@@treetrunkthompson4537 Oh man! Just looking at the highlights from that old-time game made me SO nostalgic. Snow coming down on the Lions Thanksgiving day game in Tiger Stadium! It just DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT!!!... unless, of course, they win the dang game...😒
Good old day 🐅 tiger stadium games; however cbs pre game/ half time NFL football 🏈 show used used to eat turkey Thanksgiving day game at the Pontiac silver dome Thanksgiving day game
As a kid growing up in the 1970s we were glued to the TV watching these. The music, the slow-mo, intrigue, and the tuba music. This was when the NFL was a league where opposing players really did not get along with each other. Now it is glam fest where opponents (who are friends) allow records to be set and laugh about after the game.
Yup, back then there was this wacky thing called loyalty, and it made players enter a game like they were entering a war. Ready to give all to defend team and city. Free agency changed all that, and made the game for most nothing more than a forum to advertise ability, that even more millions could be extracted from Joe Lunchbucket's hide. Sad.
@@johnboehmer6683 Loyalty was a 2 way street back then when the players stayed and cared about where they played and became a part of the community. Not the commuting millionaires who all now head for their true homes near beaches and warm weather. It was a great time to grow up-those players stayed the same for so many years.
@@54GARYBOY what's funny to me is that the Lions seem to have players that stayed faithful to the team, at least in terms of remaining with them, more than any other. If you look down lists of statistical leaders in the NFL, 5 out of every 6 players played with multiple teams, but of the few that remain with the same team for the whole career, the Lions have noticeably more than anyone else for some reason. Even in semi recent times, guys like CSanders, BSanders, Pritchett, Porcher, Barney, Hansen, CJohnson, Hayworth, English, Mulbach, Raiola, Scroggins, Cofer, had lengthy careers with just the Lions, just to name a few.
The NFL insists that you "enjoy" the games without the beautiful and unpredictable weather elements. After all, football was a game designed to be played on artificial turf and in a building with a thermostat.
Wish they all played outside. Such is today’s NFL. The league controls the temperature of the games, like they control the games with stupid and game ruining penalties.
Lions are an indoor team and have been since 1975, they'll never play outside again as most of the new stadiums being built are being built for indoors so that they can host more big events during the year outside of football games.
These classic NFL Films have been so iconic. I can remember being a small boy, my Grandparents took me EVERY year to the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. This was back in the 70's. 1974, 1975, 76, 77, 78. It was a yearly tradition. In the summer we'd plan a weekend trip, usually in July or August. We'd pack up the 1974 Impala(I think that's the car?), filled with my little plastic NFL Helmets from the 25c machines. A cooler, sandwiches🥪🥪, snacks, and off we'd go. We lived in Franklin, which is a suburb of Milwaukee. We'd jump on I-94 and head to I-43 North to Green Bay, Wisconsin! It was not a long drive, not at all. But when your between 7-11 years old, and your anticipation is always soaring, it takes forever...lol. We'd stop at one of the Hotels/Motels and get a room for 1 or 2 nights. The Hall of Fame was a 2 day event. First day we'd just tour the basics. Then the next day we'd spend hours in there. For my Grandpa and Grandma, who were in their 70's themselves this couldn't have been easy. But they did it. My Grandparents helped care for me at times. They meant the world to me! My Grandpa was my buddy, my protector, my candy sneaker...lol. He loved his chocolate🍫bars. Whenever we went shopping Grandma would be getting veggies, actual food for dinner, and Gramps would sneak me off to the front and get me....US, a candy🍫bar. Then the obligatory shh! DON'T TELL GRANDMA! With a wink.