2020 August RSS
1960: The Dawn of a New Era in Pro Football
By the late 1980s, it was understood that the modern football era began in 1960. This made some sense because in the 80s we had the hindsight to recognize that 1960 was the beginning of pro football’s main expansion with the advent of the newly formed American Football League and the beginning of Pete Rozelle’s 30-year reign as NFL Commissioner. Looking back from the 21st century, 1960s football seems charming if not ancient. But the decade of the 1960s was the first real growth period in football’s modern era. There were two football card sets in 1960, one taking the NFL players and the other dealing exclusively with the...
Dallas Cowboys: The All-American Handsome Blond Receiver
An earlier RetroCard post discussed the innovative “3rd down back” receiving position revolutionized by the Dallas Cowboys and Preston Pearson in the 1970s. But there was another less talked about receiver, also pioneered by the Cowboys. That was the “All-American Handsome Blond Receiver” position. The string of pretty-boy wide receivers that passed through the organization is interesting if not peculiar. Possibly foreseeing the marketing benefits of combining the long ball and good looks, the Cowboys began their quest and formulated a look becoming of “America’s Team.”The blond syndrome began in 1964. Despite having a rising star receiver in Frank Clarke...
Recent Posts
- July 2023
- August 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022