“The Commanding Heights”
1975 Season for SOM FB (V15)
Original Publication Date – 12/12/2012 et. seq.
OTHER SOM PRO FOOTBALL POSTS:
Design Notes for the 1975 NFL for SOM FB
1975 is a defensive season and a running season. It is a mid-size season, comparatively speaking, at 794 sides, and it went fast, at just over 4 months, and 450 hours. The runners average 4.0 yards per carry and 1975 posts a game average of 145.5 yards per game per team, the eighth best figure of all time. The 1975 season ranks just behind 1976 (150.7) and just ahead of 1973 (144.4) and 1977 (143.9) in terms of team averagerushing yards per game. In fact, the clubs ran the ball almost 37 times a game and netted only 5.4 yards per pass play, in part because the passing games are not that strong and in part because their pass rushers were.
On the old cards, 1975 is that first season that is truly recognizable in the patterns we as gamers would recognize for the next seven years – the passers and runners would fit in with the Old Timer teams and with the popular 1978 or 1980 sets. While each season would have its own individual identities, you could play the ‘75 Steelers against the ‘77 Cowboys, ’62 Packers, ‘76 Raiders or ‘73 Miami and have a fine match-up, and many of us did just that. The contrast in styles between all of these teams is sharp and distinct, and so coaches identify with each of these teams in a very personal and unique way. For this reason 1975 is generally considered to be the best white carded set of that period by gamers of my generation. For many of us it was the second or third set we bought, and when it came we were all pleasantly surprised by its rich variety.
To answer why we all clamor for an update to this season – it is my favorite as well – we have to ask – just what makes a great SOM Football season a great season?
1) Great Teams
The 1975 set has no less than ten teams that are superb – St. Louis and Dallas in the NFC East, Minnesota in the NFC Central and the Rams in the NFC West; Baltimore and Miami in the AFC East, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Houston in the AFC Central, and the Raiders in the AFC West. By quirk of schedule these top teams both play each other a lot while they also utterly destroy the other teams in the set:
Baltimore: 8-2 versus other teams, 2-2 versus top ten
Miami: 10-0 versus other teams, 0-4 versus top ten
Pittsburgh: 8-1 versus other teams, 4-1 versus top ten
Cincinnati: 8-1 versus other teams, 3-2 versus top ten
Houston: 8-0 versus other teams, 2-4 versus top ten
Oakland: 9-1 versus other teams, 2-2 versus top ten
St. Louis: 10-2 versus other teams, 1-1 versus top ten
Dallas: 8-3 versus other teams, 2-1 versus top ten
Minnesota: 12-2 versus other teams
Los Angeles: 10-1 versus other teams, 2-1 versus top ten
Oddly enough, Minnesota plays a weaker schedule in 1975 and is not connected directly by outcomes to the other teams, although they do outscore their opponents by better than two to one. Miami and Houston had perfect seasons against everybody but the best teams. Overall these teams were 109-31 (0.779), while against each other they were 18 and 18. This means against everyone else they posted a record of 91-13 (0.875), and in the AFC the effect is more pronounced at 51-5. There is some of this in any season, of course, but in 1975 the concentration of such high quality performance across such a broad range of teams is unique. It is as if everyone else was playing a different brand of football, while these ten teams looked down upon them from Olympus, from the commanding heights.
Well, there’s a construct for this that we are comfortable familiar with, College Football, where it is not uncommon for the best teams to wipe out all of the lesser teams on their schedules by frightful scores but to play each other on a more even field. College seasons can play out with such asymmetry because there are so many teams on the schedule, and so the pool can be deeper for the stronger swimmers. College seasons generate fantastic cards for this reason.
But it is rare to see this concentration of outcomes in an NFL season with only 26 teams. The 1975 season looks a lot like a college season with its playoffs serving as its bowl games, and each team looks like a conference champion, a viable contender. This data model generates great card data. In return gamers love these strongly carded teams and what their cards individually promise.