😉 She knew, and she knew he was the instigator, but it was so much fun and so adorable to see him FIB about where we were or where we snuck off too. Grandma would shake her finger! You'll spoil his dinner! Again it was such a wonderful experience to be able to spend summertime vacations with them. Sorry about that, the long tangent story. Back to the HoF. Day one I'd always see the old classic jerseys and helmets. I LOVED even then the "retro" logos and helmet styles of the 60's and early 70's, especially the Washington Redskins. Their yellow helmet with the (R)🪶 was so iconic. But the Maroon helmet with the spear, like the Florida State spear they have on their helmet. Also the New York Giants old disco logo. The NY logo had the《《effects》》. A poor sample below. Sorry I tried. ||\\ || \\ // || \\ || \\ // || \\|| || ==========// But I was able to see so many older classic players, teams, jerseys, helmets, logos, and even the different styles of 🏉🏈footballs🏈🏉 they used. At the end of day one was the "store"! I was in football nirvana. They had little Goalposts that had notches that you could display your helmets on. They sold them in divisional sets. I got the Packers Division, and I think I got the N.Y.Giants double NY logo helmet there as well, along with the yellow Redskins helmet. Then day 2 came. Unlike my parents my Grandparents were always awake early, so we got there at opening. I discovered something that would be an absolutely perfect end to a perfect vacation. They had a smaller🎥movie🎬theater🎞. It wasn't like where you saw a regular movie at, however it was very nice. It started with the epic NFL FILMS🎼🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵 MUSIC! Then the📽movie📽 The History of the Green Bay Packers began. It was the best time I had. My Grandpa sat next to me, nudging me every so often telling me, "Watch this! This is great!" My Grandma would sometimes stay back at the hotel while Grandpa and I would go to the HoF on day 2. I don't remember the exact length of the movie, but I didn't care since I was lost in this amazing documentary about the Packers. Now I've loved the Packers my whole life, but I've also LOVED the NFL as well. So any and every documentary that NFL Films did I'd watch! My dream was to one day go to the NFL🏈🏈Football🏈🏈 Hall Of Fame in Canton, Ohio with my Grandpa and Grandma, but we never got to do it. I realize this was a long story, but the memories that these old NFL Films bring back are extremely important and very special. I just love football, NCAA, CFL, even the arena league, and of course the NFL! My PACKERS have always been my #1 team! But again I love to watch football games period! From the 🤠🤠Cowboys⭐⭐, the🐅🐯Bengals🐯🐅, 🐻🐻Bears🐻🐻, 🦅🦅Eagles🦅🦅, 🦁🦁Lions🦁🦁, 🦬🦬Bills🦬🦬, 🐏🐏Rams🐏🐏, 🐬🐬Dolphins🐬🐬 ⚡⚡Chargers⚡⚡, 🏭🏭Steelers🏭🏭, 🛡⚔Raiders⚔🛡, 🛡⚔Buccaneers⚔🛡, 🛫✈Jets🛩🛬, 🐆🐆Jaguars🐆🐆, ⛏⚒49ers⚒⛏, ⚜⚜Saints⚜⚜, 🟪🟨🟨🟪Vikings, 🟧🟫🟫🟧Browns, 🟦🟥◻Giants🟥🟦, 🔴🟡Chiefs🟡🔴, 🏹🪶Redskins🪶🏹, 🐎🐎Colts🐎🐎, and all of the rest! Getting to see many of the old school football jerseys and helmets or lack of helmets, along with some of the best players of the past was amazing for me. I loved it! The Packers Hall of Fame was located in a separate building from Lambeau Field. It was a really cool design, and they had a Packers receiver leaping for a ball out front. Now that building is gone, and the Packers HoF sits inside of Lambeau Field. I have not seen it as of yet. I'm sure it's still awesome, but my memories of the classic building is etched in my brain 🧠 forever! It was a great time to be a kid!
The music in the first highlights, the Lions home opener against the Vikings, is awesome. I'm a lifelong Vikings fan, and watched that game as an 8 yr old from Akron, Ohio on wjw channel 8 out of Cleveland. What a defensive struggle. Vikings win 7-6. Then the lions got revenge at Minnesota later that year. Love this stuff.
The Detroit Lions really did have a nice color scheme. Unique. No other pro sports team has this exact combination. Unfortunately for fans, this franchise has associated Honolulu Blue and Silver with losing.
The 1950s were the Detroit Lions most successful decade. They won three World Championship Games in 1952,1953 and 1957. All three wins came at the expense of the Cleveland Browns. Bobby Layne (1950-58) was the field general. The other stars of that era included Bob Hoernschmeyer, Doak Walker,Gil Mains, Jim Martin, Cloyce Box, Jim David, Lavern Torgeson, Don Doll, Bob Smith,Howard "Hopalong" Cassady, Les Bingaman, Leon Hart, Lou Creekmur and John Henry Johnson.
