The NFL in the 1970s was perhaps its most significant era. It was primarily known for dominance by all-time great defenses. There was still tremendous individual success offensively, but it will always be known as football’s ‘Deadball era.’ It encompassed not just one dynasty, as has been the case in decades since, yet several teams that had runs of tremendous success. Among all those accomplished teams, just a few dominated the decade and are remembered today as among the league’s all-time best dynasties. Moreover, some of the historically best coaches and players excelled in this era. 

  The defense was king in the ’70s. Receivers and quarterbacks were mugged and abused. The current rule that limits defensive contact with receivers to an area within only the first five yards of scrimmage, the bump and run rule, was not in place until 1978, and receivers suffered mightily as a result. They could be pushed, hit, and interfered with essentially all the way up to the moment of the actual attempted catch. Pass Interference was still prohibited, yet it was not called as stringently as it is today. Quarterbacks also felt the brunt of the defense’s wrath, treated almost like rag dolls. The injury rate for quarterbacks then was likely the highest than in any era before or since. QBs of the past thirty years would be terrified to play in the ’70s, when little to none of today’s protection rules, such as illegal contact with the quarterback or limitations placed on offensive linemen, were in place. It was basically an all-out brawl, and today’s offensive players could not even comprehend how the defense could have had such a relative advantage. 

  Many of the best defenses in NFL history thrived in the ’70s, and they had some of the best nicknames, too. There was the Steel Curtain in Pittsburgh, Doomsday Defense in Dallas, Minnesota’s Purple People Eaters, The No Name defense in Miami, the Soul Patrol of the Raiders, the Grits Blitz in Atlanta, plus other teams, such as the Rams, that contributed to the decade’s reputation as the Deadball Era. It refers to professional baseball’s two ‘deadball’ eras, approximately 1900 to 1920 and roughly 1964 to ’72, before the pitcher’s mound was lowered (for the 1969 season). Just as pitchers dominated baseball, defenses limited scoring and yardage to historically record lows in the NFL. Not surprisingly, passing suffered the most. It was rare for even the best quarterbacks to have a 3000-yard season or a receiver to reach 1000 yards. Compare that to today’s numbers. Even an average quarterback is expected to have at least 4000 yards every season, and 5000 yards with 40 to 50 touchdowns is becoming almost commonplace. A receiver must make at least 100 catches with 1300 to 1500 yards to be considered among the best. The discrepancy with the 70’s statistics is comical. 50 to 60 catches were considered exceptional, and 1000 yards for a season was pure science fiction. 

  As a result of the difficulties in the passing game, running the ball was the predominant offense, as it was the best way to protect the quarterback and receivers from further abuse. It was not surprising that some of the best running backs ever played in that era, such as OJ Simpson, Walter Payton, Tony Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Larry Czonka, Chuck Foreman, and many others. OJ had the first 2000-yard rushing season in league history in 1973, totaling 2,003 yards in a fourteen-game season. Officially, the current NFL record is 2,105 yards in 1984 by Eric Dickerson. However, it was done in a sixteen-game season (the season lengthened to 16 games in 1978), and he averaged ‘only’ 131.6 yards per game (ypg). OJ averaged 143 yards per game in his seminal season. Also, Walter Payton in 1977 and Jim Brown in 1963 had better overall seasons than Dickerson. Jim Brown had 1863 yards in fourteen games, with an average of 133.1 ypg, while Payton averaged 132.6 ypg (1857 total). Jim Brown also had 1527 yards in 1958, in a mere 12 games (season extended to 14 in 1961), averaging 127 ypg. Barry Sanders rushed for 2053 yards in a sixteen-game season in 1997, but how he achieved it was notable. He had only 53 yards total in the first two games of the season, then 2000 yards in the next fourteen games, equaling Simpson’s average for fourteen games. Indeed, they were all fantastic performances, yet OJ averaging a whole ten yards per game over anyone else in history was transcendent. 

OJ had a few brilliant seasons, yet, over an entire career, Jim Brown is considered the best, with Payton and Barry Sanders right behind him. Those three are considered the ‘holy trinity’ of all-time running backs, akin to Wilt, Kareem, and Bill Russell’s ‘holy trinity’ status among the best centers in basketball history. Consider Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, with Jim Brown and Wilt taking the role of Bach’s place at the top. OJ is still top 6 or 7 all time, but Emmitt Smith was at the same level for a whole career. Gale Sayers and Sanders were the most dynamic, open-field runners the football world has ever seen. Gale Sayers is tied for the record with Ernie Nevers for most touchdowns in a single game (6), which he magically performed as a rookie in 1965, scoring by rushing, receiving, and on two kick returns. He was absurdly talented. He could have been right up there with Jim Brown for the best if he had not suffered a catastrophic knee injury that substantially shortened his career. 

