A typical football Sunday as we know it today consists of so many different options for fans. The pregame show on NFLN starts as early as 8am. There is also pregame on ESPN, which all leads up to the games at 1pm. There is the NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV where fans can watch any game they want. Want to watch the Lions at the Bears, no problem. Or go ahead and watch the Dolphins at the Bills just because there is a raging snowstorm happening. There is also the NFL Redzone that bounces around to all the games during the day, while also giving fans a front row seat as teams move inside the 20 yard line looking to score. Redzone also gives you countless highlights from every game in case something is missed as you are watching something live. Let's not forgot about the pregame shows on CBS and FOX. Then when all the Sunday afternoon games are finished fans can turn their attention to the post game highlights on the NFLN and ESPN. Even with everything I've mentioned your football Sunday still isn't over yet as fans get ready for NBC Sunday Night Football, as well as their own pregame show.
What this all really means is that Sunday's are football heavy for die hard football fans. Some may even says its football overload. Not me of course, but there are some that say that. Everything that I have mentioned makes Sunday's seem like football heaven. Of course it wasn't always like that on Sundays. And that leads me to my journey back in time to what Sunday's were like for this Cowboys fan that grew up in New York in the early 1980's.
I normally woke up early on Sunday mornings during football season. Seeing that it was sometimes 8am when I woke up and knowing the games did not start until 1pm that was a lot of hours to wait. You have to remember that back then we didn't have the Internet to turn too. I had no idea what a web site was or even a .com. So I would spend some time reading the Sunday paper. Ok, stop laughing. I'm sure I'm getting some odd looks from some people about what I just wrote. Sunday paper, what the heck is that? For those who don't know and I'm sure there are a few of you, just think the Internet, but you have to actually turn these pages made out of paper with your hands. The more you read and the more you turned the pages the more your fingers would get black ink on them. Ok, enough about that...moving on!!
After reading the newspaper about the Sunday match-ups and the injury reports there wasn't much else to do. I would also look in this small magazine looking thing called a TV Guide to see what games were on television. I would normally have to suffer through the Giants and Jets, but on rare occasions there would be a third game on to watch. I just hoped that the third game was the Cowboys game. You see back in the early 1980s pregame didn't start until 12:30pm. Yes, that is correct. Pregame was only 30 minutes long leading up the games. Being a Cowboys fan I'm also naturally an NFC guy as well, so CBS was usually my choice. Back then it was CBS who televised the NFC games and NBC who televised the AFC games. My favorite pregame show was the The NFL Today hosted by Brent Musburger. Joining Musburger was Irv Cross, Phyllis George and Jimmy "The Greek". These were the people I grew up with. As far as I was concerned they were the go to people for all the information I needed before the games, during and after. My Sundays always started with The NFL Today intro.
The NFL Today would always start off with camera shots from all the big games getting ready to kickoff at 1pm. And it would always be Brent Musburger saying...You are looking live at Texas Stadium or Lambeau Field or whatever stadium had an important game coming up. Every Sunday without fail that's how The NFL Today would start. I get chills just thinking about it.
Of course 30 minutes was not that long. They went through that Sunday's match-ups and they would also have a story or two about a player or a team. Then to end the show Jimmy "The Greek" would do his predictions for the games. As a child I hung on every word and would hope that he would predict a Cowboys victory because in my mind the Cowboys needed that to help them win.
Then it was onto the 1pm game that was being televised. As I sat there watching I would wait to see the out of town scores pop-up at the bottom of the screen. There were no certain times that this would happen. When the network decided it was time to give the audience some scores they would. Because of this I would stay glued to the television. If the Cowboys were playing, but not televised I would sit and pray that when the score was shown they would be winning. NBC games actually had it better as they had something called the Ten Minute Ticker. No matter what every ten minutes they would show all the scores. One thing that hasn't changed over the years is that during games they would go back to the studio to show a scoring play from the other games. And once again, if it was the Cowboys game that I saw them going to I was hoping and praying that they were the ones scoring. Also, back in the 80's during the game that was on TV, they never had the score of the game displayed on the screen or how much time was left in the quarter. That information would normally be shown as the game went to commercials.
Then at halftime it was back to the studio where Brent Musburger would go through the scores and show some highlights. I'll never forget how he would go through the flash cards in his hands as the scores showed up behind him. Musburger always had a way to set things up for the audience and made the highlights exciting. Along side of him was always Irv Cross adding to the highlights that were being shown. There was nothing like the Sunday Ticket or the Redzone to turn to back then, which is why you listened to every word that was being said by Brent Musburger and company and watched every single highlight. That's all there was back then to stay updated on the other games and it was appreciated.
When the game I was watching ended whether it was the 1pm game or the 4pm game, there was always the chance that the network would switch over to one of the other games that still had some time left. It was like Christmas morning if that game was the Cowboys game. Of course if the game was the late game on CBS and it was 7pm there was no way the network was going to another game because of the show 60 Minutes.
So what was there to do once the Sunday afternoon games were over? There was no real post game shows like there is today. No Internet to look up the games recaps, box scores and highlights. There was also no regular Sunday Night Football in the early 80's except for those rare occasions. You see, back then Sunday Night Football was considered a treat for fans that happened maybe twice a season.
There was one highlight show that came on late Sunday nights that I always looked forward to, but since I was young I had to sneak to the living room to watch it. I'm sure some of you remember the show. It was the George Michael Sports Machine. He would stand there with his clipboard in his hand and as he introduced the highlights of each game he would press one of the many buttons on his board. Highlights were so hard to come by back then after all the games were over. It was just amazing to see so much of what happened in the games that were not televised.
On Monday mornings it was a mad rush to the corner store to buy the newspaper to read about the games from Sunday. There were times when I would buy different papers just hoping that there was at least one picture from the Cowboys game to see.
That's how it was back in the early 1980s. It was fun, it was exciting and you wouldn't think it would be that way considering how hard it was to get information, unlike today. But I think that's what made it so much fun. In today's world you can get information with a simple click of a mouse or just by asking Siri to get the information for you. My football memories are so much clearer from back in the early 1980's. For those who remember those times go to YouTube and do a search for The NFL Today and it will bring back some great memories. For those who are younger and don't remember you can go see for yourself what it was like back then. It was a great time to grow up a football fan. It was a time that will never be forgotten.
