Any Given Sunday (or Thursday, Saturday or Monday)

     The National Football League is a mega-conglomerate. It is one of the biggest, most pervasive forms of entertainment in the United States and in many parts of the world, where it is know as American football.

     From what is the overwhelming popularity of the NFL derived? Television has been the key to making the NFL as successful it is. There was the violent world of Sam Huff, the middle linebacker of the New York Giants who became an icon for the league as it went national on TV; the Baltimore Colts epic win over the Giants in OT in the 1958 NFL Championship; through the dominating years of the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers; through even more expansion after absorbing the rival American Football League; the popularity of the polarizing, bombastic Howard Cosell on ABC's groundbreaking Monday Night Football telecasts; more dominance by Washington and San Francisco; up to the current run of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and Bill Belichick; games in England and Mexico City plus the Manning brothers, the NFL and pro football is the most iconic brand that marketing has ever seen.

     Fans are zealous in their devotion to their local team as well as those who root from afar. They have talking heads everywhere on TV. There is a fervor over the NFL Draft, to see how the next savior for a downtrodden franchise might be. Exhibition games are locally and nationally televised and they mean absolutely nothing.

     The Super Bowl is an unofficial national holiday. TV starts its coverage way before the actual contest begins. Commercials cost an outrageous sum and are rated by the viewers for their content and originality. Betting in pools was always up there with the NCAA basketball brackets and will become greater as legalized sports gambling expands away from Nevada.

     Such is the reach of a violent yet very American sport. It is colorful. The stadiums are loud for those fortunate enough to fork over significant sums of money to be present in heat, cold or the comfort of a domed stadium. The amount of merchandise sold is staggering--the 2017 season was the best thus far for the NFL, in part thanks to the rush for Philadelphia Eagles gear. Which proves that while traditional broadcasting ratings may be down and the apparel industry as a whole is challenged, fandom is still stronger than ever in the NFL.

     Are there are controversies in the NFL? From Deflategate to the concussion issues to kneeling for the National Anthem, these topics are front page noteworthy. Once more showing the place of the NFL in the lives of so many Americans.

     There is tremendous saturation of telecasts. Doubleheaders, Thursday nights, December/January Saturdays, Sundays and Sunday nights, and Monday. There are 4 networks involved--FOX, CBS, ABC/ESPN and NBC. Plus now there is digital and live streaming of NFL contests. The NFL has its own very profitable network of 24-7 NFL coverage and even Amazon is televising the NFL.  All because the NFL knows how to generate profits and is constantly seeking more avenues to generate more cash flow into their bulging coffers.

     I can continue almost forever on the NFL and its manic obsession for the almighty dollar. But that is not what this article is about.

     Just like I did last week, I want to talk about the core of the NFL--its rivalries. My childhood memories go back to the days of the late 1950's when the New York Giants were flexing their muscles. I do not go back as far as the championship year of 1956, but I do recall watching a grainy CBS telecast of that Colts-Giants game by way of Channel 10 in Philadelphia. Reading the newspapers and recognizing the significance of the game, I started follow the NFL. I do recall the Time magazine cover and the article about Huff.

     So, I became a Giants' fan because they were the only game in town. Until 1960. That's when the upstart AFL challenged the supremacy of the NFL. While there were lawsuits, venom and trickery in signing athletes like Billy Cannon of LSU, who the NFL lost to the Houston Oilers of the AFL, I began to enjoy the NBC broadcasts of the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, Houston with its ageless QB George Blanda, the San Diego Chargers, Boston Patriots and Oakland Raiders. They were available as opposed to the Giants, who were only on TV when on the road due to blackouts put in place locally to force fans to purchase tickets.

     I started liking the Jets once their days as the New York Titans were over and they had moved into gleaming new Shea Stadium as lowly co-tenant of the Mets. While they too were blacked out in the New York market for home games, the Jets were highly publicized due to the media coverage afforded one Joe Willie Namath, a highly coveted QB from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and the University of Alabama. Unlike the Giants, the Jets had more pizzazz, even if purists panned their style of play as being unworthy of the NFL.

