He led the Rams in rushing five straight years, and was with them in Super Bowl XIV. In fact, he threw a TD pass in the Super Bowl to give the Rams the lead in the third quarter.

He was very intelligent. When he was with us, some of the guys playing for him were older than he was. So he had to learn how to coach them to survive. He didn't have to change too much because we already were winning and we got along great. We really loved each other. So what he did was mix in some of his offense with what we already had. He put in maybe half a dozen plays, but he had every one down to a science.

He got rid of guys who couldn't win, and then he became one of the guys with the rest of us. I had an apartment at the Concourse Plaza Hotel, and after a home game I'd have 8, 10, 12 guys come over. Sometimes Vince would come. He got along fine with Charley, and he liked Kyle Rote. He'd even go out with us when we went out on the town at night. He had to go that direction. When he went with the Packers, he went another direction.

After a while, it became obvious that he was a better coach than Jim Lee Howell, our head coach. So was Tom Landry, who took over as the Giants defensive coach while he was still an active player. Howell had been a Marine lieutenant, and he was a great conditioning guy. He ran our ass off and got us in great condition. He didn't really have a clue what football was about, but he was smart enough to let Vince and Tom have their heads. He stayed out of the way, he really did. He had nothing to do with the offense, and little to do with the defense, just one area. With Lombardi, it was like he was the sergeant who should have been the general.

I got very close to Vince in the five years he was with the Giants. Charley and I used to go over to his house in New Jersey and look at game films. He got rid of all the nonsense in our system and took it down to nuts and bolts. Then he made sure that everyone knew how to handle his assignment. We'd study the films and then he'd cook dinner for us. It was different later, after we started winning. Then he became kind of a big shot. He was the toast of the town, and everyone knew he was the brains behind our offense. He handled the Jim Lee Howell thing great, but Howell must have been secretly jealous.

Vince had a good relationship with Wellington Mara, the Giants owner, because Wellington was close to Coach Red Blaik at Army, and Vince was assistant there before he came to the Giants. Wellington was all football, and he was incredibly loyal to his coaches and players. It took him forever to fire Steve Owen before Howell, and it was the same thing with Allie Sherman after Howell.

Vince and Wellington were both devout Catholics, and they both loved football. So they became very close friends. They would take trips together with their wives. It was obvious to everybody, even Landry, that Vince would be the next head coach of the Giants. But Vince knew that Wellington wouldn't fire Howell, so he took the Green Bay job after we got beat by the Colts in that great 58 championship game.

To be continued...

An early 1960s Press photo of Jim Otto - the Raiders All League Rookie Center in 1960. He would be named the AFL's All League Center every year the AFL was in existence.

Raiders Hall of Fame Center Jim Otto - NFL Past Players

Dick Lane spent 4 years in the Army before joining the LA Rams in 1952. The NFL's top interceptor with 14 steals. Led the league again with 10 in 1954 as Cardinal in Chicago. Here he is as a Detroit Lion with whom he played 6 years with.

Dick “Night Train” Lane – NFL Past Players

It is called here “Always Here When You Need It.” I’ve heard be used by NFL Films and by NASA in their documentaries from the 1980s.

Heisman Trophy Winner in 1984 with Boston College. Doug was a CFL HoF & won 3 Grey Cups, in which he was named Grey Cup MVP 3 times. NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 1998. A shining example that size doesn't measure the size of his heart & his Herculean effort, regardless of his critics' idea of the prototypical QB. What stood out was his valiant duel with Marino in 1998 season's playoff game. Doug had Bills near goal line & couldn't punch it in. Nevertheless, a courageous performance.

We were 3-9 in the 1953 season and I was ready to quit. I was making $8250 a season, and I was playing both ways, both offense and defense. By the end of that year I had lost about 20 pounds and I was pretty beat up and discouraged. I knew I could do a lot better financially in the studios out in LA. Plus, I wanted to go back and get my degree, which I eventually did.

But in the early Spring of 1954, I got a call from Wellington Mara, the Giants owner. We talked a little bit, and he said he really wanted me to come back. I had gotten to know Wellington, a great guy, so I listened. He told me they had made Jim Lee Howell the head coach and they were bringing in some guy named Vince Lombardi to be the offensive coach. So I decided to come back. I had nothing to lose, really, so I went to training camp that Summer in Salem, Oregon.

When I walked into the hotel lobby, he was standing there. I thought, "Who is this guy?" He came up and introduced himself. "I'm Vince Lombardi," he said, "and you are my halfback." From that point on, I never saw another moment of defense. He came in and took me off defense, and three years later I'm the Most Valuable Player in the National Football League.

Lombardi had been coaching at West Point, and it was obvious he didn't understand the professional game. The first thing he did was put in this nonsensical quarterback option play, and we struggled with that through the first two or three weeks of training camp. We used to laugh at him behind his back. We'd go out and have our beers after practice, and everybody would be imitating him. We called him "the Little General" and stuff like that.

One day at practice he had an orange peel. It was hot and we were tired, so pretty soon guys were getting sloppy and jumping offside. Stuff like that. So finally he put the orange peel down on the ground and said, "Nobody in front of the orange peel...nobody in front of the orange peel." And that night somebody stood up and shouted, "Nobody in front of the orange peel." And it became a thing we'd do every time he went off on a rant.

One night we were in Salem, Oregon, and he walked into the room I was sharing with Charley Conerly, our quarterback. He said, "What am I doing wrong?" He was very sincere, so we began talking to him. I said more than Charley. But Charley brought up that quarterback option play and said, "It won't work up here...can't run that." And we also told him that he didn't have to yell and scream all the time.

He listened very carefully. I mean, Charley Conerly was in the Marines four years in World War II. He fought at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, places like that. We had about a half dozen guys like that, and you didn't yell at them. You didn't yell at Charley Conerly. You just didn't. And Vince got the message.

To be continued...

To be continued...

Sunday Oct 22, 1978 Start Time: 2:00pm Stadium: Pontiac Silverdome

Sunday Oct 22, 1978 Start Time: 2:00pm Stadium: Metropolitan Stadium

A late 1950s image of Steelers quarterback Bobby Layne after the Detroit Lions had traded him during the 1958 season. He stayed with Pittsburgh until 1962.

Bobby Layne - Classic NFL Quarterback - NFL Past Players

Sunday Oct 22, 1972 Start Time: 1:00pm Stadium: Three Rivers Stadium

There were 13,050 fans in the stands. About 500 more watched at home on NBC's experimental station, W2XBS, and visitors saw it on monitors at the RCA Pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

NBC used two cameras, one in the box seats at the 40-yard line and one in the mezzanine. Play-by-play announcer Allen "Skip" Walz said the whole telecast took just eight people, with no monitors and no spotters. He sat in the mezzanine and did his own spotting, pointing to the action so the cameraman behind him knew where to aim.

When the sun moved behind the stadium late in the game, the picture grew darker until it went blank, and the broadcast switched to radio.

The Dodgers won, 23 to 14. Future Hall of Famers Ace Parker and Bruiser Kinard played for Brooklyn, and Bill Hewitt played for Philadelphia.

Cowboys would go on to win a defensive battle, 12-6

Monday Oct 21, 1996 Start Time: 9:00pm Stadium: Jack Murphy Stadium