Past NFL Title Games Rematches

“El numero tres/three/Babe Ruth” is operative as three past tilts with the NFL title at stake have “encores” in the league’s third week of play.

The defending champion Philadelphia Eagles, off (2-0) including a win last week vs the (0-2) Kansas City Chiefs in a redux of 2 of the last 3 Supes (split by the teams), have 5 NFL crowns, the second of which was won to repeat as title winners in 1949, vs today’s opponent, the Los Angeles Rams, (also (2-0). However, this game is in Philadelphia.

It is a little farther south to Washington D.C. where in a redux of the 1983 season Super Bowl, the Raiders once Oakland, L.A. Oakland again and now Las Vegas, a seemingly impossible prospect not only in ’83 but not too long ago, visit the Washington football team.

A note which includes what was only legal to wager on in Las Vegas then but in most states now, the point spread: In the ’83 “reg” 1982 strike season “Wash” was a 2 or 2 plus fave vs the Raiders and won (37-35). In that season’s Supe, ’twas the field goal or so, underdog Raiders easily, (38-9).

Though my then team the “real” Cleveland Browns, a franchise that moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens, lost (23-12) in the Lambeau Field muck in what was the great Jim Brown’s last game as a Cleveland Browns player, memories stir recalling the Green Bay Packers, off (2-0) vs Cleveland, last NFL championship game, after which there was no other game, namely to this point 59 Super Bowl contests, vs Browns game.

The Raiders and “Wash” go in (1-1) while the ’99 expansion team Browns are (0-2).

The great Jim Taylor appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show 2 weeks after that ’65 title tilt.

3 years earlier, Ray Nitschke, with the Pack win vs the Giants, having been played in Bronx, New York, appeared that night on “What’s My Line.” The mystery guest was Vaughn Meader.