The NFL and YouTube had a great idea, but botched the process and ultimately, the decisions.
On June 20, the National Football League announced it would be partnering with YouTube to feature 96 classic games in full, with three assigned per team. All told, 160 candidates were chosen by members of the NFL media, NFL Films and the 32 NFL teams themselves with fans ultimately voting for the winners.
While that sounds like a fantastic idea, the 96 games that were picked by the fans were abject fails, like “Cleveland Browns quarterback” fail level.
Since the 1950’s, the NFL has provided some of the greatest American drama in sports and just 96 games (some which shouldn’t even be on the list) isn’t enough. I’ve decided to make a list of my own because, frankly, I can do it better.
One big issue is that some of the classics that would’ve been on the list have been either destroyed by accident and suffered damage.
Other classics suffered a much more tragic fate.
They were taped over to record game shows and soap operas. Yeah, that’s right. The 1969 Week 1 classic between the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants on CBS might’ve been used to record an episode of “The Edge of Night” or “As The World Turns.” To be fair, this is also the era when people though smoking was cool so foresight was clearly lacking.
So what games are actually on the list? Well you can find that here. There are some GLARING omissions like games from the 1970s featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and contests that shaped the very fabric of the NFL.
The games I would keep from the original list include the following…
Next: Which games did the NFL get right?