ChrisBabcock wrote:Here in western NY there's speculation that the Rams may host the Bills in the 2022 season's opening Thursday night. This got me thinking... Bills/Rams might be one of the best "cross conference" historical matchups over the years. (not counting Super Bowls)
Some highlights....
1974... Rams 19, Bills 14. Last game of the season. Ferguson 55 yard TD to J. D. Hill in the 4th wasn't enough. Rams needed the win to climb into a 4 way tie at 10-4 of the 4 NFC playoff teams. I'm not sure if that meant anything as I can't remember if playoff seeding started this year or in '75.
1980... Bills 10, Rams 7 (OT) Bills players come back out of the locker room for an "encore" bow.
1989... Bills 23, Rams 20. Frank Reich throws two TD passes in a back and forth 4th quarter in a classic on Monday night.
1998... Rams 34, Bills 33. Bills fall to 0-3. I remember thinking "geez we can't beat the RAMS?" Flutie magic would begin two weeks later.
2020... Bills 35, Rams 32. After trailing 28-3 just after the half, The Rams reel off 4 unanswered touchdowns to take the lead. Bills answer with one more score with 15 seconds left to take the win.
Are there any other great cross conference "rivalries"? Dolphins/Bears based on that ONE game in 1985?
As much as I remember numerous notable MNF games of '89 (as it was celebrating its 20th), that one was lost with me. I remember Broncos@Bills early on, and of course that Forty Niners@Rams Classic, but not those two going at it. I keep forgetting (only to remember yet again) that the Rams started 5-0 that year (they, of course, losing their first with that very loss at Rich). Good examples given above! Their '80 match is the first one I think of! Wasn't aware of the "encore bow". Both teams looked real Super Bowl-capable going into those playoffs! And a Rams/Bills Super Bowl this year would have been a dandy as well! Ferragano QB'd both teams!
Not sure we can anoint a Bears/Dolphins rivalry based on a single - if, however,
memorable - MNF game. That said, I do remember Chi-town blowing out Miami in their next meeting on opening day in '88! It put McMahon on next week's SI cover. I remember reading that cover story in homeroom my senior year. And I do remember that suspenseful affair in the snow - at Soldier, of course - for the next go-around the weekend before Turkey Day '91, Dolphins winning that one. Hmm, just taking a peek at the box-score this very second, I see it went into overtime! A nice best-of-three series of Ditka-vs-Shula chess matches, you can say. Also, two teams that Dave Wannstedt HC'd.
If we're talking SINCE-'70 interconference rivalries, there really is nothing that compares with...
Steelers/Dallas! What's "2nd-best" post-merger? Quite a few twosomes tied together for a
distant-second, I'd imagine. Strictly-'70s-wise, the series was lopsided. Dallas only beat them once. And that was in '72 in an early regular season game, two years before the Dynasty even began. Just the same, the NFL was getting real popular by the '70s. Both different style teams (or, at least, seemingly so), different cities. Dallas dubbed "America's Team", Steelers the rugged blue collar bunch. Two Classic Super Bowls that though Pittsburgh won each, either could have gone the other way and if it did - perhaps a different team being seen as 'Team of the '70s" or even of "the Ages"! And, fair or not, more players on one team being inducted into Canton instead (or sooner than they would have been), and less inducted on the other (or, at least, having to end up waiting longer).
And NFL fans didn't
forget for when both teams (different coaches, different players, different owners, etc) met again in the Super Bowl two-calendar-decades later on January 1996, correct me if wrong, but it was the most-watched broadcast ever. Every time both play each other, that nostalgia-fueled 'buzz' is still there. On the playgrounds or on the sandlots circa 1979, two-hand-touch or tackle, it was "we'll be the Cowboys" followed by "okay, we'll be Pittsburgh" or vice versa. Or it was "no, WE wanna be Dallas" or "WE wanna be the Steelers!" And preventing the rivalry from being lopsided in the end, was the '90s being the opposite of the '70s. Dallas owned the 'Burgh, not losing to them even once that decade. And historically, Big D does have the overall lead in the series, 17-16. And if you want to go back even before the merger, they already had themselves a rivalry in their own right, having played each other twice a year from '61-thru-'66. And Dallas's very first game in their franchise history was against...Pittsburgh!
But Lions/Browns of the '50s was a bigger rivalry! It's just that the NFL didn't have the fandom or exposure just yet for a 'buzz' between both teams to be carried into the following decades. This despite nearby, already-highly-established...
'Ohio St/Michigan' readily there to possibly give it fuel! This despite both teams winning
as many League Championships that decade as each other - tied at three (not one having 4 and the other just 2) - and both teams playing for all-the-marbles not two, but
four times; and, yes, not one team doing
all the winning in those big games! As with the 'Burgh over Big D in the '70s, Detroit did "own" Cleveland as well two decades earlier. Browns only beat Detroit once, but
boy did they make it COUNT in the '54 (not regular season but)
League Championship Game in a 56-10 mega-blowout!! Those who were around can correct me, but I get the feeling that even by the early-'60s, despite both franchises still being competitive, that any Lions/Browns 'buzz' from yesterdecade just wasn't present. And on the playgrounds and sandlots in the '50s, were kids heard declaring, "We'll be the Lions"/"Okay, we'll be the Browns"?
But an even
bigger interconference rivalry than that - in my mind, the
biggest ever in NFL history - CHICAGO & WASHINGTON! From 1937-thru-'43, both also met in four League Championship Games. Only thing - both teams
split those very title games! Not only that, but in the eight total games (regular or post) that they squared off against each other from '37-thru-'43, its also tied - at four wins apiece. Decades later, in the '80s, although both were now in the same conference, sure-enough those Ditka/Gibbs matchups - three playoff games included - had to revive a bit of that old spirit from those very Halas/Luckman-vs-Flaherty/Baugh days!
EDIT - Just re-read that 9/12/88 SI cover story again for the first time in a third of a century! A very interesting, suggested read! McMahon actually named this Bears offense the best he's ever been on yet! This despite no more #34 nor Willie Gault! He rationalized that as great Sweetness was, the offense was "more lopsided" with him. As for his take on Gault, Jim said that Willie wants to be an actor now so the Raiders (Hollywood) is better suited for him now. Bears had better receivers now, according to him.
Not only was the 34-7 result over Miami lopsided on the scoreboard, but da Bears had possession for...
45+ minutes!! This was, indeed, the nadir of Marino's time in Miami! But still a great start for a Bears team that went one-and-done at home the past two seasons to Washington. The 4-0 start the following season I see as da Bears' "last breath" of SB-flirtation in the Ditka Era. But full-season-wise, this final season for #9 and Ed Hughes was their last great one. Quite a distance from '85, but the top-seed 12-4 finish with wins over Buffalo (24-3), San Fran (10-9), and at 6-4 Washington (34-14) made for a seemingly even-odds shot at another Lombardi come playoff time (they already had division, and home-field, wrapped-up going into the MNF finale at Minny). They were definitely no paper-tiger! But those Forty Niners, in-guise of 10-6, were (now suddenly) just too damn superior!