  These kinds of running backs and remarkable seasons will likely never grace an NFL field again. The passing game has completely taken over. Because of low scoring and a perceived lack of excitement in the 70s, the rules changed in 1978 to open up the passing game, and there have since been other rule changes over the years, further restricting options for defenses. The pendulum has shifted entirely from the ’70s. As for running backs, even the NFL’s transition to a 17-game season in 2021 hasn’t helped them much. There will likely never be a 2000-yard rushing season again. They no longer get enough carries due to increased passing or the fact that they often must share time with another starting level running back. These days the extent of a team’s running scheme is often ‘running back by committee,’ as opposed to reliance on one star runner. Pure running backs are not as highly valued anymore, or they must be combo backs, equally adept at receiving as running. They are not drafted as high as they were in the past, and teams are reluctant to offer them big contracts after their first three years when their rookie contract expires. The careers of running backs have always been shorter than other positions, as they endure more hits and injuries more often than other players. Even the best running backs these days have less value to teams. They simply do not want to pay them because quarterbacks, receivers, offensive linemen, defensive backs, and linemen, and every position besides special teams take priority over running backs once they reach a certain stage of their careers, at or around 30. An incredibly talented runner like Derrick Henry is no different. As vital as he has been to Tennessee’s offense, they will replace him with someone else or running back by committee once contract time comes around. 

   As for the best teams in the ’70s, Dallas and Pittsburgh prevailed throughout the decade, while the Dolphins, Raiders, Vikings, and Rams also enjoyed consistent success. Dallas made the playoffs a record nine (consecutive) times, the Steelers and Vikings eight, and the Dolphins, Raiders, and Rams seven times. Not surprisingly, Dallas played in the most Super Bowls (five), while the Steelers won the most Super Bowls (four). The Cowboys and Steelers faced off twice in the Super Bowl, with Pittsburgh winning by only four points in both, with the result coming down to a few key plays. The difference between the two was the Pittsburgh defense. The so-called ‘Steel Curtain’ was the most consistently dominant defense for an extended period than any other in league history. In 1976, in a non-Super Bowl year, they had a record five shutouts, putting the team on its back after multiple injuries to its offense. Other defenses were remarkable for a shorter span, such as the ’85 and ’86 Bears, the 2000 Ravens, the 1978 Falcons, Buccaneers in 2002, and Denver’s Orange Crush in 1977. The Vikings’ Purple People Eaters must be included, too. They did have sustained success for about as long as the Steelers, yet the team could not win a championship. Dallas had their Doomsday Defense, which had two periods of dominance, first in the late ’60s to early ’70s, then again in the late ’70s to early ’80s. 

Most serious football fans have seen the exceptional film of Super Bowl 12 by NFL Films, entitled “Doomsday in the Dome,” when the Dallas defense absolutely brutalized the Broncos’ offense, forcing a record eight turnovers. It is a treat to watch for fans of the Cowboys and casual football fans alike. NFL Films has done some fantastic work over the years. Its musical accompaniment is especially striking in this one, deftly punctuating the awe and fury of the violent poetry that is football. The cacophony of sound that NFL Films has created over its many decades has become The Soundtrack of NFL history. 

While the Steelers were more successful overall in eight years (1972-79), the Cowboys had twenty consecutive winning seasons (18 seasons in playoffs) from 1966 to 1985, a record that will likely never be broken by any franchise. The longest streak Pittsburgh has had in nine years. The 49ers came close, with sixteen consecutive (1983-1998), fourteen in the playoffs. It appeared to be a foregone conclusion that the seemingly unstoppable Patriots of the 2000s and 2010s would break the record. They had already broken Dallas’s streak of nine straight seasons making the playoffs (equaled by the Peyton Manning-led Colts) with eleven (2009-2019). So, when the Patriots lost Tom Brady and other key players, their winning streak shockingly ended at nineteen seasons (17 in playoffs), proving that Bill Belichick is actually human (if barely)! As for the Cowboys, they were the only franchise to have two dynastic decades, the 70s and 90s, until the Patriots equaled that mark in the 21st century. 

A team can only be great with a coach to foster its prosperity. The 70’s had a higher percentage of all-time best coaches than any other decade, with Tom Landry, Don Shula, Chuck Noll, Bud Grant, and John Madden gracing the sidelines. Think about it. When has so many Hall of Fame coaches thrived in the NFL simultaneously? There could be whole seasons when it no longer occurs, yet Hall of Fame coaches were facing each other seemingly every week in the 70s. 

