The NFL in the 1970s by Joe Zagorski (review)

The NFL in the 1970s chronicles the highlights of each season of the decade week by week, with a few paragraphs at the beginning of each year's summary that draws attention to major changes that characterize the year under review.

The decade starts with the merger of the American Football League and the National Football League and major new television contracts with ABC, CBS, and NBC, including the inauguration of Monday Night Football, which significantly increased the audience for the sport. Before the decade was over, professional football was challenging Major League Baseball for the title "American Pastime." The author boldly claims the 1970s as "Pro-Football's Most Important Decade" (3).

Without question, Commissioner Pete Rozelle and franchise owners catapulted professional football to new heights as sport entertainment. They contracted for the building of new game venues in no less than eight urban areas, added two new franchises (Seattle and Tampa Bay), introduced year-round playing surfaces with artificial turf, and made two score or more modifications to the rules of the game that resulted in a higher scoring, more wide open game that encouraged both the passing and the kicking game.

The popularity of pro football also was aided by attractive cheerleaders in Dallas; sports writers and broadcasters with slogan makers that found catchy names for defensive teams, such as the "Purple Gang," the "Steel Curtain," the "Doomsday Defense," the "Gold Rush," and the "Orange Crush." Offensive teams had names like the "Cardiac Cards" and the "Cardiac Kids."

Nor did it hurt the legend makers that great players such as Joe Namath, Alex Karras, O. J. Simpson, Terry Bradshaw, Walter Payton, "Mean" Joe Greene, Dick Butkus, Alan Page, and Roger Staubach became household names, and coaches like John Madden won games while allowing long hair, beards, and end-zone dances to draw attention to a new "Me Generation" within a sport that requires discipline.

Author Joe Zagorski covers all these trends and emotional connections in this well-researched book. However, as to the claim of "most important decade," like the claim made of World War II vets as "the greatest generation," I suspect that each generation likes to make the claim as the most important or greatest. Residents of Detroit, Green Bay, Philadelphia, Chicago, Buffalo, Seattle, or Cleveland are less likely to view the 1970s as the greatest in pro football. For players, their pay and benefits, health risks, choice of coaches, and team management might have been found wanting. As always, the question of greatest typically depends on perspective.

In the final analysis, this is a book well worth reading, particularly for professional football fans in Pittsburgh, Miami, Dallas, and Oakland where the 1970s truly was the golden period in professional football.