Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

NFL Dream Season on ESPN

266 views
Skip to first unread message

TMC

unread,
Mar 2, 2010, 12:56:21 PM3/2/10
to
http://the506.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1267009280/26#26

NFL Films and ESPN showed NFL Dream Season for six weeks in 1989. The
program aired on Sunday nights during the first half of the NFL
season, and helped to promote ESPN Sunday Night Football. (At the
time, there were no live games on Sunday nights at that point in the
season. NFL on TNT launched the following year.)

The show consisted of simulations of a mini-season featuring 20 of the
top NFL teams from 1950 to 1988. There was no limit as to how many
teams a franchise could have, and indeed three had two teams each. I
suspect the producers used a computer program similar to WhatIfSports
to run the "games."

One feature game was "played" each week, and Chris Berman had a studio
segment recapping the rest of the action.

Each team had six regular season games. The four division winners
moved on to the semifinals and eventually an all-time champion was
produced. The 1978 Steelers beat the 1972 Dolphins to win the title.
The following year, after the emergence of the 1989 49ers as another
of the outstanding teams, the series was revived for a bonus episode.
(On the 1990 episode, Charley Steiner replaced Merrill Reese as the
play-by-play announcer.)

The results were published in The Pro Football Chronicle, co-written
by Dan Daly.
This info is from p264-266 of The Pro Football Chronicle.

Note: While the book contains scores for each regular season game, I
am choosing to simply show the wins for each team in shorthand
notation (by listing which teams each one defeated).

East
78 Steelers 6-0 (83 68 77 55 69 66)
86 Giants 4-2 (84 60 82 53)
59 Colts 3-3 (51 82 68)
60 Eagles 2-4 (51 63)
68 Jets 1-5 (63)

West
84 49ers 5-1 (51 84 68 71 83)
77 Cowboys 3-3 (86 69 83)
83 Raiders 2-4 (63 55)
63 Chargers 1-5 (51)
51 Rams 1-5 (64)

North
76 Raiders 6-0 (68 82 69 71 86 85)
85 Bears 5-1 (77 59 66 83 53)
66 Packers 4-2 (60 84 24 77)
53 Lions 2-4 (63 51)
64 Browns 1-5 (60)

South
72 Dolphins 6-0 (59 71 83 64 68 69)
82 Redskins 3-3 (55 53 71)
55 Browns 3-3 (53 71 63)
69 Chiefs 2-4 (71 64)
71 Cowboys 0-6 (n/a)

semis
78 Steelers over 84 49ers (20-17)
72 Dolphins over 76 Raiders (24-21)

Dream Bowl
78 Steelers over 72 Dolphins (21-20)

0 new messages