  Tom Landry held the record for most playoff wins (20) for thirty-plus years. Dallas had no offensive or defensive coordinator then, as Landry served in both roles. Consider that for a second. It simply does not happen anymore. He was a defensive (and offensive) genius. First, he is credited with developing the vaunted 4-3 defense as the defensive coordinator for the highly successful New York Giants in the 1950s. In a later reaction, Vince Lombardi and the Packers implemented an innovative run offense (‘run to daylight’) that took over the league. Dallas and other teams began to struggle against this new running-intensive offense with curious wrinkles. This offense featured variations in blocking technique and spacing, opening holes that allowed a running back to “run to daylight,” ideally. The offense spread throughout the league like wildfire. Unsurprisingly, Tom Landry responded with yet another innovation, the Flex Defense, a revolutionarily expanded version of the 4-3, which changed the game for the next twenty years. It was immensely successful, as it figured out how to counter the spacing of the formerly dominant Packer’s (and other team’s) running attack. It was akin to a zone defense in basketball to counter the ‘zone offense’ (zone blocking) of the Packers. Simultaneously, Landry created an offense to combat the Flex, as most of the teams in the league began using it, creating variants of the Cowboys’ winning defensive formula. One of Landry’s latest offensive innovations was the Shotgun, which was so effective that other teams began promptly using it with notable success. 

The Shotgun, a formation where the quarterback lines up five to seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, allows the quarterback more space and time to let the play develop. It was first used in 1960 by San Francisco yet abandoned after only one season. Once again, Tom Landry brought it back and made it so effective. It was almost unheard of then, yet fifty years later, it is THE most utilized offensive formation in the NFL, a kind of Spread offense that is so predominant. Over 60% of plays these days start with the Shotgun. It creates a nice setup for the high-powered passing offenses that are so prevalent now. 

While Landry may have been a brilliant coach, he still needed the right players to execute his futuristic concepts on the field. Think of quarterback Joe Montana skillfully showing off Bill Walsh’s poetic game plan to the football world. It was something of a revelation. Similarly, the primary reason the Dallas offense worked so well was the remarkable play of quarterback Roger Staubach. Even though Landry’s offensive scheme was undoubtedly ahead of its time, Staubach made it purr more than any other Dallas quarterback before or after him during his long coaching era. The Cowboys did have talented players on offense, yet he made those players look even better, like Peyton Manning with the Colts and Broncos and Tom Brady with the Patriots. Roger was The Man, and everyone in the league knew it. He could almost always bring a team back from a seemingly impossible deficit, mustering fervent hope among his teammates and fans alike. There has never been a quarterback who fostered so much faith in victory as Roger, more so than even John Elway, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and many others. While those quarterbacks were obviously excellent, Staubach was a hybrid, combining Elway’s superior athletic ability and obstinate will, Brady’s unassailable spirit of calm, hope, and inevitability, and Manning’s invincible mind. Yes, he did play in the league before them, but he created an almost impossible standard for them and others to try to emulate. 

  Don Shula holds the record for most career wins (regular season and playoffs), with 347, a remarkable number. Bill Belichick enters the 2023 season ‘only’ nineteen wins short of the record. It would take only two more seasons, yet he is 70 years old, and nothing is certain. Regarding Shula, he was the first coach to lead a team to three straight Super Bowl appearances, and he won two in a row, among a select few coaches and teams to do so. Even after losing key players to a rival league in the mid-’70s, he was able to keep the Dolphins in close contention for the next ten years and then adapt his usual running-oriented offense to an emphasis on the superlative passing talent of rookie Dan Marino in the early ’80s. 

  The 1972 Dolphins remain, to this day, the only team to finish undefeated in a season, including the regular season and playoffs. They finished 14-0 in the regular season, then swept the playoffs. A few other teams have come close yet lost in the Championship Game. The Chicago Bears of the 1930s and ’40s, the famous Monsters of the Midway, had two undefeated regular seasons, in 1934 and 1942, that incredibly ended in defeat in the Championship. In 1985, the Bears finished the season with only one loss, except they won the Super Bowl and suffered their sole loss during the regular season. It was fittingly against Don Shula’s Dolphins. The 1976 Raiders and 1984 49ers accomplished the same feat as the ’85 Bears, with only one regular season loss and a Championship win. The Vikings of 1998 finished 15-1 in the regular season and appeared to be a dead cert for the Super Bowl. Somehow, they ended up losing in the NFC Championship game when the best kicker in football at the time missed an easy shot to win the game. The kicker had not missed a field goal in two years, so it was shocking. 

  Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll is almost criminally underrated. Pittsburgh had been the league’s laughingstock (think Los Angeles Clippers) since the NFL was founded. However, after forty years of futility, it all began to change. Chuck Noll was hired in 1969, and Joe Greene was drafted the same year, becoming the first piece of the juggernaut defense that would soon take over the league. In the ’70s, Noll became the first coach to win four Super Bowls. Sort of like the Steelers’ offense; he was somewhat overshadowed by the Steel Curtain defense. However, Noll is the one who installed the defensive system, and he and defensive coordinator Bud Carson (hired in’ 72) made it all possible. He drafted the essential players who would work together to create an irrepressible force. 

