1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

RIP Tom Dempsey

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Vombatus, Apr 5, 2020.

  1. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    It was in New Orleans, so I imagine it as below sea level.
     
  2. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    hardly ever.
    One of my quirks is an obsession with placekicking since I was 7 or 8. On NFL games, I wanted drives to die between the 30 and 37 to see if they’d kick long field goals.

    Usually only at the end of the half. Cleveland punter Steve Cox with a 60 yarder in 1984 and that was a straight-on kick.

    Parcells once had Haji-Shiekh try a 66 yarder in St Louis (the infamous 20-20 game) and it never had a chance.

    When you look at Dempsey’s career, he had one great day. 11/8/70. And a lot of misses. Kicking really was an after-thought for a lot of teams until you got to Stenerud, Gogolak before that. But, with kickers, you never knew. College had tees back then and the NFL didn’t. That’s entirely different.
     
    cyclingwriter2 likes this.
  3. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    I remember Cox hitting the 60-yarder. If I remember correctly, he and Mark Mosely were the last of the straight-on kickers in the game by then.
     
  4. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    Joe Gibbs had Moseley try a 70-plus free kick once. It fell way short.
     
  5. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Mark Moseley winning the 1982 NFL MVP is one of the all time oddities.
     
  6. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    Have a souvenir brick from Tulane Stadium I grabbed as it was being demolished.
     
  7. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    It was but he had some seriously high pressure kicks. Beat the Giants in the rain. That 82 team wasn’t great in the red zone and stalled a lot of drives. Moseley was perfect, IIRC, for the season.
     
  8. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    If you go from 1978 to 1983, all of the straight-on kickers were done, except for Moseley. Dempsey, Danmeier, Cockcroft, Bakken, Fred Cox. The league had moved on.

    I kicked both ways growing up and what I always liked on Straight-on was how fast my kicks would get altitude. The risk was the slice as they’d fade right.

    By the time I was 12, I was strictly soccer-style and had all sorts of tees.
     
  9. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    The USFL used tees for XP and FG. I had a three-inch block tee in high school, but had the Physical Plant guys in college saw off an inch when the NCAA lowered to 2 inches about 1980. I put a drop of Wite-Out in the middle, to help the holder.
    My Dad said he saw Albie Booth drop-kick a 60-yard FG.
     
  10. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    Errol Mann of the Raiders. And of course Blanda before that.
     
  11. Scout

    Scout Well-Known Member

    Billy probably thought that was one of his better throws.

    I need to get a Kilmer jersey.
     
  12. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

    That's glorious.
     
    Vombatus likes this.
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page