"THE AFL MYTH" & MY RESPONSE
This afternoon I mentioned in "This and That" I had read an SI.com blog entitled "The AFL Myth" that attempted to debunk the widely held belief that the old American Football League was a more wide open, innovative brand of football that scared the NFL into a merger. This blog was written by a 30ish guy who certainly never saw a game live or, for that matter, on TV. All he could have seen of the AFL would be edited highlights. Since I'm an old geezer of 57 & had seen well over a hundred AFL games both live & on TV, I thought I had to respond to his fairly negative blog about the AFL. I would send you to this website, but to read any of the posts, you have to register, fill out an application, wait for your email link back into the posting boards etc. etc. I'll make it easy for anybody who wants to read it by reprinting it here.
I'm Old Enough to have Seen the AFL & You're Somewhat Off-base
I am old enough to speak about the AFL, I had Chief's season tickets starting in 1965. I believe you're somewhat off-base in your premise & I'd like to make just a couple of points.
1. Looking stats up on ESPN's website & making those numbers the basis for your entire article only tells half the story. If you didn't see those games week after week, year after year, you would have seen many things the NFL didn't do at that time. The AFL was first to put player's names on the back of their jersey. You would have seen the father of the modern passing game, Sid Gillman, patrolling the sidelines of the San Diego Chargers. The innovations of Hank Stram have been chronicled for decades. For the first time in any league, the AFL passed the ball more often than they ran it, something the NFL didn't do as a league until 1991. They had a 2-point conversion like the colleges did. The AFL did something even more important, they scouted & signed African-American players from small schools the NFL had completely ignored. Yes, there were scattered Grambling players in the NFL & some Olympians but minority players from the deep south? No, there were not. My Chiefs drafted & signed Willie Lanier, the first black middle linebacker in either league, from Morgan State. There was Emmitt Thomas of Bishop, Otis Taylor & Jim Kearney from Prairie View A&M, Wendall Hayes of Humbolt State, James Marsalis of Tennessee State & Frank Pitts from Southern, all starters for their Super Bowl Championship team. Grambling's Buck Buchanan was also a Chiefs' starter beginning in 1964. With the exception of Marsalis, who was picked from the combined draft of 1969, Otis Taylor was the only player listed above that the Chiefs had to fight the NFL for his services. The AFL had so many starters the NFL didn't even consider prospects & many of them are now in the Hall of Fame.
2. I won't pretend to compare the early to mid-60's quarterback rosters of the two leagues. The NFL had twice as many teams, their QB's were surrounded by much better talent, in most cases they received better coaching & it was easier to draft & sign a QB into a league that had been around their entire life. But you can make these same arguments about all of the leagues the NFL has competed against over the years. Whether it was the All-American Football Conference, American Football League, Canadian Football League, World Football League, the XFL or the Arena League. This disparity in talent truly makes up the bulk of your statistical case. In the "who's better, Bart Starr or Steve Tensi" debate, there is no doubt as to the answer. Jurgensen, Starr, Unitas, Gabriel, Brodie, Meredith, Tarkenton & Ryan make up a stout group of signal callers, then & now. The AFL didn't have that kind of talent but that didn't keep them from flinging it all over the yard. Yes, their completion percentage wasn't as good league-wide as the NFL, which is your entire case.
3. One word...........television. The NFL televised one game a week per market & you got your 'regional' team. Ours was the Cardinals, week after week, year after year. I got to see the Packers maybe once a year, same with the Skins, Colts & Browns, all very entertaining teams during this time. NBC began televising the AFL & they didn't half-step. They showed a double header each & every Sunday, no matter where you lived. You got your regional team plus another game. I loved the NFL, but if my viewing choice was a Cardinal/Steeler matchup in say, 1967, or listening to Curt Gowdy call a Raiders/Jets game, followed up with a Chiefs/Chargers tilt, then it was truly no contest. This is why many people my age grew up watching Lance Alworth, Joe Namath, Lenny Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Darryl Lamonica, Gene Upshaw, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Don Maynard, Fred Biletnikoff, John Hadl, Nick Buoniconti, Paul Lowe, Charlie Hennigan, George Blanda & Jan Stenerud.
