Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I was looking for who-knows-what on Wikipedia when I saw this note tucked away in the recap of the 1984 NFL season:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_NFL_ ... Network_TV

I’d never heard about this, so I did some research. In the case of the first game, the Seahawks and Mariners were in a dispute over who would get to use the Kingdome on Sept. 2. The Seahawks moved their game to Monday (thus losing out on network coverage) in response to a lawsuit. One wonders how such a scheduling snafu even happened.

The Oct. 14 game has a different back story. TV listings from that day say that if a game 5 of the World Series wasn’t necessary, NBC would broadcast either Bills at Seahawks or Steelers at 49ers. There was a game 5, at 4:00 Eastern, so Bills-Seahawks was again relegated to local telecast stations only.

That left the Steelers-49ers game, which also conflicted with the World Series game. In this case, though, NBC decided to go ahead with its telecast (Enberg/Olsen) but in only show it the Pittsburgh and Bay Area TV markets.

To date, Game 5 (won by Detroit to clinch the crown) was the last Sunday afternoon World Series game telecast by a network that also showed Sunday NFL games.

The opening game against Cleveland was the game where Curt Warner got injured for the rest of the season. I have always wondered if Warner hadn't got injured that Seattle could've won the AFC West instead of Denver and meet the Dolphins in the AFC Championship Game rather that in the Divisional playoffs (I think Miami would've also won).

I got to watch that 9/3 game (Labor Day) as a Cleveland-area resident, which was good news. The bad news was that I got to watch the game, since the Seahawks dominated in a 33-0 rout. That was the first indication that it would be a long year for the Browns, who finished 5-11, leading to Sam Rutigliano getting bounced after seven games and Marty Schottenheimer finishing with a 4-5 record.

That was the year that Paul McDonald threw a pick six in three straight games and almost did it in the two games that followed. A good reason why he was gone the following year.

Regarding how this mistake came about, the people running the KIngdome decided to include provisions in each team's contract that they'd have the rights to that date. Adding to this idiocy, the Mariners said their contract only allowed the Seahawks two home games in September. Not surprisingly, the Seahawks believed that they could have three--the other two being 9/9 San Diego and 9/23 Chicago.

BD Sullivan wrote:Regarding how this mistake came about, the people running the KIngdome decided to include provisions in each team's contract that they'd have the rights to that date. Adding to this idiocy, the Mariners said their contract only allowed the Seahawks two home games in September. Not surprisingly, the Seahawks believed that they could have three--the other two being 9/9 San Diego and 9/23 Chicago.

King County being a clown show should be the least surprising thing in the continental U.S.

Teo wrote:The opening game against Cleveland was the game where Curt Warner got injured for the rest of the season. I have always wondered if Warner hadn't got injured that Seattle could've won the AFC West instead of Denver and meet the Dolphins in the AFC Championship Game rather that in the Divisional playoffs (I think Miami would've also won).

That would have meant that Dan Jenkins, in his 1984 novel LIFE ITS OWNSELF (a sequel to SEMI-TOUGH) he would have correctly predicted the two teams in the AFC title game for that year. In Jenkins version, the Seahawks defeat the Dolphins by a score of 2-0 when the Dolphin punter steps over his own end line on the last play of the game.