September 21, 1970: "Monday Night Football" Premieres

September 21, 1970: Monday Night Football premieres on ABC. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and ABC Sports chairman Roone Arledge had gotten together, and brought the NFL not just to the one major network at the time that didn't have NFL broadcasts -- in this 1st season after the NFL-AFL merger, CBS had the NFC games, and NBC had the AFC -- but to prime-time television.

Anybody in the entire country who was a football fan could watch a single game, and, as Terry Bradshaw, then a rookie quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers, would later put it, "Monday Night Football was an event!" As much as anything -- the NFL's TV package overall, the replacement of the NFL Championship Game with the Super Bowl, the pace of the sport, or its violence -- MNF is what elevated the NFL above Major League Baseball as America's favorite sports league.

The 1st broadcast team was Keith Jackson, ABC's lead college football announcer; Howard Cosell, the ABC sportscaster with the huge ego and the following to match; and Don Meredith, the recently-retired quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

Cosell, once a great newspaper columnist, and already the host of a 15-minute Sunday night wrapup show on ABC, was an easy choice for Arledge. He also wanted to pull Curt Gowdy from NBC, but failed; then tried to pull Vin Scully, also the voice of baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, from NBC, but failed; then tried to pull Jack Buck, also the voice of baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, from CBS, but Buck felt he'd been treated badly in a previous stint with ABC, and refused. So Arledge settled for Jackson, a Southern gentleman broadcaster in the mold of baseball's Red Barber and Ernie Harwell.

Arledge knew he wanted a former player for the 3-man team, and wanted former New York Giants superstar running back Frank Gifford, who had been a sideline reporter for CBS. But his contract with them was ironclad, so he suggested Meredith, who won Arledge over.

The 1st game was at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Browns were a good team, having reached the last 2 pre-merger NFL Championship Games, and having won the Championship as recently as 1964. But they weren't an especially interesting team, nor in a major media market.

Fortunately for ABC, their opponents were the New York Jets, with the biggest name in pro football, Joe Namath, at quarterback. Namath had taken the Jets to a stunning upset victory in the Super Bowl 2 seasons earlier, and was a ratings magnet, a guarantee as sure as the one he made that the Jets would win that Super Bowl.

Municipal Stadium was jammed with 85,703 fans, and they saw Homer Jones -- who, a few years earlier, as a receiver for the New York Giants, had invented "spiking" the football upon scoring a touchdown -- return Jim Turner's 2nd-half kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown, which put the Browns up, 21-7. Jackson yelled, "He could go all the way!" That expression was not yet widely known to football fans, but it became so.

Oddly, this time, Jones didn't spike the ball: He just dropped it out of his hands, like players used to do. Or, sometimes, they would hand the ball to the closest official. Or, and this was more common in the early days of the game, they would just bend down and put the ball on the ground, which is where the word "touchdown" comes from.

Namath led a comeback, and it was 24-21 Cleveland with 47 seconds left to play, and the ball on the Jet 25. A field goal would only have tied it, and not until 1974 would the NFL have regular-season overtime. Namath threw a pass, and it was intercepted by Billy Andrews, who returned it for a touchdown. The Browns won, 31-21. An ABC camera caught Namath hanging his head, and Jackson said, "There's a depressed Joe Namath."

Not depressed in the least was ABC: They got a 33 share, meaning 1/3rd of the national TV audience was watching, a big improvement over their Monday night movies. A big feature that drew fans in was the halftime show, which featured highlights of all the preceding day's games, narrated by the often-imitated, but thankfully never-duplicated Cosell.

Keith Jackson was the greatest announcer that college football has ever had, but he never really fit in with the pro game. So, in 1971, when Gifford's CBS contract ran out, Keith went back to the campuses, and Frank was in. That was the triad that made Monday night famous: Cosell and, as he put it, Giffaroo and Dandyroo.

Cosell was usually the smartest man in the room, and never let anybody forget it. He frequently belittled Meredith as a Texas hick. Finally, Meredith had enough, and left, spending the 1974, '75 and '76 seasons with NBC.

In preseason games in 1974, former Kansas City Chiefs defensive back Fred "the Hammer" Williamson was tried, but proved unacceptable to his boothmates and the censors. In time for the regular season, Arledge hired former Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras, who had turned to acting, and had just played Mongo in Blazing Saddles. He proved more capable, but not much more.

ABC even reflected its trouble finding a 3rd man in the booth by airing an episode of The Odd Couple in which New York sports columnist Oscar Madison (played by Jack Klugman) was hired for a tryout game, even though the character hated Cosell (making his 2nd appearance as himself on the show), and Cosell embarrassed Oscar on the air, leading to Oscar's firing. (Gifford did not appear in the episode.)

In 1975, Johnny Pearson's song "Heavy Action" became the show's theme song, and it remains the most famous, as familiar to NFL fans as the classical marches favored by NFL Films' highlight packages. In 1989, the show debuted a new theme song, with country music star Hank Williams Jr. reworking his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" as "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here On Monday Night." But "Heavy Action" was still used as the preview music, usually with Gifford narrating.

Meredith returned to ABC and MNF in 1977, but his contract called for him to do 14 games a year. When the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule the next season, he chose which 2 games he wouldn't do, and ABC had to honor this. In 1979, to work around this, ABC hired recently-retired Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton.

On December 9, 1974, the game was the Washington Redskins beating the Los Angeles Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Cosell found out that former Beatle John Lennon and outgoing California Governor Ronald Reagan were at the game. He managed to snag interviews with both of them, and even introduced them to each other (off-camera). In spite of their wildly divergent politics, the meeting was cordial. Cosell asked Lennon, born and raised in the football (soccer)-mad city of Liverpool, England, what he thought of American football, and he said, "It makes rock concerts look like tea parties." 

