Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

*this regular season game featured two teams who would end up with identical records
*a QB threw his only career TD pass
*a player in his 13th season threw the only INT of his career
*a HOFer had 1 pass attempt and 0 completions
*a different HOFer had -6 yards rushing

Bears vs. Cardinals 10/29/72
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 290crd.htm
-Tim Van Galder
-Bobby Joe Green <-- this was the clue that made this somewhat easily findable.
-Larry Wilson (one of my favorite players of the 60s)
-Jackie Smith

ChrisBabcock wrote:

*this regular season game featured two teams who would end up with identical records
*a QB threw his only career TD pass
*a player in his 13th season threw the only INT of his career
*a HOFer had 1 pass attempt and 0 completions
*a different HOFer had -6 yards rushing

Bears vs. Cardinals 10/29/72
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 290crd.htm
-Tim Van Galder
-Bobby Joe Green <-- this was the clue that made this somewhat easily findable.
-Larry Wilson (one of my favorite players of the 60s)
-Jackie Smith

Correct!

*the usual refrain of "both HCs are in the Hall of Fame"
*both teams had a RB make the pro bowl this year
*the losing team's K/P would eventually play for the winning team later in his career
*a future MVP would throw a TD pass in this game
*a RB would catch an 85-yard TD in this game
*one of the starting QBs would play in the Super Bowl later in his career

Bryan wrote:*the usual refrain of "both HCs are in the Hall of Fame"
*both teams had a RB make the pro bowl this year
*the losing team's K/P would eventually play for the winning team later in his career
*a future MVP would throw a TD pass in this game
*a RB would catch an 85-yard TD in this game
*one of the starting QBs would play in the Super Bowl later in his career

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 300ram.htm

conace21 wrote:

Bryan wrote:*the usual refrain of "both HCs are in the Hall of Fame"
*both teams had a RB make the pro bowl this year
*the losing team's K/P would eventually play for the winning team later in his career
*a future MVP would throw a TD pass in this game
*a RB would catch an 85-yard TD in this game
*one of the starting QBs would play in the Super Bowl later in his career

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 300ram.htm

Correct!

-This team featured a playoff team (who was also the defending champion) against the worst team, and worst defense, in the league.

-The playoff team had the highest scoring offense in the league, but they still had negative net passing yards.

-This bottom-dwelling defense did have two HOF players, as well as a player who ranked 2nd in the league in interceptions that season. The next year, all three players would be teammates on a different team. The non-HOF player would again rank 2nd in the league in interceptions.

-A HOF QB finished with negative gross passing yards (without taking sacks into account.)

-The losing QB threw 6 interceptions, including one that was returned for the first career touchdown for a Hall of Fame defender.

-This team featured a playoff team (who was also the defending champion) against the worst team, and worst defense, in the league.

-The playoff team had the highest scoring offense in the league, but they still had negative net passing yards.

-This bottom-dwelling defense did have two HOF players, as well as a player who ranked 2nd in the league in interceptions that season. The next year, all three players would be teammates on a different team. The non-HOF player would again rank 2nd in the league in interceptions.

-A HOF QB finished with negative gross passing yards (without taking sacks into account.)

-The losing QB threw 6 interceptions, including one that was returned for the first career touchdown for a Hall of Fame defender.

I think I've got it....
11/9/52 - Rams 27, Texans 6
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 090dtx.htm

This was a tricky one! I figured the key would be clue #3. I was racking my brain to think of a prominent group of defensive teammates that jumped ship to another team all in one offseason. I was thinking it had to be some sort of expansion team scenario and then the Texans "becoming" the Colts popped into my head and realized Donovan and Marchetti may be the HOFers. I had only vaguely heard of Tom Keane before this.

Waterfield, Tripucka and Robustelli are the other players involved.

That's it, Chris. I recall mentioning this game at dinner on Friday night. I forget who was there, but I know you weren't at the table.

The Texans and Rams played two weeks in a row. The Rams won the first matchup handily, and it was a typical Rams offense. This followup a week later was stunning to me. The Rams passing offense had come down a notch from the previous years, but the Dallas Texans holding them to negative yardage is stunning.

Normally players had career games against the Colts, Yanks, and Texans in that era.

Baltimore Colts:
In week 2, Dub Jones had touchdown runs of 60 and 11 yards. Ken Carpenter ran for 100 yards on 3 carries. So much for Greasy Neale's complaints after opening night that all Cleveland could do was pass.

A week after setting an NFL record with 8 interceptions, Jim Hardy threw six touchdown passes against Baltimore. Bob Shaw caught five of them. Oh, and Chicago also had 272 yards rushing.

LA Rams: 70 points.

Eddie Price ran for 158 yards for the NYG.

Cloyce Box: 12 receptions for 302 yards and 4 touchdowns.

New York Yanks:
Obviously, Norm Van Brocklin's 554 yards passing. In the other Rams-Yanks matchup, LA ran for 371 yards.
Deacon Dan Towler ran for 155 yards on 13 carries.

Chicago ran for over 300 yards in each of the two games. Johnny Lujack ran for a total of 4 scores

The Dallas Texans:
"The King" of San Francisco had 170 yards on 7 carries. Pretty impressive yards per carry even when you take out the 89 yard TD.

Chicago's Babe Dimancheff had a 77 yard TD run. His 16 other carries in 1952 went for 29 yards.

Bob Waterfield threw 2 TDs in the first game against. What makes that notable is he only had 3 touchdown passes all year.

Cloyce Box had 7 catches for 202 yards and 3 TD's.

No, I wasn't there for that conversation. Yeah, that was an odd game! A historically great passing offense laying an egg like that against the pathetic Texans.

In this game.
Both head coaches had Super Bowl rings, that were won with the same franchise.
The winning coach is in the PFHOF.
The two starting quarterbacks had been top 5 picks in consecutive drafts, and each was in his first season with his team.
The winning quarterback threw the longest touchdown pass of his career. Outside of that one play, the two starting quarterbacks combined to throw one touchdown pass all season, and 164 yards in the game.