1973 AFC Playoff - Bengals at Dolphins - Enhanced Partial NBC Broadcast - 1080p 

Great work as always!

Phenomenal job here, Dave. Pink replaced with orange. Does this Bengals fan's heart good. "the second half does not exist" - this is just so sad. How??? Amazing/mind-boggling how short-sighted networks were with these games. Especially playoff games. Is it too late to fire these people who have no doubt mostly passed away already? SMH

Videotape was in its infancy in the late 60's and SUPER expensive (I've heard $20,000 per tape). The networks didn't have many actual tapes to play with, so they would record over games, shows, etc. With the cost of the tapes being sky high, not having many to work with because of the exorbitant cost, and that they figured there was no use keeping these games because from their perspective because they'd never get aired again, you can understand why they weren't kept. It's a tragedy for sure, but understandable. Its amazing that we have ANY broadcast games from that period to be honest. It isn't just sports games from back then that are rare to survive. There's tons of material from news broadcasts to one-off shows, etc that suffered a similar fate. Anything not shot on film was subject to it. It isn't until about 1977 or so that a lot of broadcasts exist, mainly because the home VCR market began to take off and people started recording games on their own.

Well done.

They did it with the ernie kovach show till his widow got a lawyer and got them to give tapes to her

You're welcome :)

Thank you

I echo his thoughts. Thank you for your hard work.

Yes. Hearing Curt Gowdys voice is amazing. Haven't heard him in 40+ years.

This takes a lot of us back to formative years with our fathers. It does me.

Just hearing Curt Gowdy gives me chills. In my mind, he is to the 70s AFC what Keith Jackson is to college football in this era.

Yeah, he was great. Him and John Madden and Al de Regis who is pretty good as Goudy sidekick.

​@@rodneyrankin3878I liked him. My favorite was Charlie Jones.

You are absolutely right. What a voice..

@@bobma6342 ah, Charlie Jones. Great voice and a reliable play-play announcer. The fact is, that anyone on television back then has an excellent voice, or at least an easy to listen to one. Plus, they didn’t overhype individual players. At least, they didn’t treat them as anything more than remarkable athletes.

Having been born in Miami, it makes me very happy I can still see the old Orange Bowl again anytime I like. We would drive by the Orange Bowl several times a week going wherever. Damn it had a great history and most of all, character.

So now there’s problem with the music intro

You're welcome Scott :) I just spent a couple grand on a brand new high-end PC to replace my 10-year-old dinosaur. I also started using Da Vinci Resolve as my video editor - it's what Hollywood pros use, and it's a billion times better than the 2015 version of Magix I was using. I'm also starting to use software picture enhancement as well. MAJOR upgrades on my end.

@Dave Volsky's Back Door That's awesome Dave. The quality shows through too! Can't wait for your future restorations.

Ouchie Wouchie woo woo? Is that latin? 😅

Yea...the Vikings lost to some VERY good teams in the Superbowl.

Thanks George. I was on hiatus for a month or so while I replaced my 10-year-old PC with a top-end system and new video software :)

Well, I can't think of anyone who deserved a new, top-end system more than you. Can't wait to see what you're going to do with it. That opening NBC theme is one of the best pieces of sports music ever written. Regrettably, as I'm sure you of all people know, it's not complete as it's missing the opening bars. Also, as you most likely know, there are a couple of versions out there that are complete, though they have a few issues of their own. Still, I'm thinking that you might be able to fix those issues and append the music and footage to this show, if that idea appeals to you. The links I'm aware of are ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eynkDzJ1gA8.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-o1PqBJnoxgg.html. One other thing: I've been searching for years for a clean (i.e., no voiceover) copy of the old NFL on CBS opening theme from the '60s. It's an instrumental version of the song "Confidence" from the Broadway play "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". I've never been able to track one down, and I don't think you ever had it on the old (much missed and lamented) Dave Volsky YT page. Still, I could be wrong. Do you have it? If so, could you put it up? I'd love to hear that piece again without Don Criqui or Pat Summerall talking over it.

If you thought the Bengal/Dolphin restoration was good, just wait till you see my next upload :) I've never come across a full instrumental version of that track.

Yeah, it doesn't seem that there's an available copy of that track. If you haven't found it, it's probably not going to be found. Can't wait until the next upload!

​@@davevolskysbackdoor5673 ❤

Thanks largely to Bill Walsh's tutelage, by 1973 Anderson had already blossomed as a quarterback. For reasons I'll never understand, Paul Brown grew to *despise* Walsh, and did everything in his power to prevent him from becoming a head coach. Brown, of course, was a great coach in his own right, but as a person he had (to his discredit) a tendency to be mean and vindictive.

