RIP Joe Bugel, 1940-2020
One of the more illustrious position coaches in football history. And his hair was always perfect!
The NFC East battles in the '80s were peak NFL.
I remember when the Redskins brought Joe Gibbs back at the turn of the century when I was in middle school and hearing about those teams with Riggins, Darrell Green, and Doug Williams. Always caught a glimpse of these guys on NFL Primetime/NFL films.
RFK Stadium during peak Gibbs years was incredible. The whole city was obsessed with the team.
Yikes he was born the same year as my uncle
RIP Coach Bugel - so many great memories growing up in the DC area with those teams. 3 Super Bowl wins
I hated the Redskins for 1991, but those lines were the epitome of what you want to block for you. Always loved that motion offence too. Especially after watching Chuck & Duck every damn week.
Bonus: I was watching the Miami Dolphins game where Marino was injured & actually cracked to a friend "Marino never goes down. Let's see what the hell Miami has for a backup." Then watched the first pass by Scott Mitchell intercepted for something like a 95 yard touchdown return. If you would have told me that would be the next Lions QB at that moment I might have punched you.
Yeah that '91 team was very, very good. Great defense. The '83 team that lost to the Raiders in the SB was really good too.
Good memory on Mitchell --- video of that interception below.
https://youtu.be/s8jSTLG2WJw?t=3746
The odd thing is - despite that ominous first pass, Mitchell wound up still being AFC Offensive Player of the Month for October 1993. He was legit good in 1993 (before his own injury).
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/awards/players-of-the-month.htm
And before he became an 800lb tub of lard. I remember seeing him in the off-season waddling around at Carl’s Golfland in Bloomfield Twp one summer when he was the Lions incumbent starter, and knowing that we were going to piss away yet another year of Barry’s prime. He had just signed that massive extension, and it looked like he had been celebrating at Cheesecake Factory every night thereafter.
I was at U-M when they won the '88 Super Bowl. Watched the game at a dorm-mate's parent's house in Birmingham or somewhere like that. This was the game when they scored 35 points in the second quarter after falling behind 10-0. Timmy Smith, who came out of nowhere, rushed for 200+ yards and Doug Williams tore the Broncos apart.
As a Bronco fan, that game was a real kick to the nuts. That was one awful quarter of football.
LOL my wife is a Broncos fan, and she gets PISSED when I talk about that game, even though we were completely unrelated at the time.
Ugg - he coached at Ohio State LOL
University of Arkansas would’ve been a better fit.
This is the content I come to MGoBlog for :)
Yeah that 1991 game against Washington in the NFC playoffs really sucked! After watching the Lions play well against Dallas in the divisional game at home, I thought they would play better on the road at Washington. Not, Lions will always Lion. My Sophomore season at Michigan was during the NFL strike ('82 season) and the Lions made it in as a wildcard team and had to play at Washington and got whipped but I was expecting that outcome.
To be fair, Washington steamrolled everyone in the playoffs that year. And small solace, but the Lions did play better than they did in the season opener.
The worse playoff game I attended was the '93 game against Farve and the Packers. Detroit went ahead on a TD but left too much time on the clock. I was sitting in the end zone when Farve threw the 60 yard pass to a wide open Packer WR with no Lion's DB around him and the Packers won the playoff game. I was at the final season game when Sanders had his big game and the Lions beat the Packers and won the division. Now that was typical Lions, just like when Eddie Murray missed that easy FG that would have won the '83 playoff game against the 49ers. Now it looks like the Lions are headed for some miserable seasons over the next several years and I don't trust the organization to draft properly to rebuild the team. Poor Stafford is going to be playing injured and will probably retire due to the battering he is going to take.
Man, I had to listen to that Packers game on the radio because it was blacked out (no sellout). Hearing Mark Champion go from super excited to dead silence to saying "Touchdown Packers" was a gut punch.
What's sad is that we have vivid memories of the golden era of Lions football in the SB era. Saying, "At least we're not Cleveland" will last for only so long.
Lions were the 2nd best team in the league that year. Out of Washington's 3 playoff opponents we hung with them the longest - late in the 3rd Q. Interestingly, all 3 opponents ran variants of the Run N Shoot attack.