Bills 37, Rams 34 (OT)

The first four notes of Johnny Pearson’s 1970 instrumental piece Heavy Action are among the most iconic and identifiable musical notes for sports fans in North America and in the United Kingdom. It has been closely associated with ABC’s (and later ESPN’s) Monday Night Football (MNF) since 1975 when it was first used in its broadcast introduction and as a looping background soundtrack for Howard Cossell’s halftime review of highlights from the previous day’s NFL games. Pearson, the long-time leader of the Top of the Pops Orchestra, originally wrote the piece for the UK sports show Superstars. It has been re-arranged multiple times but in 2018, ESPN resumed using Pearson’s original arrangement for MNF and has continued using it up to and including last night. A few years ago, I downloaded the original version and I still dial it up occasionally during the long football off-season.

The history of MNF is fascinating. In early 1970, Pete Rozelle, NFL Commissioner from 1960 to 1989, first proposed his idea of a weekly Monday prime time NFL game to NBC and CBS. Skeptical that Americans would want to watch football on Monday nights, both declined. He then approached ABC Sports head Roone Arledge who reluctantly agreed to give it a try. ABC was mired in third place in US network ratings, well behind NBC and CBS. From it’s first broadcast on September 21, 1970 from Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, it was a huge hit. Arledge hired the controversial New York sports personality Howard Cossell to do play-by-play and to boost ratings. Cossell was a strong and early supporter of black athletes and developed a close relationship with Muhammed Ali. He was probably the first broadcaster who attracted viewers who tuned in to “hate watch” him. Bars across the US had parties on Monday nights where patrons were invited to throw bricks through old television sets whenever Cossell irritated them enough. His abrasive and pompous broadcast style became legendary and helped make Monday Night Football must-see-TV from the outset.  Howard Cossell famously let the world know of John Lennon’s assassination on a live game broadcast on December 8, 1980. Lennon himself appeared in Cossell’s broadcast booth for a short interview during a 1974 game.  Another curious personality added to the Monday Night Football broadcast booth was comedian Dennis Miller who lasted two seasons alongside Al Michaels and Dan Fouts who years later said that he never quite knew what to make of the Dennis Miller experiment and felt uncomfortable with it for the entire two seasons.

MNF has been a 56-year television ratings success story but in 2005 when the NFL decided to make Sunday Night Football its marquee prime time offering, Disney moved MNF from ABC to ESPN. Ratings remained strong on Mondays but by 2011, NBC’s Sunday Night Football climbed to the top of weekly American television ratings where it has remained ever since. When broadcast crews were shuffled following the 2021 season, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman left FOX and moved into the MNF booth where they continue to deliver solid game commentary and strong ratings. MNF games began at 9pm until 1997 when the kick-off was moved to 8.15pm. I would welcome a 7.30pm start time but I guess that’s too early for west coast viewers. I am sometimes asked why they don’t start the prime-time games earlier (because many of the games go 11.30pm or later like last night’s did, far past my cohort’s usual bedtime). The answer is that if they thought they could attract more viewers by staring the games at a different time, they would start the games at a different time.

Dateline: November 20, 1988. In a game I attended, Bills defensive lineman Fred Smerlas got a big paw up to block a Pat Leahy field goal attempt with 25 seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime where the Bills would go on to beat the New York Jets 9-6 and claim their first AFC East title since 1980. It was probably the most important blocked kick in Bills history but, allowing for some recency bias, Greg Rosseau’s block in overtime last night at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles now stands in second place to the Smerlas block. Picked 30^th overall in the 2021 NFL draft, Rosseau is now in his sixth season with the Bills and it looks to be by far his best with six quarterback sacks through the first three games. His block allowed Josh Allen to engineer the winning drive and one of the most epic October Bills wins in recent years. And all of this on Monday Night Football! I definitely had more trouble falling asleep afterward than I did staying up through the game’s tense final moments. A great win it was for the Bills who were due for a break or two to fall their way in a tight national game.

After a sort of sleepy first half, the Bills took a 13-7 lead to the locker room and led 19-14 after three quarters before the teams exploded for 35 points in the fourth quarter to finish tied at 37 after 60 minutes. After James Cook’s second fumble, things looked bleak for the Bills before Rosseau saved the day. Despite missing an extra point earlier, with two minutes remaining in the extra period, Tyler Bass hit a 45-yard field goal which looked like it would have been good from 65. A rather large monkey was removed from Josh Allen’s back in the process as his record in overtime games improved to 1-7. The Bills also converted on a two-point attempt which removed a much smaller but quite irritating monkey as well.

A few quick thoughts this morning: (1) I wish Josh Allen would learn to slide. That extra yard or two usually isn’t worth the injury risk he takes in getting them. (2) A few Bills players (with the exception of Spencer Brown who did not return) appeared to suffer significant injuries – Benford, Bernard, Gardiner-Johnson – but each returned to the game. (3) James Cook needs to hold the ball more securely on every carry. He should watch film of Stefon Diggs who was the master of ball protection upon first contact. It’s harder for running backs but opposing defences will be coached-up to punch the ball out of his hands on every carry because it seems like it’s easy to do – too easy.   

The Bills will stay on the west coast this week as they face the Las Vegas Raiders in sin city next Sunday at 4.25pm in the featured late-window game on CBS.