The NFL: a Personal History: Introduction

Today we recall playing football in our grandparent's backyard with our father and grandfather and asking about the Giants. They were 6-10 last year, we were told. We looked it up. That year was 1979, so this must have been the winter of 1980.

And that was our introduction to the NFL.

Being a child of the 80's we came of age when the Giants were good, the San Francisco 49rs dominated and the game was still defined by the Raiders, the Dolphins, the Steelers; the great teams of the 1970s.

The first player we remember is Giants' kicker Ali Haji Sheik. We attended our first game in 1983. The first Super Bowl we watched was the Bears utter destruction of the Patriots in Super Bowl XX. Don't be fooled, in 1985 everyone thought the Super Bowl Shuffle was cool. There's some Monday (not) Metal fodder. Our first favorite player? Why Lawrence Taylor of course, later Phil Simms.

During this era the great Bill Parcells was the Giants' head coach. Check out his numbers. He averaged 10 wins a year with the Giants, five playoff appearances, eight playoff wins and two Super Bowl victories. They were a Monday Night Football mainstay. Oh, and those great 49rs teams, the Giants gave them fits! You're damn right Bill Parcells is in the Hall of Fame.

We ended our first decade of football accustomed to Giants dominance.

Bad..Bad...Lawrence Taylor

So the other day some moron in the media compared current Chicago Bears Linebacker Khalil Mack to Legendary NY Giants Linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

Our first thought was, who said that? Taylor doesn't know, does he?

For those who don't know (this means YOU, Europe) Lawrence Taylor is the greatest linebacker of all time and arguably the greatest football player who ever lived.*

Now we realize we just spoke a lot of gobbledygook to William Stroock dot BlogSpot dot com's international readers. Context below:

LT, as he was called, is just shoving linemen out of his way, running right through not one but two blockers. Taylor is doing things that human beings should not be able to do.

As the defensive coordinator, Bill Belichik didn't build the Giants' defense around Taylor, he just schemed the defense and Taylor did whatever he wanted. LT always said when in doubt, rush the quarterback.

Khalil Mack...Jesus Christ.

Quoth LT, 'Ya'll better hope I don't never get back out there Imma gonn kick your fucking ass!'

*Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice.
** The badest before LT was Deacon Jones, who was one bad dude.

Love ya Big Blue

Ah this takes us back:

We have the 45* somewhere.

That first game is the NFC divisional playoff against the San Francisco 49rs (wusses). The Giants demolished them 49-3 and knocked QB Joe Montana**(wuss) out of the game.

I was there.

That other game was against the Denver Broncos, who the Giants would go on to crush in Super Bowl XXI. You see #75, George Martin running the interception in for a touchdown? He's running toward me. That's #56 running alongside him, Lawrence Taylor or LT for short, the greatest linebacker ever. In 1984 the owner of the New Jersey Generals of the fledgling USFL got Taylor to sign for the upcoming season for a million bucks, but the league folded. That owner was Donald J Trump.

*That's a small record album, Millennials....you know, those big black frisbees your parents keep in the basement.
**The Tom Brady of his day, for you Millennials, or Naymar or say Renaldo for you Europeans. The technical term for Montana was 'really good'.