2) Great Players
1975 is home to some of the great individual efforts of the decade. Fran Tarkenton won his only MVP award this year. OJ Simpson and Chuck Foreman dueled with each other to surpass Jim Brown’s TD record. Terry Metcalf, Sr. churned out all purpose yards and is deadly as a receiver, runner and return man (as a reference point, picture a player who is both Matt Forte and Devin Hester). Ken Anderson completed over 60% of his passes for over 3,000 yards and 21 TDs while having to face the Steelers and Oilers twice each. Lydell Mitchell scored 15 touchdowns and pounded out just under 1,200 yards rushing and just over 500 yards receiving while tying for the AFC lead in receptions. White Shoes Johnson had four return TDs in a season.
3) Identity
This is a subtle consideration but it matters. It is a running season, sure, gamers get that. 1975 not only has eight thousand yard rushers and a dozen 10 TD men, but more importantly the best teams are represented in the elite rushing tallies. Adjusted for strength of schedule the best teams at running the ball include Pittsburgh (2), Miami (3), Oakland (4), St. Louis (5), Los Angeles (6), Dallas (7), and Baltimore (9) in the top ten. Only Minnesota (15) and Cincinnati (19) are below average, and both of those figures explain why Fran Tarkenton and Ken Anderson have killer cards as QBs. Coaches love to play SOM teams with well carded rushing talent and 1975 has this, and what’s more, that rushing prowess is exactly what is needed to win within the season’s model. The style of play in the game fits the style of play in real life.
4) Dynasties
Dynasty franchises produce team identities that persist across a range of seasons. They tend to feature the same or similar players from year to year. For that reason their offensive or defensive rubric tends to remain both strong and familiar – the Steelers, Rams and Dolphins on defense; Oakland, Dallas, and St. Louis on offense.
Amazingly enough Miami managed to remain a tough team in spite of losing Jim Kiick, Larry Csonka and Paul Warfield on offense, and Nick Buoniconti on defense. They rebuilt around Mercury Morris and Don Nottingham.
Dallas established their Next Generation of players for their future title teams in 1975 with their surprise Super Bowl run; their only missing piece was a great runner.
The Steelers did not lose a game where Terry Bradshaw had the major role at QB, and they did this in football’s toughest division, the AFC Central. They were the defending champions and except for a hiccup against OJ Simpson early on, and a meaningless loss to the Rams on the season’s final day they spent the year teaching everyone else what football dominance looked like. They have the league’s second best running attack, a bevy of fine receivers and a good Bradshaw card for running and throwing, along with a great defense that is Supreme against the pass.
The combination of all of these factors makes this set very special. Even within this year, some players and teams stood out.
The Legend of Bert Jones
1975 saw the birth of a comet, a shooting star, and he burned across the NFL landscape very quickly and vanished just as quickly. He lost 15 of his first 18 starts, made just one All NFL team and one Pro Bowl, threw for 3,000 yards only once in a winning season, never won a playoff game, and his last full season he won 2 and lost 13 games. The ELO Rater puts him in with Willie McGinest, Dave Grayson, Cliff Harris, and Harold Carmichael, around 350th on the list of NFL players. This vastly underrates him as player, at least in term of peak value, because for a brief moment when he was healthy, Bertram Hays ‘Bert’ Jones was the best player in the NFL.
If you followed football in the mid 1970s, you know that more glowing prose was heaped on Jones in the sports pages than just about anyone else besides OJ Simpson, who peaked a little earlier and burned out sooner. I think a lot of this came about because he was a Colt, and he seized the mantle of Johnny Unitas in Baltimore right at the time that the club needed this. He did not timidly fill the spot- he redefined the position with sheer physical power, he was ‘The Ruston Rifle’, equipped with a slingshot arm and equally strong legs. Bert Jones did not just run with the ball, he ran with purpose, and at 6’3’ and 210 pounds he was as dangerous on the run as he was in the pocket. Like RGIII he had a hell for leather style that you knew could lead to disaster, and it finally did, but while he played his teams followed him fearlessly into the heart of the battle. It did not hurt that they won, either. They won a lot.