4. The NFL played a pretty decent brand of football in the 60's but by the time they started playing the AFL in '67 during preseason, the talent disparity was diminishing. The NFL held a winning record overall but they were getting their asses kicked by the better AFL teams on a fairly regular basis. I remember a 1967 article in Sports Illustrated about a particularly bad August weekend for the established league. The Raiders, Jets & Chargers had all won convincingly & the article concluded with a quote from Mike Pyle, a center from the Chicago Bears, who had just been obliterated by the Chiefs, 66-24. Pyle was asked if he was impressed by the Chiefs, he said "well they ain't a band of plumbers O.K."? Kansas City held a 7-1 record vs the NFL during this period. Granted it was preseason, but no one wanted to lose these games.
5. Another problem for the NFL began surfacing in the mid-60's. The Art Modell's, Bill Bidwell's & Art Rooney's of the NFL couldn't continue competing for talent dollar-wise with Baron Hilton, Lamar Hunt, Sonny Werblin & Bud Adams. These guys were so rich they loaned the other AFL owners money to keep making payroll & their stadium rent. Plus their TV ratings were now even with those of the NFL. Pete Rozell & Tex Schram knew a merger & common draft was the right thing to do, both financially & for the future of the game.
I appreciate all the research you've done to make your point & if you know as much about this game as I think you do, I believe you will agree, stats never tell the whole story. Was there an AFL myth? I suppose the league has been romanticized somewhat, but it's impossible to ignore the impact of the AFL, both on the public & the game itself.
I grew up watching football with my dad, we watched the classic Colt/Giant overtime championship game on our black & white TV that couldn't have been more than a 15- incher. Don't remember much about it, just that it was cool watching football with my dad. We saw Jim Brown, Gale Sayers & Johnny Unitas. Watched the AFL in it's infancy & then later, when we got our own team, I saw my first pro football game in person. I was hooked & still am, love the game as much now as I ever have. Now I watch football in our 5-screen media room with my football loving wife of 33 years every Saturday & Sunday, oh yeah, Monday night & Thursday night too. It's quite simply, the best.
I'm Old Enough to have Seen the AFL & You're Somewhat Off-base
I am old enough to speak about the AFL, I had Chief's season tickets starting in 1965. I believe you're somewhat off-base in your premise & I'd like to make just a couple of points.
1. Looking stats up on ESPN's website & making those numbers the basis for your entire article only tells half the story. If you didn't see those games week after week, year after year, you would have seen many things the NFL didn't do at that time. The AFL was first to put player's names on the back of their jersey. You would have seen the father of the modern passing game, Sid Gillman, patrolling the sidelines of the San Diego Chargers. The innovations of Hank Stram have been chronicled for decades. For the first time in any league, the AFL passed the ball more often than they ran it, something the NFL didn't do as a league until 1991. They had a 2-point conversion like the colleges did. The AFL did something even more important, they scouted & signed African-American players from small schools the NFL had completely ignored. Yes, there were scattered Grambling players in the NFL & some Olympians but minority players from the deep south? No, there were not. My Chiefs drafted & signed Willie Lanier, the first black middle linebacker in either league, from Morgan State. There was Emmitt Thomas of Bishop, Otis Taylor & Jim Kearney from Prairie View A&M, Wendall Hayes of Humbolt State, James Marsalis of Tennessee State & Frank Pitts from Southern, all starters for their Super Bowl Championship team. Grambling's Buck Buchanan was also a Chiefs' starter beginning in 1964. With the exception of Marsalis, who was picked from the combined draft of 1969, Otis Taylor was the only player listed above that the Chiefs had to fight the NFL for his services. The AFL had so many starters the NFL didn't even consider prospects & many of them are now in the Hall of Fame.
