Super Florida Trivia Time!

Proof that indeed time flies today is one of those days that you awaken and remember certain events that happen on a given day. Today is no different.

With the mercury sitting at near zero on the heels of a blizzard that crippled a good part of the East Coast I remembered just how fun things were as a title was about to come to Los Angeles for the first time since 1981.

Thirty years ago today in Tampa Bay you had Super Bowl 18 or SB XVIII. The L.A. Raiders (12-4) and Washington Redskins (14-2) were to meet in a rematch of an earlier game played in DC (won by Washington 37-35). 

The Redskins in 1983 set records for points scored in a season with 541 points. They were perfect on Sundays and two points short of perfection on Monday nights. Opening night 9/5/83 was a 31-30 loss after the Redskins started off with a 23-3 lead. 

Middle October you had a Monday Night game at Green Bay. To this day the highest scoring game ever on a Monday Night (95 points). A back and forth affair with the Packers and Redskins won at the end by Green Bay 48-47. 2 points short of perfection in 1983.

Los Angeles thoroughly dominated the Hogs defensively in the first half with the early dagger a 3 yard touchdown pick by Jack Squirek on a pass into the flat and a 21-3 lead.

The rest of the world remembers a 75 or 74 yard reversal of a cut and run by Marcus Allen that went for a touchdown as the Raiders celebrated their third overall Super Bowl win, second under Tom Flores and 1st and only for Los Angeles with a 38-9 branding of the hogs and Team Riggins. An absolute blowout of a game.

Five years later-or 25 years ago I recall there was racial tensions in Miami over the shooting of a motorist that fell along racial lines. Super Bowl XXIII went off with nary a hitch in a rematch of Super Bowl XVI in Detroit. A game won by the 49ers 26-21. San Francisco oddly enough began and ended their season in Detroit. That's a rarity.

The first half of SB XXIII was a defensive one. An exchange of field goals for the second lowest score in a half since SB IX when the Steelers had a 2-0 lead at halftime in New Orleans Tulane Stadium.

The Bengals will tell you that the outcome of the game might have been different had Stanley Wilson gone AWOL with the drugs. About seven plays apart you saw Steve Wallace and Tim Krumrie break a leg. Krumrie's injury pretty graphic when trying to stop Roger Craig.

Stanford Jenings had a 93 yard kickoff return (topping the one Fulton Walker had on the Redskins six years prior at Pasadena) and the Bengals held onto a 13-6 lead heading into the 4th period.

San Francisco added a touchdown to knot things up at 13-13 while Cincinnati and Boomer Esiason were able to engineer a drive that resulted in a field goal and a 16-13 lead with only 3:10 to play. It was then the 49ers were deep in their territory at the 8 yard line while Joe Montana saw John Candy in the stands and pointed him out to his teammates.

Much like John Elway's Drive two years prior Joe Montana would engineer an 11 play drive-9 by the pass-to take the 49ers and Bill Walsh's last game as a 49er coach into the end zone on a 9 yard dart to John Taylor. Jerry Rice was epic in this game with 11 catches and 215 yards. When he was double teamed John Taylor had all the room in the world.

I remember Davis Fulcher had his hands full and I also remember a defender with the number 24 dropping what should have been a sure interception as the Niners won their 3rd Super Bowl of the decade with 34 seconds left on the clock 20-16.

The Battle of Student versus Teacher went in favor of Bill Walsh and not Sam Wyche. I dare say this battle of teams featured one of the more exciting finishes since the Jim O'Brien field goal in Super Bowl V.

Come to think of it Florida was never kind to the Dallas Cowboys as they lost three times in the 70's.

San Francisco would go from being 10-6 in 1988 to 14-2 in 1989 in one of the more memorable seasons these eyes ever witnessed on a football field with Montana, Rice, Taylor, Craig, Rathman, and George Seifert.

Two memorable Super Bowls five years apart in Florida on this date. And there you have it.

Over and out in Big D.

Mr. Will