     The NFL and AFL reached a turning point in the history of pro football when they squared off in the first Super Bowl in 1967. While the Green Bay Packers of the tough New Jersey and
Fordham legend Vince Lombardi thrashed the Chiefs in 1967 and Oakland in 1968, the games were starting to attract attention. When Namath guaranteed a win over the Colts in Super Bowl III and followed through on his prediction over the prohibitively favored Colts, the merger of the two leagues quickly came about in 1970.

     Monday Night Football began in 1970, coinciding with the first year of the merger and the realignment of some of the teams. The Colts and the Steelers switched from the NFL conference to become part of an AFL conference. Thus here is where the rivalries of today were cemented.

     The NFC East is comprised of the Giants, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. The latter started playing in the NFL in 1960. The Cowboys have won 8 NFC titles, most in that conference along with 5 Super Bowls. From 1966-1985, they recorded winning seasons and missed the playoffs twice during that span, which is an NFL record. They became America's team from the opening of the 1978 highlights film, when the "voice of G-d," John Facenda said that "They appear on television so often that their faces are as familiar to the public as presidents and movie stars, They are the Dallas Cowboys, 'America's Team.'"

     The contests with Dallas are the biggest for the other 3 NFC East teams. The hatred by the Redskins versus the Giants and Eagles and the Giants against the Eagles from the teams and their supporters is a smidgen below the intensity of the dislike of Dallas and its fans.

     The NFC Central is no different. The Packers, Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions all are original NFL teams with embedded loyalties. Minnesota joined the NFL for the 1961 season and they became good very fast, making the games with the other members of the division tough. Moreover, before the advent of the domed stadiums in Detroit and Minnesota, late season cold weather games were a staple of these rivals, magnified by the cold of games we have seen n the 1967 Ice Bowl between Dallas and the Packers and more recently with the red cheeks of Coach Tom Coughlin when his Giants won the NFC title in the bitter cold of Green Bay.

     Because of NFL title games and NFC title tilts, newer rivalries have popped up. Dallas and Green Bay; the Giants playing Green Bay; and meaningful contests between Green Bay and the Eagles as well as the Giants against the Bears and Vikings, which both franchises and fans vividly recall.

     The NFC South is an accumulation of newer teams. Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Carolina and New Orleans have their levels of intensity, but do not have the longevity of the rivalries within the East and Central when those two divisions clash.

     The NFC West is a bit of a transient grouping. The Rams have migrated within Southern California after moving west from Cleveland in the 1950's, with a sizable stint in St. Louis before returning to Los Angeles. The Arizona Cardinals were in Chicago in the late 1950's when I began to watch pro football. Very much the second fiddle to the Bears, the Cardinals moved to St. Louis and shared Busch Stadium with baseball's Cardinals. Not happy enough with the stadium, they took flight to the desert and a beautiful domed facility.  Seattle joined the AFC first, but with the final wave of expansion, ended up in the NFC West and they have been winning more often than not.

     The only standard in that division has been the San Fransisco 49'ers. While they have recently migrated to near San Jose, the Niners were one of the teams of the 1980's behind QB's Joe Montana and Steve Young, directed with the brilliant coaching of Bill Walsh, George Seifert and Steve Mariucci. They, too, have a rivalry with Dallas, as evidenced by Montana's miraculous touchdown toss to the late Dwight Clark to win the Niners a trip to the Super Bowl in 1982. Some games against the Giants have meant a lot.

     Then there is the cross-Bay rivalry between the blue bloods--the Niners--and the crass, nasty image of the Oakland Raiders, cultivated by the black clad, arch enemy of Pete Rozelle, owner Al Davis, which survived the Raiders departure to Los Angeles and their subsequent return to the Bay Area. How survivable will it be when the Raiders uproot to Las Vegas remains to be seen.