17:17 27 years later, in 2001, Ford Field was under construction in downtown Detroit, waiting for the Lions to come back home to the city, while the Pontiac Silverdome was becoming an obsolete NFL venue. Then, the Pistons, who played at the Silverdome from 1978 to 1988, then the Palace of Auburn Hills from 1988 to 2017, eventually followed suit, by becoming co-tenants with the Red Wings at the new Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit. It's proven that downtown Detroit, has slowly come back to life in the 21st century. As the Silverdome, it's all open land, after it was completely demolished in 2018. As for the Palace, it's about the meet the wrecking ball this year after Pistons owner Tom Gores sold the arena.
It's SUCH a trip to see the Silverdome here in it's infancy, just barely under construction, with all of the roaring crowds, Sanders runs, mega concerts, Thanksgiving games, Pistons progression, and excitement it would encompass for the next 30 years... it seems like it's life span was incredibly short though, and to juxtapose the construction to the demolition is just sad. Time rolls on...
Ahhh the smell and sounds and sights of my early family Thanksgivings! I live in NY and even as I got older and to me it wasnt Thanksgiving till the Lions game always started.
Bruce12867 I was about to say you don't know what your talking about...then I looked it up and I don't know what I'm talking about. lol... your exactly right.
I always said the toughness of teams like the Lions and Vikings left once they ran to play indoors. Neither of them can win outdoor games when the temps are 50 degrees or less and forget about even dealing with the elements.
That's an exaggeration of course, even the hapless Lions still win a few in Chicago and Green Bay, but I get your point, it does leave them at a disadvantage.
So THIS was the year the Lions beat the Giants, 20-19. I remember watching that game as a kid in NJ, and figuring even though they were trailing, 19-10, that a TD and a FG would let them win by 1 point. (for a kid, that was some pretty heady calculating going on there!) Sure enough, that's exactly what happened and I couldn't have been happier.
Yes, indeed - Altie Taylor should be considered one of the Lions' greats, and a super runner from that era. Look at that speed as he outraces that Minnesota defense on that off-tackle, 10 yard run.
@@russellguercio5357 I wouldn’t call a 8 year career 15 mins, big dawg! Was the lions leading rusher till the mid 80’s till Billie Simms entered the league. Hatin ass 😂😂🤦🏾♂️
Growing up in the 70s, the Lions were rarely on Monday Night Football. I remember how excited we all were when they played the Falcons in 1973, and it was sold out at Tiger Stadium, so we got to watch it. They even won lol.
From 1968 through 1983, the Lions beat the Vikings only once in Minnesota. This was it, in 1974...a year they finished at 7-7, yet again in 2nd place. It's funny, as a kid, I didn't grasp that the Lions didn't really have a shot at getting to the Super Bowl, so every year I hoped THAT would be the year they finally would knock the Vikings off and make a deep playoff run. I guess it was good to not have an idea of how hopeless it actually was. Still, loved my Lions.
...another interesting fun fact..in 14 seasons , from 1967 to 1980, the 49ers went winless, going 0-1-13 at home against the L.A Rams..it wasn't until 1981, their coming out party, when they finally beat the Rams at home...
Funny, I remember as a kid, my association with the Lions was just to see them win... ANY game ANY way would do. They weren't too horrible in the 70s (til 79), but everyone knew Superbowls were exclusively relegated for the Steelers, Cowboys, and Vikings! I was too young for the '70 playoff game, I wasn't even aware the Lions could legally go to a playoff game, so swift and extreme was my conditioning to Lions futility! 😖
Tiger Stadium was the Detroit Lions home from 1938-39,1941-74. The Lions played the 1940 season at the University of Detroit Stadium due to a dispute with baseball's Tigers over the use of the park for football.
@@JeffGR4 Also enabled Detroit to host a Super Bowl, and generate millions of dollars for the economy. But looking at the huddled mass known as Detroit, a fool and their money are soon parted. Or blame Dave Bing.
19:26 What would prove to be the final carry of Steve Owens' career. Five seasons, 2,451 yards rushing and 20 TDs. (plus 99 receptions for 861 yards and 2 more TDs)
They do a great job. One example I notice is the New Orleans Saints of the 70s. I’ve been watching all of these videos from the 70s here and when the Saints game comes up NFL films always makes them seem formidable and on the verge of being a contender .... yet I know the Saints were awful this whole decade. Awful enough to be the Aints and inspire paper bag masks etc. The only team NFL Films gleefully buries is the expansion Bucs and also I noticed they let the sad sack JETS of the later 70s have it too ( some things never change ).