Cosell was already 45 years old when The Beatles arrived in America, so he didn't particularly care; and he must have known that Lennon was sick of answering the question; but Cosell also knew that many Beatle fans were watching, and that he would be a poor journalist if he didn't ask it, so he did: "Will The Beatles ever get back together?" Lennon had usually said they wouldn't. This time, he gave fans hope by saying, "You never know."

Six years later, almost to the day, on December 8, 1980, a definitive answer came. By this point, Reagan was President-elect. This was a game with just Cosell and Gifford, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, a game the Miami Dolphins ended up winning in overtime over the New England Patriots. The announcers were handed a news bulletin saying that Lennon had been shot and killed.

Cosell, his background in straight journalism, asked whether they should announce it themselves, or wait for ABC headquarters in New York to break away to a special report. Gifford talked him into announcing it, and so, millions of people first heard about the death of John Lennon from Howard Cosell.

On September 5, 1983, MNF covered the Dallas Cowboys' win over the Washington Redskins at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Alvin Garrett of the Redskins caught a pass and ran it in for a touchdown, and Cosell said, "Look at that little monkey go!" Cosell had called other short-of-stature players a "little monkey," and even used the expression on his grandchildren. This time, though, the subject of the expression was black, and a firestorm erupted. After all the things Cosell had said and done over the years, ABC accepted that the end of the season was time for him to go.

That same year, former Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson replaced Tarkenton as the fill-in for Meredith, or for Cosell when ABC had him broadcast baseball's Playoffs. Also that year, Simpson was asked by director James Cameron to star in a science fiction film, The Terminator. But the studio rejected the idea, thinking that nobody would accept O.J., enormously popular for his football playing and TV commercials, as a killer. In 1995, Cosell died, and Simpson was acquitted of a double murder.

For 1984, the broadcast trio was Gifford, Meredith and Simpson. Ironically, Meredith's performance seemed to weaken without Cosell to banter with. In 1985, Simpson was out, switching to NBC; and Gifford and Meredith were joined by Namath.

In 1986, ABC switched to a 2-man booth, with Gifford and their lead baseball announcer, Al Michaels. After a single season with that setup, former St. Louis Cardinals offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf joined them. Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Lynn Swann became the main sideline reporter. This setup would remain in place until 1998, when Gifford left in the wake of a sex scandal.

In 2006, The Walt Disney Company, which had bought both ABC and ESPN, shifted MNF to ESPN, and it has aired there ever since. In 2011, inappropriate comments about President Barack Obama in an interview by Hank Williams Jr. led ESPN to drop his theme song, bringing it back in 2017, once Obama was out of office.

Today, former Fox broadcast duo Joe Buck (son of Jack Buck and formerly Fox's lead baseball announcer) and Troy Aikman (like Meredith, a former Dallas Cowboy quarterback) are the lead announcers for Monday Night Football. It remains prime time TV's most popular sports program, although it will never be like it was under Howard, Frank and Dandy Don -- or even Frank and Al and Dan.

Of the 26 teams in existence in 1970, the last team not to have appeared on Monday Night Football was the Buffalo Bills, on October 29, 1973, a 23-14 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

Of the 28 teams in existence in 1976, the Dallas Cowboys have appeared the most, 93 times, going 54-39; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have appeared the least, 27 times, although they have a winning record on Monday night, 15-12; the Cowboys have won the most, although their 54 wins are followed close behind by the San Francisco 49ers with 53 and the Pittsburgh Steelers with 52; the New York Giants have lost the most, going 25-46-1, although the Washington Redskins/Commanders are right behind, at 32-45, and so are the Miami Dolphins, at 45-44; the Seattle Seahawks have the best winning percentage, .705, 31-13; and the Cincinnati Bengals are just behind the Giants with the worst winning percentage, their 13-26 giving them a .333 to the Giants' .354. 

The most common matchup: The Raiders and the Denver Broncos have faced each other 20 times, with the Broncos leading 10-9-1.

*

September 21, 1970 was, of course, a Monday. The Browns-Jets game was the only NFL game played that day. These 9 Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. Jim Lyttle hit a home run in support of Fritz Peterson.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. The Sox runs scored on solo homers by Carl Yastrzemski and Rico Petrocelli.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Mark Belanger, one of the best-fielding shortstops ever, but also one of the worst hitters in the game, went against type, and singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning. Boog Powell hit a home run off Joe Niekro. Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson each went 1-for-4.

For the Tigers, Al Kaline went 2-for-6 with an RBI. Kaline was a Baltimore native, and, in 1974, playing in his hometown, collected his 3,000th career hit.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 2-0 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Don Gullett (5 innings), Clay Carroll (2) and Wayne Granger (2) combined on a 4-hit shutout. This willingness to pull pitchers quickly and make full use of his bullpen gave Sparky Anderson, a rookie manager for the Reds at age 36 but already with white hair, the nickname "Captain Hook." But it also helped him become a Pennant-winning manager in his rookie year, as the Reds reached the World Series, losing it to the Orioles.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Juan Marichal pitched a 6-hit shutout. Willie Mays went 3-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 8-4. The Kansas City Royals won the nightcap, 8-2.

* The California Angels beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-6 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Vida Blue pitched a no-hitter, missing a perfect game only through a 4th-inning walk of Harmon Killebrew, and outpitching Jim Perry. Bert Campaneris hit a home run, and Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk.

Blue was just getting warmed up: From September 11, 1970 to August 15, 1971, he was as good as any pitcher in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era, going 24-4 with an ERA of 1.66. For the 1971 season, he went 24-8, and was named the American League Most Valuable Player. But he held out at the start of the 1972 season, and for a man playing for a team owned by Charlie Finley, that was a huge mistake. He was often good after that, but was never great again.