Well - not at first- he was drafted second in 1973 to join a team that was just awful. He was 1-4 in 1973, and 1-7 in 1974. The old guard Colts had all left and what was left was a young and inexperienced squad that played very badly up until the middle stages of 1975. After a 1-4 start, they beat the Jets in New York on October 26th, and suddenly they gelled, winning their last nine games of the year. It’s a good set of cards for these Colts. Jones enjoyed a fine year throwing downfield to Raymond Chester and Glenn Doughty while Lydell Mitchell pounded out more than 100 yards a game as a runner and receiver. On defense the Sack Pack of Fred Cook, Mike Barnes, Joe Ehrmann, and John Dutton hounded enemy passers and stuffed opposing runners, they are Good to Excellent versus the run and Average against the pass on the strength of sacks and interceptions. They beat the Dolphins twice to edge them out for the division title before their season came to an end, badly, in Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs. The Steelers beat Jones after injuring his right shoulder- an ominous sign, an evil star that would recur later in the unfortunate Baltimore firmament.
But the Colts and Jones at that point were just getting started. The next year they were 11-3 with Jones winning an MVP award, and in 1977 they won a third consecutive division title at 10-4. During that run the Colts were 30-7 with Jones under center; the one thing that escaped them was a playoff win. In an era that rewarded mistake free signal calling Jones was one of the most careful quarterbacks of all time, throwing only 32 interceptions in 1214 attempts in the 49 games between 1975 and 1979 while fumbling only 8 times. That’s what made him special- he made a lot of big plays and almost no miscues; overall at his peak he was 35 and 9. This kind of performance was all important to SOM gamers back then when looking at QB cards.
The run finally came to an end when Detroit’s Ernie Price slammed him to the ground in a 1978 preseason game, separating his shoulder. He came back too soon and was re-injured on a trick play in Kansas City. While he could still throw, his follow through gave him great pain:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1095339/index.htm
He would still play a bit here and then for the Colts, a QB who at 27 and 28 should have been at the peak of his powers. He had two of their five wins in three starts in 1978 and three of their five wins in four starts in 1979, just enough to make everyone wonder what might have been. When he could finally take the helm in 1980 the team was a shell of what it had been, as Mitchell and the Sack Pack were gone, replaced by a defense that would allow an NFL record number of points by 1981. He was gone in 1982 by the age of 31. But when he was healthy he was brilliant. He was Elway before Elway, except with Johnny Unitas’ smarts.
The Best Defense is What, Again?
The top offensive team in 1975 is not Pittsburgh or Dallas, or Minnesota, but the Buffalo Bills. They have lots of offensive talent up front and at WR, Joe Ferguson had his best season with 25 TDs passing, and running mate Jim Braxton scored 13 touchdowns. Their defense is nothing special, especially against the pass, where they are terrible. But they are winning team, an ‘outscore them 31-27’ type of team. For them the best defense is a good offense.
The Bills are led by OJ Simpson. The Juice was something else in the 1970s. It was as if there was another set of rules just for him. His contracts were astronomical – he earned more than the next two highest runners combined; a whopping $800,000 a year back when that was real money. But he was worth every penny – nobody was more entertaining than OJ when he was healthy. He was the first athlete since Babe Ruth to have a stadium built just for him; the Bills erected Rich Stadium (capacity 80,020) just so he could fill it. In his best years he did amazing things, and 1975 was one of his best years, as he scored 23 touchdowns and was named NFL Player of the Year.
OJ Simpson did things that seemed unthinkable at the time- he broke Jim Brown’s records for yards in a season and carries, gained 200 yards in consecutive games, set the record for rushing yardage in a game, and then broke his own record. He was a multiple threat – for his career he gained over 2,000 yards receiving and he averaged more than 30 yards per kick return. What the players of the time dreaded was his stamina. Simpson was the one back from the Seventies (like Brown in the Sixties) who got better the more he carried the ball. You could hold him down for 20 carries and on the 21st, if you let up for just an instant, he would beat you with a long run.
With all that came afterward it is easy to forget why he was once so popular and so admired, but Simpson was the one superstar in the Seventies who kept all appointments and returned all calls. To even non football fans he was breathtaking on sweeps, where he would sidestep onrushing lineman and cut back to the open, and he was always a threat to go the distance. But he also did the little things- he would run pass patterns flat out in practice to give his own defense a better look at their sets, he was not afraid to block or act as a decoy, he would set up running mate Jim Braxton for big runs, and he always praised his linemen. He seemed almost ashamed of all of the attention, and it made sense that when he quit football he would move right to the broadcast booth, andeventually to Hollywood.
The 1975 card is one of his best, especially since he is a dangerous two way player, and he should be in the running for the MVP award in most replays.
