1980 Redskins.....Before The Glory

[hail2skins]

Came across the NFL Films segment on the 1980 Skins and enjoyed watching it.  Liked the mention of some of the guys who would be main contributors to the Lombardi-winning teams.  I'm a bit of an old time fan, but was not in the DC area during the late 70s and throughout much of the 80s, so didn't really get to see any of this season.  What were the memories of this campaign?  And what became of guys like Ricky Thompson?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRH6YT13aEU

 

 

[Sknsnation]

I love watching  these films from back then, brings back alot of good and bad memories, lol...Thanks for sharing, nice find!!!

[scruffylookin]

Good to see you still posting stuff like this sir.

 

I was just a kid (10) for this season so I don't remember too much. I do have vague memories of Joe Lavender's 3 interception game against the Chargers. I think it was this game that made Joe Lavender my favorite player for a short time.

 

I also seem to recall a moment from the Cowboy game in Dallas. I think Joe Theismann got hurt and wanted to stay in but the refs forced him to leave the field since the game was stopped he had to come out and the backup came in and turned the ball over.

 

Great Find. I have never seen the 1980 Highlight Film and games from that season are rare.

 

It really is fun to see guys like Rich Milot, Don Warren and Neal Olkewicz referred to as "young". 

[Dark Acre]

I was 12-13 during that year which was really tough.  It was Riggins's holdout year, the team had no spark, and something had to happen coaching-wise.  I vividly remember that Chargers game, the highlight of the season.  Of course, the following year we got our savior and the rest is history.

[C.Taylor]

I was 12-13 during that year which was really tough.  It was Riggins's holdout year, the team had no spark, and something had to happen coaching-wise.  I vividly remember that Chargers game, the highlight of the season.  Of course, the following year we got our savior and the rest is history.

 

That Chargers game was my season highlight as well. It was a ho-hum, Rigginsless season but we did have the best secondary in the league. Four interceptions against Fouts and Air Coryell. Case closed.

[skins island connection]

 Wow.

 This took me back to my high school days, playing basketball in my friend's back yard [ smoking all of them naturally cause I was good and they sucked ] .

 

 I remember the Chargers game and that day like it was yesterday. It was an overcast day in Galveston, we were shooting hoops, listening to NFL live and the updates as they would come over the air waves. Then came the stunner; Ralph, who was a Dolphin/Carger/Falcon fan, and me, a Redskin/Browns fan, heard the shockwave come over the radio of the Redskins clobbering the mighty Cargers 40-17.

 

I smiled from ear to ear, calling him out, telling him Dan Fouts was really Grizzly Adams, and I walked a little taller that day.

Many don't realize that this particular game was the game that brought Gibbs here. The Redskins were known more for defense, not offense, and being Gibbs was the mastermind behind the Chargers offense, combining his offensive skills with the current defense would give them a legitimate shot at a SuperBowl .

 

 I'll have to rummage through my cards of the 70's-80's Redskins players I have, and go to my happy place; a place where the only thing I worried about was my Redskins, unlike today of the worries of layoffs, identity theft, computer viruses.  Might even find some duplicates and throw them in with the weekly Prediction thread just to sweeten the pot a little.

[SkinsHokieFan]

To think until 1980 the Redskins had never lost a home MNF game

 

Now it seems like we lose them all :/

[TD_washingtonredskins]

To think until 1980 the Redskins had never lost a home MNF game

 

Now it seems like we lose them all :/

 

I was skeptical about how many times they actually played (knowing that MNF started in 1970). But it looks like we were 8-0 at home on MNF through the 1979 season. That's not a small sample size!

[DC9]

To think until 1980 the Redskins had never lost a home MNF game

 

Now it seems like we lose them all :/

 

Yeah, I'm two minutes into the clip and that's the first thing I notice as well (besides the white bottoms).

 

In 1980 I wasn't even a gleam in my daddy's eye though. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

Great memories. So many wonderful times at RFK with my Pops and Grandad during that era...sniffle.

[LightningBuggs]

Watching the final game of that season @ St. Louis right now.  It's interesting to me because I think I had tuned out this season at this point and don't recall watching this game.  So it's all new to me.  Fun to see a rookie WR named Art Monk catch a long TD in this game.  Hopefully our latest #1 WR draft pick can have a similar rookie campaign.

 

Skins closed out that season strong.

[DC9]

Fun to see a rookie WR named Art Monk catch a long TD in this game.  Hopefully our latest #1 WR draft pick can have a similar rookie campaign.

 

Not to derail, but allegedly he's chose 18 because it's 81 backwards.

[HailSkinz1]

I graduated high school in 1980. We lost the last game of the 1979 season to the Cowboys in a winner takes the division, the loser is out of the playoffs game. It was a great game except that we lost. Then we open the '80 season with a loss to the Cowboys in a highly publicized and anticipated Monday night game.  I really believe the Redskins were suffering a hangover effect from the let down of that last game in '79. It took us half the year to hit our stride, but by then it was too late to save Pardee's job. Of course, having Riggins take the year off didn't help. Many of the pieces of our eventual SB teams were in place, we just needed to add a few more pieces and a coach with some offensive creativity. We got both. When Gibbs was hired, no one really knew who he was other than he was the OC of one of the NFL's most potent offenses. 

[skinsfansarge]

I was 12 during that year. 1979 was such a crushing end. Seemed "my team" would never make it to a Super Bowl !!! Thanks Joe Gibbs for a great teenage years of football fun !!!! HTTR Now come on Scot let's get back to where we should be.

