work just fine.

Reports suggest a 28-team field would see the Big Ten and SEC receiving seven automatic bids each, with the ACC and Big 12 getting five apiece. The other four spots would be split between a pair of wildcard teams and two top non-Power 4 programs.

“The more spots the better, man. Make that thing 40 and let’s go,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said on Husker Online, with tongue only partially in cheek. “I think, again, you’re talking about a league (Big Ten) that we play nine conference games where some others play eight (the SEC voted Thursday to move to a nine-game league schedule in 2026). So, I think that puts you at an automatic disadvantage.”

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has a pair of CFP titles under his belt and says no matter how a champion is determined, his ACC team will show up.

“As I’ve said many times, when there was a BCS, we made it,” Swinney said in July. “We got to the BCS down in the Orange Bowl and got in the mix of that and played Ohio State. When it was the Final Four, we got there six times. Four final twos. And when it went to 12, somehow, someway, with a 56-yarder (a field goal that won the ACC championship for the Tigers in 2024), we made it. We got there.

“So, if it goes to 14 or it goes to 16 or 24 or if there’s a new number, I don’t know … I have no idea. I just know this: at Clemson, we’re gonna always have a chance to be in whatever tournament people want to create.”

The SEC and Big Ten basically run college football, so – like it or not – whatever they decide is what will ultimately happen. And while saying, “I hope (fill in name of school here) finishes at least seventh in the (Big Ten or SEC) so they can make the playoffs” sounds ridiculous, this is a moneymaking business and big, bold expansion would rake in cash in by the millions.

Look, big-time college football – certainly from a Power 4 perspective – is NFL Lite now. Thanks to revenue sharing, NIL deals and the transfer portal, it’s pro football that just happens to have marching bands, cheerleaders and a fully-paid education if a player chooses to take advantage of it. Whatever college football once was, it is now something else entirely.

And since you can’t turn back the clock – except when Daylight Saving Time comes – you can either embrace it or ignore it.

But hey – these teams are still attached to universities.

Saturday tailgating continues unabated.

And there are almost too many bowls to count (OK, I counted – there are 42).

In other words, some vestiges of tradition remain. Thus, if your team doesn’t qualify for the 24 or 28-school CFP in the future, the consolation prize could be an invitation to the Extreme Cheese Bikini Atoll Atomic Bowl.

That said, my 16-team playoff idea remains there for the taking – and I’m ready for the Astro-Bluebonnet, Freedom and Hall of Fame Bowls to make a comeback …