A LONG TIME AGO, FROM AN NFL FAR, FAR AWAY:
This 1977 CBS NFL Today intro is fucking spectacular. The plays get progressively more illegal and fucked up to the point I was almost expecting some guy to get murdered on the field by the end. Do yourself a favor and watch this.
— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) August 26, 2024
I’d love to know the reasoning behind this opening; I assume it was signed off on by a CBS Sports exec for his family-friendly Sunday afternoon show, despite seeming like a cross between Rollerball and A Clockwork Orange in its level of violence.
Curiously, the only play that wouldn’t get a player permanently ejected from the league in 2024 comes at the end via the Oakland Raiders — Willie Brown’s classic interception from Super Bowl XI. I’m sure you can hear the announcer as well as I can saying, “Old man Willie, he could go all the way!”, after ESPN’s highlight reel of the game was endlessly rerun by ESPN in the January runup to each year’s Super Bowl in the ’80s and ’90s.