And the 1975 Bills finished tops on offense but just 8-6 which begs the question –
How Do You Win as a Coach in the 1975 Set?
1) Forget about field goals but pay attention to the return game.
Forgetting field goals is probably not a realistic coaching option, but you do need to be careful about over emphasizing place kicking. The teams total 7 KO return TDs and 9 PR TDs on high averages with low fair catches, so net punting will make a difference. The teams also scored 25 TDs on int returns (which we can model) and another 28 TDs on fumble recoveries (which for now we can’t). Returns change field position and can win games in 1975.
2) Run the ball, and use your whole roster.
Total offense is total offense. Remember that quite a few 1975 QBs can run and you need their carries to get to 37 cracks a game. Most runners in 1975 have a specialty, so use them where they can create value. Other fringe veteran players are sometimes great blockers, so structure your backfield to get the right guys in with each other.
3) Use your sneaky RB pass catchers if you are lucky enough to have one.
Chuck Foreman, OJ Simpson, Lydell Mitchell, Mike Thomas, Ed Marinaro, Terry Metcalf, and Delvin Williams are just a cut of the great runners who can also catch. Don Coryell showed the way to the offense of the Seventies with his love of pass catching running backs, and by the end of the decade a RB (Rickey Young) would lead the league in receptions. These players can take the double team pressure off your team’s outside players, and they are a key part of the design of each team.
4) Keep your passer upright.
It’s not a big sacking year compared to some, so most teams, even those with pass blocking issues, can find a formation or a play to reduce these risks. Turnovers always matter, so avoiding that big negative play is important.
5) Take a big throw when you can get one.
Teams only average 6.7 yards a throw, so there are not that many great downfield boomers among the QBs. But most QBs can get a matchup downfield they can use, and if you can get this early in a drive you have a good chance to score points, even at 4.7 yards per play. Be glad this is not 1974, where that number is 4.5 yards per play and the runners are not quite as prolific as in 1975.
Doomsday II
1975 Dallas is a team in transition, but very few teams at their talent level have had a draft year like the 1974-1975 off-season. The 1964 draft had three Hall of Famers – Mel Renfro, Bob Hayes, and Roger Staubach, but it took awhile for them all to get going. The 1974 Cowboys were 8-6, having finished third behind Washington and St. Louis. But the Cowboy front office grafted this roster of draftees (in part) onto a team that had a lot of talent:
1: Randy White, DT/Maryland
1: Thomas Henderson, LB/Langston
2: Burton Lawless, G/ Florida
3: Bob Breunig, LB/Arizona St.
4: Pat Donovan, T/Stanford
4: Randy Hughes, DB/Oklahoma
7: Mike Hegman, LB/Tennessee State
13: Herbert Scott, G/Virginia Union
14: Scott Laidlaw, RB/Stanford
Bruenig, White and Henderson played a part in the team’s 1975 defensive resurgence, while Scott and Lawless were fixtures on their offensive lines into the Eighties. They did not get the runner they needed to get over the top – that would have to wait a couple of years – but this infusion of talent was enough to put them into Super Bowl X. White played a hybrid position on the 1975 team, sometimes at MLB, others at DE or DT. Wherever he played he was unblockable.
Little Big Men
Darren Sproles has the single season all purpose yards record with 2,696 yards on runs, receptions and returns in 2011. Nothing exemplifies Seventies football like the all purpose players, the Mack Herrons, or the Terry Metcalfs. In a league where you have to fight for every yard that you could get, players such as these who can do this as a receiver, runner, and return man are very useful, indeed. 1975 is Metcalf’s best year, as he nets over 800 yards on the ground at 4.9 a carry, catches 54 passes, and has both a KR and PR TD while averaging 27.4 and 12.4 yards per return, respectively. He missed Herron’s 14 game NFL Record (set in 1974, and still tenth overall) by five yards. Neitherof the men had long careers. Herron played from 1973 to 1976 before the constant pounding on his 5’ 5” frame ended his career. Metcalf chose the CFL over resigning with the Cardinals while in his prime, got injured, and was never quite the same after that:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1094272/index.htm
Enjoy this set. It is a dandy.
Fred Bobberts
Clearwater, Florida
12/12/2012
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