Total Football

Total Football — page 3

Total Football — page 4 — It’s the game we now call the Super Bowl The first one was played in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum The NFL champions the Green Bay Packers were a great team They trounced the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs 35 10 But the sports world didn’t pay much attention Only two-thirds of the available tickets were sold Other sports championships were more popular especially baseball’s World Series The first Super Bowl was televised by both CBS and NBC The Packers returned the next year and again throttled the AFL champion They routed the Oakland Raiders 33 14 in Miami This time the stadium was filled But after those two Packers wins people began wondering if an AFL team could Joe Namath and the New York Jets pulled off the first Super Bowl upset 7

Total Football — page 5 — Running back Mercury Morris left and the 1972 Miami Dolphins defeated Washington in the Super Bowl to finish the season undefeated ever beat an NFL club That changed in shocking fashion in 1969 The NFL champion Baltimore Colts were expected to thrash the AFL’s New York Jets The Colts were favored by three touchdowns New York’s brash young quarterback Broadway Joe Namath guaranteed a Jets win a few days before the game That brought added attention to the game Then Namath led the Jets to the biggest upset in pro football history They beat the mighty Colts 16 7 The Super Bowl had finally become super 8

Total Football — page 6 — The popularity of the NFL’s biggest game took off from there Great teams won it The 1972 Miami Dolphins went 17 0 They remain the only undefeated Super Bowl champs Great teams also lost it In 2007 the New England Patriots won their first 18 games But they lost to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl DIG IN Chowing down at parties has become a big part of the Super Bowl tradition Americans eat more food on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year besides Thanksgiving Fans eat approximately 100 million pounds of avocado used in guacamole and more than 1 billion chicken wings that day Some teams became dynasties In the 1970s the Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls in six years The San Francisco 49ers won four championships in the 1980s The Dallas Cowboys won three titles in four years in the 1990s New England did the same in the 2000s And one team the Buffalo Bills went to four straight Super Bowls from 1991 94 But they lost them all 9

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