     In their co-existing LA years, the Raiders and Rams developed a heated dislike for each other, but in laid back Southern California, how much intensity can be developed by a fandom that has other pursuits in mind?

     Right now, everybody loathes the success of the New England Patriots. The Jets call their two meetings "Patriots Week." New York fans can't stand New England fans and it is a reciprocal anger. Buffalo and Miami are just as angry at the Patriots and their fans. Every Super Bowl opponents fans hold the Pats and their fans in utter contempt.

     The Dolphins, a 1960's expansion team in the AFL, experienced great success under coach Don Shula and with Dan Marino at quarterback; Marino and the Jets have played many close contests which is why NYJ fans say "Squish the Fish'" even if dolphins are mammals.  The longevity of the Bills and Jets rivalry is another reason it is heated.

     Still abundant is the rivalry between the Colts and Jets when they periodically meet. From Super Bowl III, through the years that the two teams met while the Colts and Jets were in the same half of the AFC, the rivalry still brings out an animosity towards the Jets which has now been taken up by Baltimore Ravens fans when those teams square off. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Super Bowl III, the Jets are making a big deal out of it on October 14 when Indianapolis is in town. After all, it is the lone Jets Super Bowl win.

     The AFC Central is as competitive as its NFC counterpart, notwithstanding the actual records may indicate. Proximity is the key in the AFC Central, as the members are not too far apart. Cleveland and Cincinnati are in the same state and driveable to Pittsburgh. So is Baltimore driveable to the other three franchises. Moreover, the Cleveland Browns are the new reincarnation of the old team, which abandoned the shores of Lake Erie and its very loyal fans for the Inner Harbor of the larger market in Baltimore.

     Baltimore has a unique Beltway rivalry with the Redskins, as they share the D.C. Metroplex area market. This was born from the Redskins and Colts, who sparingly played each other while in the NFL, with Washington in the Eastern Conference and the Colts sequestered in the Western Conference (albeit with the Rams, Niners, Bears, Lions, Vikings, Packers, Saints and Falcons).

     In the AFC South it is the Colts, Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers, an original AFL team), the successor to the Oilers with the expansion Texans  and the Jacksonville Jaguars, another expansion team. The rivalries are there, but not as strong as within other divisions.

     I saved the most savage of the AFC rivals, all whom reside in the West, for last. Denver, Kansas City, Oakland and the Los Angeles (who used to be in San Diego) Chargers are all original AFL teams. They despise each other, as almost everyone hates the Raiders anyway. The Raiders had ties to Los Angeles as I stated before and the Chargers have reluctantly vacated San Diego due to lack of a "sufficient" stadium, returning to their Los Angeles roots (the Chargers played one year in the LA Coliseum before settling down in San Diego). None of this vitriol will abate when the Raiders move to Vegas. That is for certain.

     Oakland has two simmering rivalries with Pittsburgh (the Immaculate Reception propelled the Steelers to their first Super Bowl win) and New England (the tuck rule benefited Brady & Co.). Fans in Green Bay, Minnesota and KC still think about their Super Bowl matches. The Giants and Patriots have become distinct rivals and the Giants and the Bills, too. Seemingly anyone competing with New England is a rival, like the multitude of Cowboys foes. Anytime teams meet in a Super Bowl, they are inexorably tied to each other--and the loyalists have long memories. Even the Patriots and the Eagles have met in a Super Bowl prior to this past season, when the Pats defeated the Birds in 2005.

     Who knows what new or old rivalry will pop up? Will there be more realignment? Or more expansion? Seemingly endless possibilities exist to stoke the competitive juices of the teams and their fans.

     Such is the beauty of the National Football League. On any given Sunday (or Thursday, Saturday or Monday) old friends can renew hostilities. It is not quite the battles between European foes in the years before America became a country. Nonetheless, civic money and pride, TV and marketing can go a long way as epitomized by the NFL...