Fun fact: without at least a Top 3 rushing attack AND a Top 3 scoring defense, Bob Griese never won a single playoff game. But he's in the Hall of Fame. Ken Anderson never had anything _close_ to that kind of support for even a single season, and yet blows Griese away in every statistical category. One played on a great team. One was a great QB. Hall of Fame voters conflate team success and individual prowess.

And Essex Johnson would have scored too on the play he got hurt on

Johnson's replacement, Lenvil Elliott, would later gain much of the drive yardage that culminated with "The Catch" in the '81 NFC Championship Game.

But not a painful as those 3 Super Bowl Loses.

was a huge fan of kenny anderson in the 1970s, he was so accurate. they just couldn't quite match up with the steelers and raiders

I always wondered if dolphins won the sea of hands game to Only see them lose to steelers, but I would have rather them to lose in Pittsburgh in championship game regardless,would've liked to see match-up with steelers even if they did lose, maybe closer than raiders loss to steelers match-up in championship game '73

One thing I did notice is that some Dolphins had their dolphins head on the sunburst (Jim Mandich & Vern Den Herder, among others) while the rest had theirs in the middle. It’s the first time I’ve seen a logo for any team out of sync.

Back when players weren't out for themselves and played as a team. I wasn't even born till 1972 and I never saw any of this in real life, but I long for those days. I cannot even watch modern-day sports anymore because of its overproduction and focus on individualism. It's all about money, politics, and showing how 'woke' you are. Haven't watched a second of the NFL since 2014 because I just couldn't take all that crap anymore.

@@davevolskysbackdoor5673 Well put, Dave.

That's cuz the players weren't making a lot of money back then

​@@davevolskysbackdoor5673Football is still a pretty tough physical game. When modern players hit the field nothing "woke" about it

@@Pauln71Well I know that's not true, but even if it were, I'd never know because I'll never devote one second of my time to the NFL ever again.

@@DeplorableJaredBrodersen Yeah but maybe it just brings me back to a better time in my life when I was a kid they had those uniforms.

one of the "Killer Bees"

Just think if they had Marino then.

@@MadMax31577 didn't need him. Marino landed at the perfect time and had the perfect season, save for a SB win. He's The Godfather of the modern passing game.

Griese. Was underated. So. Smart

The. Cowboys. Were an. Achilles. Heal. For the 49ers in. The. Early 1970s

I think I misspelled Larry’s name. Czonka , right? Or is it Csonka?

Csonka

Thanks!

Haha, thank Paul!

I was a huge Vikings fan. We lived in southern Minnesota at this time. What a great time it was back then. Those commercials bring back memories. A commercial about ‘retirement’.? At 13 years old, I didn’t even know what that meant.

Thanks!

@@davevolskysbackdoor5673 I know some of it is due to my age, but I just feel like it was a better game in the 60s / 70s / 80s. Thank you for doing the work that the NFL SHOULD be doing to preserve its heritage.

Cowboys 24-3 over the dolphins n Super Bowl 6 but u guys had a good run winning the next 2 I believe over Washington & Minnesota

Took a miracle from Ken Stabler to keep them from going to 4 straight superbowls.

1972 Dolphins the most overrated team in Sports History. Played what might be the easiest schedule in NFL history.

@@WillMuny The goat 🐐: 1927 Yankees, 1972 Dolphins 🐬, 1986 Celtics. Most overrated athlete of all time Cassius Clay.

The only thing that stopped that dynasty was that joke semi pro league, the WFL

Major knee injuries back then were career altering if not career ending

😂

I'm 57 now , and I got a agree 😊👍 I literally feel like a kid again when I watch these 😁👍👍👍👍🏈🏈🏈🏈🍺🍺😁😊👍...

At age 63 this brings back great memories. We were living in southern Minnesota and were huge Vikings fans. We rarely missed NFL football Sunday afternoon. Love the commercials as well.

1973 Title game was played in Miami , 1974 Divisional game was played in Oakland .

That's a name I remember. He was actually born in Germany during WW2. It's amazing how this seems so long ago but as you get older time flies by. I was 10 when I saw this game not way older😊. Love these videos. I learn a lot from those players playing then compared to now.

Poly turf

They still do.

Thanks Chris :)

75 bengals made the playoffs

Back when religion was forced on players let me guess you’re the type that stop watching football when “Politics” (Kneeling due to unfair treatment of blk ppl by POLICE in the USA) U call it players hating America who tf watched the game for prayers national anthem etc real men watch it for the play on the field.. These thugs have ruined the league type of guy..