[kingarthur65]

1979 was and is still the most heartbreaking season of my lifetime.  Going into the game against Dallas we needed a win to be guaranteed a playoff spot.  We would also get in if the Bears lost to St Louis.  We could also get in if the Bears won by less than 30 points.  The Cardinals laid down like dogs, final score was 42-6.  The Skins blew a 4th qtr lead, 34-21 but had a chance on the last play of the game.  Theisman completed a pass across the middle to set up a 60 yard attempt by Mosely but the refs didn't give him the timeout before time ran out.  

 

So many things had to go against us that day and they all did.  I'm still not over it.

[MarkB452]

1980 Topps Redskins Football cards:

http://www.redskinscardmuseum.com/page106.html

Hard to believe they could not use the team logos on the cards (hence all the helmets w/o a logo).

[MarkB452]

1980 Summary:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/was/1980.htm

I went to HS with Mike Kruczeck's sister. I was in HS at this time, but I don't remember him starting a game at QB. I guess it was not much of a buzz as he had not gone to our HS and the team was so bad.

[Dark Acre]

I love those old Topps cellophane packs.  I'd always look for ones that had Skins players visible.  My father convinced me to sell my collection at our 1980 yard sale for $20.  Oy.  Think of all the rookie cards - Payton, Montana, Monk, LT, etc.  Thanks, dad.

 

BTW, look at the physical stats on the cards above.  The OT guys are almost all 255# and none of them are fatboys.  Starke looks positively trim.

[Dissident2]

Man, this brings back memories. Mostly bad ones. 

 

Jack Pardee was an interesting coach, and that was an interesting period. Unfortunately, what happened during his tenure was pretty much what happened to the teams he coached afterwards. His teams would always start out with a lot of promise, but would seemingly find some way to lose. He was coaching the Oilers in that game against the Bills when the Bills came back in the playoffs from something like 30+ points to win. Probably the worst collapse ever, certainly in the playoffs. 

 

That's what his Redskin teams were like. In 1978, his first year, the team started 6-0, including an incredible MNF victory over Dallas, 9-5. Sounds like a boring game, but it was one of the most intense games the rivalry had ever seen. And what happened after the 6-0 start? They blew it, ending up 8-8 and missing the playoffs. That last game of the season against the Falcons, they could've gotten in with a victory. They tied the game up at the end, and then the Falcons got into FG territory with time running out. They tried the kick and missed! I remember freaking out as a kid watching this. But then? Flag. Redskins offsides. Falcons get another chance. Think they made it? Of course. 

 

Then we get into 1979. The way the '78 season ended still stung, but hopes were high. We were a strong team that year. We crushed Dallas at home 34-20, or something like that. We looked like we'd turned the corner. Then, it all comes down to that last game in Dallas. I think we're up 17-0 at one point, then Dallas comes back to lead 21-17, then we get up 34-21 with like 4 minutes left. I remember there was a third and 1 play, and a first down would've most likely won the game for us. Pardee or Walton or whoever was calling the plays called the most pathetic, obvious play: Riggins around the side, and it got stuffed for a loss. We punted and lost the game. 

 

That seemed to be Pardee's m.o. The team would get you excited and then find a way to blow it. 

 

I remember after that Dallas game, Moseley was interviewed at his locker, and he was so pissed. He kept saying, "We're going to beat everyone next year." 

 

But the next year, they went 6-10. Riggins was gone. The team wouldn't even get hopes up that year. They had a little run toward the end of the year, but thankfully it didn't save Pardee's job. Then, everything changed. 

 

That '79 season was magical for me at times. I loved Coy Bacon especially. An incredible defensive lineman. Just a beast of a man. But that loss to the Cowboys was crushing. However, it all worked out for the best. If we'd won that game, we'd have been in the playoffs, and might have even made some noise, but there's no way we beat the Steelers in the SB that year. They crushed us in the regular season. But without the team losing like that, and the subsequent debacle of 1980, there may have been no Gibbs, and probably no SBs. 

 

Anyway, I would love to see a documentary or something done one day about the Pardee era. All kinds of interesting things from that time. He seemed like a really good guy, and he was a great player for us, but there was some sort of flaw in his coaching DNA. 

[MarkB452]

>>> But that loss to the Cowboys was crushing. However, it all worked out for the best. If we'd won that game, we'd have been in the playoffs, and might have even made some noise, but there's no way we beat the Steelers in the SB that year. They crushed us in the regular season. But without the team losing like that, and the subsequent debacle of 1980, there may have been no Gibbs, and probably no SBs.

...I always consider that loss to Dallas in 1979 to be the silver lining in that cloud called the Pardee era. If the team had made the playoffs in 1979, I don't think Pardee gets fired after 1980 and Gibbs ends upsomewhere else. I also seem to remember seeing the 1979 Redskins as one of the historic teams in Madden Football (Circa 2000?). How many non-playoff teams make the historic rosters?

[scruffylookin]

Not to derail, but allegedly he's chose 18 because it's 81 backwards.

When that number was announced, it was the first thing that popped into my head.

 

I like that he's that confident.

[thebluefood]

Seemed for a few decades there, "0" years were mediocre seasons that preceded franchise changing ones.

 

1970 - Year after Lombardi died, team goes 6-8 - George Allen arrives in '71

 

1980 - Team goes 6-10 and brings Joe Gibbs from San Diego for the '81 season

 

1990 - Team makes the playoffs, but wilts under the lights at Candlestick Park - only to go on and have the greatest season in franchise history in '91.