Wild Card Round Notes, I like Wikipedia, However, Let’s Start With Their Factual Error

In this post’s title, I indicate I like Wikipedia and refer to it quite a bit. That includes today’s research on the announcers for the NFL’s previous 150 wild card round games (THIRTY is an operative number as there were 30 such tilts from ’78-’89–2 each for 11 of those seasons and 8 in and after the strike marred 9 game, 1982 regular season and 30 seasons of 4 such games (’90-2019). Today I found a factual error. It follows below.

AFC: Houston Oilers 17, San Diego Chargers 14

This was the third postseason meeting between the Oilers and Chargers. San Diego won both meetings in consecutive years, including 10–3 in the 1961 AFL Championship Game.

This references the Houston Oilers (17-14) win was vs the Chargers in the lone AFC wild card game in 1979. That information as put forth by Wikipedia and shown above is correct.

However, it was the Houston Oilers, who won the 1961 AFL Championship Game by that correct (10-3) score.

Additionally, Houston prevailed in the first of what were to be 10 AFL Championship Games, also vs the then Los Angeles Chargers (paraphrasing what Mr. Springsteen sang in “Atlantic City,” franchise moves, at least in this case, “come back,” as the Chargers are now the L.A. Chargers again, having been such in their first season (1960). Thus Wikipedia was incorrect saying the Chargers won those first two AFL title tilts, when in fact Houston was victorious vs them.

Let’s try this one, clearly, today for the first time, each conference’s network “top” assigned announcer, Fox’s Joe Buck in his 19th such season and CBS’ Jim Nantz, in his 17th, will be heard and too often seen on those ridiculous in game, into the booth, one does it so they all copy, “shots”–in the first two games.

This will be just the second time in those 19 seasons, that Buck is on a Saturday wild card game, while Nantz will be on just his third.