Monday, September 27, 2010

Being An Armchair QB — 1966

Today we have a good-sized blog entry which features a 1966 season guide printed and distributed by the Norelco® company. Although it is “Bart Starr’s” guide to being an “armchair quarterback,” Green Bay fullback Jim Taylor is shown on the front cover. It’s hard to depict it here as such, but this guide is a sort of “flip book” where you can flip the left and right sides to then have the two rosters and depth charts of the teams you’re watching right in front of you. Does that make any sense?

This double-page ad has a great illustration of the team helmets of the N.F.L. as it stood in 1966 with 15 teams. The Atlanta Falcons joined the league that year as an expansion team.

Here’s a television listing of all the games for 1966. The N.F.L. was broadcast on CBS.

Some instructions on using the book, and a little summary of the N.F.L.’s history.

This spread — and the next two — give a summary of each N.F.L. franchise, and are illustrated with some classic mid-1960’s illustrations.

Some statistical background on the 1965 season are provided here, along with some info on the league’s officials.

Each team has its own feature pages, and we’re only bringing you the Green Bay ones here.

The Packers’ roster information is on this page, which you would flip so that it was side-by-side with that week’s opponent.

Ever-popular in publications of that era were a guide to football “lingo,” as well as some information on plays and formations common to the N.F.L.

This is a nice little spread on the 1965 championship game, when the Packers defeated the Cleveland Browns back in January of 1966.

As we mentioned, CBS broadcast all of the N.F.L. games back in 1966, so we are given some background on the network. On the right-hand page, we have some details about the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, which opened three years earlier in 1963.

Each team had their own CBS announcer, and the Packers’ Ray Scott is pictured on the left-hand page in the middle of the bottom row.

To wrap up the data in this booklet, we have a feature on what equipment football players wear. Green Bay’s Ray Nitschke is the model.

Be sure to get one of these fine accessories from your Norelco® dealer.