Moreover, he had to patch together an inconsistent offense that sometimes struggled to play consistently. Their offense would mirror the evolution of other teams’ offenses at the time, at first relying more on running, then finally adapting to the new rules in the late 70s with an emphasis on passing. Chuck Noll may not have been on the same ‘genius’ level as Landry, Shula, Paul Brown, or Bill Walsh, yet the Steelers would not have won even one Super Bowl without him. 

Bud Grant and John Madden were two ‘other’ coaches who do not get enough respect today. Grant consistently succeeded, achieving a stellar record and playoff presence every season. Unfortunately, he battled dynasty-level teams in the Viking’s four Super Bowl appearances. He never had THE best team nor consistently the best players, yet he always had a highly competitive team, especially defensively. The Purple People Eaters will always be among football’s best and certainly had the best nickname. 

John Madden also, was remarkably consistent. The Raiders of that extended period (late 60’s to early 80’s) were second only to Dallas in terms of long-term excellence. They had sixteen consecutive winning seasons (1965-1981), making the playoffs eleven times. It was a remarkable run, if just short of the winning streaks of the Cowboys and Patriots. They won ‘only’ one Super Bowl in the ’70s, yet they were always in contention. As with the other top teams, they were led by their defense, especially the Soul Patrol, their defensive back unit that terrorized receivers for a decade. They were often cited for their dirty play, but it was not necessarily worse than the Steelers. They were extremely physical and intimidating, as any great defense should be. It was often about perception, creating fear in the opposing team’s offenses. The team has a significant advantage once fear is in play before the game even starts. 

The Raiders went deep in the playoffs almost every season, including five consecutive AFC conference championships (’ 73-’77). The fact that they had to play the best AFC team of the first half of the decade, the Dolphins, and then the best AFC team of the latter half, Pittsburgh, certainly did not help them, yet they, like the Vikings in the NFC, were always near the top. These days Madden is remembered more for his television announcing role, but his tenure as coach of the Raiders is still the best in franchise history. 

A discussion of any era must include its finest players. While it is impossible to name every top player, as it would take far too long, many deserve to be lauded in any retrospective view. It is striking how many of the ’70s All-Decade teams ended up on the NFL All-Century Team, the latest comprehensive list of the best players in pro football history. Many of the all-decade defensive players ended up on the NFL Century Team and more offensive players than I initially realized. Let’s start with the defense, as it is typically the offense that garners more attention. The defensive line is stacked with six of the seven total defensive tackles. The players are Buck Buchanon (Kansas City), Bob Lilly (Dallas), Joe Greene (Pittsburgh), Alan Page (Minnesota), Merlin Olsen (Rams), and Randy White (Dallas). That is just absurd. There are six 70’s linebackers out of twelve total, Dick Butkus (Bears), Ted Hendricks (Raiders), Willie Lanier (KC), Jack Ham (Steelers), Jack Lambert (Steelers), and Bobby Bell (KC). The defensive backs are well represented, too, with safeties Ken Houston (Houston Oilers/Washington), Larry Wilson (Cardinals), and cornerback Mel Blount (Pittsburgh). The All-Time offense is loaded with 70’s players, too. Quarterback Roger Staubach (the best 70’s QB by far) is deservingly included, as are the running backs, as mentioned earlier, Walter Payton (Bears), OJ Simpson (Bills), and Earl Campbell (Houston Oilers). Paul Warfield (Cleveland/Miami) is the only 70’s receiver represented. However, I would also choose Hall of Famers Drew Pearson (Dallas) and John Stallworth (Pittsburgh), two of the most clutch receivers ever and vital contributors to the Cowboys’ and Steelers’ consistently deep runs in the playoffs every season. The offensive line is loaded with 70’s players John Hannah (Patriots), Art Shell (Raiders), Gene Upshaw (Raiders), and Mike Webster (Pittsburgh). As for the coaches, the 70s dominate another category, with previously discussed Tom Landry, Don Shula, and Chuck Noll. Overall, regarding the All-Century and especially the 1970’s All-Decade team, notice how many players from Dallas, Pittsburgh, Oakland (now Las Vegas), Miami, and Minnesota made it. It was no accident that they were consistently the top teams during the decade. 

  Trying to cover any era in NFL history exhaustively is an almost impossible task, especially one as rich as the 1970s, yet it remains a worthy endeavor. Several decades have passed since then, and most young football fans today know little of that period beyond the main highlights. My goal has been to convey my fascination with the era and encourage others to delve deeper into its history. The fact is we cannot overlook the significant impact of the 1970s on the league’s development. Their goal should always be to emulate it, as it represents the NFL at its most unprecedented level of competition. The past is prologue. Learning from the past is a consummate virtue. Without such understanding, there is no growth or proper direction for the future. 

Afterward: Further Thoughts and Recommendations: 

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