The New York Giants' move to Shea Stadium was temporary when Giants Stadium in New Jersey was under construction in 1975. 1975 was also the last year the Giants played their home games in New York City.
Yeah, the Vikings owned the Packers and Bears during that time too, the better analogy would be the Patriots in the AFC East recently, minus the Superbowl victories, of course...
Through most of the 1970s, the Lions were right around .500. But that average won-loss performance didn't nearly reflect what happened on the field. One week they'd play like champs in the making, the next they were snakebit and hopeless.
What happened to the Pontiac Silverdome was definitely a picture of what was going to happen to all of the Detroit. The taxpayers of Pontiac sure got screwed over
I noticed that Jerry Glanville was special teams coach and Sam Wyche 3rd string quarterback on this team. A decade later they bitterly hated each other as coaches of the Oilers and Bengals. I wonder if their feud somehow began in 1974?
DUMBEST RULE EVER: Back in those days, all home games were blacked out within a 75 mile radius of each team's home market, meaning the NFL excluded 50% of the most loyal fans of each game from 100% of potential ad revenue on TV! Even the final ever Lions home game at Tiger Stadium on Thanksgiving Day of this season was BLACKED OUT in Detroit. The 1957 NFL Championship between the Lions and the Browns was also blacked out in Detroit, despite it being a sellout, and despite the Lions BEGGING the Commissioner to allow them to air it locally. Can you imagine a stadium-closing, nationally-televised holiday game with playoff implications, or a nationally televised league championship game being blacked out locally today??
The only reason NFL games were blacked out in the home city was this: if the weather was bad in the home team's stadium and there were no fans at the game, the team would lose money. When Vince Lombardi coached the Washington Redskins in 1969, then POTUS Richard Nixon wanted to see the team's home games on television and was not a fan of blackouts.
@@armorybrunotjr.3204 but in the examples I mentioned above, the games were ALREADY SOLD OUT. Prior to 1973, all games were blacked out in the home city of origin and on any TV stations located within 75 miles of the team's home city, regardless of whether they were sold out. From 1973 through 2014, the NFL maintained a blackout policy that stated that a home game cannot be televised in the team's local market if 85% of the tickets are not sold out 72 hours prior to its start time, meaning that even if a games does sell out, the League still wouldn't allow it to be televised locally, even AFTER the fact, meaning that on gameday, the stadium could be jam packed, and the teams entire home television market is denied the privilege of watching their own team, meaning that only 52K people in the ENTIRE Detroit metro were able to watch these games. Prior to Super Bowl VII, even THAT game was blacked out in the host city's market. I just don't understand what the NFL was thinking back then.
@@careyconley4690 NO question that was horrible. I didn't know the championship game was blacked out in Detroit too though! Oh man!! How quintessentially Lions for that to happen!!!
Funny how they referred to LB Paul Naumoff as an "old pro", when I remember him as being the youngster in the old LB core of Naumoff, Lucci and Walker...
If NFL Network existed during the era of John Facenda, they would overuse him to death. Remember, he was alive when cable TV was still kind of a novelty.
Ah--so this was the season that the Lions' victory over the Vikes, allowed them to wear white shoes? I remember seeing that from a different video. Personally, I think black shoes looked better!
Big cleveland brown fan from uk. No disrespect meant but have the lions always sucked like the browns. Would welcome comments about this period in lions history.
The Lions had Dallas Cowboy-like uniforms, but that is where the similarity ended. Should have won the 5-0 playoff game against Dallas. Most ridiculous playoff game in NFL history.
A near miss field goal against Green Bay and a near miss touchdown vs Minnesota probably cost them a playoff appearance as they would have been 9-5 instead of 7-7. Typical SOL! It has sucked being a Lions fan for all my life. Why do I still watch? It must be some kind of disease!
The Lions were only a mediocre also ran the whole decade of the 1970s. They had 1 playoff appearance in the whole decade 1970. The high point of the 1974 season was they beat Minnesota on the road 20-16
R Johnson - I disagree. They will make it to the Super Bowl once the Ford Family no longer owns the team. Ben A - The Cubs have better ownership than the Lions do.
Never say never asshole, look at the Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Cubs, and Boston Red Sox. Every team will win a championship eventually when it's their time.