2. I won't pretend to compare the early to mid-60's quarterback rosters of the two leagues. The NFL had twice as many teams, their QB's were surrounded by much better talent, in most cases they received better coaching & it was easier to draft & sign a QB into a league that had been around their entire life. But you can make these same arguments about all of the leagues the NFL has competed against over the years. Whether it was the All-American Football Conference, American Football League, Canadian Football League, World Football League, the XFL or the Arena League. This disparity in talent truly makes up the bulk of your statistical case. In the "who's better, Bart Starr or Steve Tensi" debate, there is no doubt as to the answer. Jurgensen, Starr, Unitas, Gabriel, Brodie, Meredith, Tarkenton & Ryan make up a stout group of signal callers, then & now. The AFL didn't have that kind of talent but that didn't keep them from flinging it all over the yard. Yes, their completion percentage wasn't as good league-wide as the NFL, which is your entire case.
3. One word...........television. The NFL televised one game a week per market & you got your 'regional' team. Ours was the Cardinals, week after week, year after year. I got to see the Packers maybe once a year, same with the Skins, Colts & Browns, all very entertaining teams during this time. NBC began televising the AFL & they didn't half-step. They showed a double header each & every Sunday, no matter where you lived. You got your regional team plus another game. I loved the NFL, but if my viewing choice was a Cardinal/Steeler matchup in say, 1967, or listening to Curt Gowdy call a Raiders/Jets game, followed up with a Chiefs/Chargers tilt, then it was truly no contest. This is why many people my age grew up watching Lance Alworth, Joe Namath, Lenny Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Darryl Lamonica, Gene Upshaw, Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Don Maynard, Fred Biletnikoff, John Hadl, Nick Buoniconti, Paul Lowe, Charlie Hennigan, George Blanda & Jan Stenerud.
4. The NFL played a pretty decent brand of football in the 60's but by the time they started playing the AFL in '67 during preseason, the talent disparity was diminishing. The NFL held a winning record overall but they were getting their asses kicked by the better AFL teams on a fairly regular basis. I remember a 1967 article in Sports Illustrated about a particularly bad August weekend for the established league. The Raiders, Jets & Chargers had all won convincingly & the article concluded with a quote from Mike Pyle, a center from the Chicago Bears, who had just been obliterated by the Chiefs, 66-24. Pyle was asked if he was impressed by the Chiefs, he said "well they ain't a band of plumbers O.K."? Kansas City held a 7-1 record vs the NFL during this period. Granted it was preseason, but no one wanted to lose these games.
5. Another problem for the NFL began surfacing in the mid-60's. The Art Modell's, Bill Bidwell's & Art Rooney's of the NFL couldn't continue competing for talent dollar-wise with Baron Hilton, Lamar Hunt, Sonny Werblin & Bud Adams. These guys were so rich they loaned the other AFL owners money to keep making payroll & their stadium rent. Plus their TV ratings were now even with those of the NFL. Pete Rozell & Tex Schram knew a merger & common draft was the right thing to do, both financially & for the future of the game.
I appreciate all the research you've done to make your point & if you know as much about this game as I think you do, I believe you will agree, stats never tell the whole story. Was there an AFL myth? I suppose the league has been romanticized somewhat, but it's impossible to ignore the impact of the AFL, both on the public & the game itself.
I grew up watching football with my dad, we watched the classic Colt/Giant overtime championship game on our black & white TV that couldn't have been more than a 15- incher. Don't remember much about it, just that it was cool watching football with my dad. We saw Jim Brown, Gale Sayers & Johnny Unitas. Watched the AFL in it's infancy & then later, when we got our own team, I saw my first pro football game in person. I was hooked & still am, love the game as much now as I ever have. Now I watch football in our 5-screen media room with my football loving wife of 33 years every Saturday & Sunday, oh yeah, Monday night & Thursday night too. It's quite simply, the best.
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