'What Ifs' in NFL History

What if Roger Craig does not fumble the ball with no one touching him in the final min. of the 1991 NFC Championship game? The 49ers have a great shot at being the only 3-peat in history and possibly Joe Montana retires as a 49er.

 

What if the NFL gave Lamar Hunt a franchise when he wanted one. No AFL.

 

What if Max McGee wasn't a straight up PLAYA?!?!?!?!!??!?!?!?!

 

What if Reche Caldwell could catch a fucking football?

 

The AFL would have gone through with the plan of signing the NFL's top players, Al Davis would have beaten the NFL in the war, and controlled the terms of a merger. He's felt betrayed (rightly so) ever since Lamar Hunt agreed to merge without consulting him. Davis was the AFL commissioner for those too young to remember.

 

No house cleaning in Green Bay, no Ron Wolfe, Mike Holmgren, trade for Brett Favre, or Super Bowl win and playoff appearances. Probably would be like the Packers under Don Majkowski, hovering between a mediocre 7-9 wins and on the cusp of making the playoffs (or a really crappy 4-12 under Infante)

 

I like the What if Norwood had made the kick question.

For one, do the Bills return to the next three Super Bowls? Also, does one championship give the team enough stability to prevent the Toronto series from being a necessity?

If the Bills win that game, is Parcells anointed as one of the all-time great coaches? Or just another excellent one with one ring? Does Bill Belichick get the job in Cleveland - an experience which prepared him to for the job in New England? Does he even get a chance to coach in New England, and do the Patriots even become a dynasty?

 

Probably not right then, but TV would have forced the NFL to expand dramatically within not too many years. Too many growing TV markets wanted football.

 

What if Max McGee had been sober?

 

What if equal revenue sharing had not been adopted with the first TV contracts that provided real money? Goodbye, Green Bay Packers.

I just can't imagine today's owners being as farsighted as those of who knew that equal revenue sharing would make every franchise stronger and thus help the league. In the old AFL, Ralph Wilson loaned the Raiders $400K to keep them afloat. That just would not happen today.

The funny thing is, any game in Buffalo far outdraws any played in Toronto, but the Bills get a buttload of cash for pimping out that yearly game.

 

TimmyP, you got one thing right. The officials did screw up on Harrison's interception return. Fitzgerald ran down the sidelines out of bounds to avoid blockers and nearly made an illegal tackle. He would have gotten away with it if he had managed to get Harrison down. No flag was thrown.

There were no illegal blocks on that play. There were plenty of people looking for excuses to whine about the result of that game and you are the first I have ever heard that from. There are some plays you can make a legitimate argument about in that game, including Warner's fumble at the end, but not that one.

 

What? They don't want to be the AFL powerhouses of the 1970s? If any team I mentioned should be hacked off at me, it's the Steelers.

How about this then? The Oilers appear in two Super Bowls because they don't end up facing the Steelers in consecutive AFC Championship Games. The Steelers remain in the NFL while the Oilers win two AFL titles. In fact, they could be Steelers-Oilers Super Bowls.

If no teams switch leagues, based on the evidence, it's clear the Raiders would be the class of the AFL in the 70's. The Dolphins would rise up as they did in the real world. Who, then, is the third-best AFL team if the Chiefs decline as they did in the real world? I'm thinking that in the late 70's, it ends up being either the Broncos or the Oilers. And the Oilers don't have the Steelers to worry about if no teams switch leagues.

I'm not predicting anything past 1979 with this (except that the Oilers don't move because being a Super Bowl contender makes it easier to foot the bill to replace the Astrodome). And the Al Davis plan pointed about above was something I forgot to consider.