Bert Bell Benefit Bowl

Back in the 1960's the NFL used to have it's 3rd place/runner up classic called the Playoff Bowl or the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl. Starting in 1960 the 2nd place teams from each conference would play each other in Miami (neutral site). The game was designed to give the football starved fans another game to watch and raise money for the family of Bert Bell, the NFL commish who died during a game of a heart attack watching is beloved Eagles. The history of this series of games (10 in all) has been wiped from the NFL's record books. Each of these games is now considered an "exhibition" and not counted in the post season records of the participating franchises. Interest was keen until Lombardi called it "a hinky dink game in a hinky dink town". He also referred to it as the "shit bowl", since everything other than a championship is shit.

Well we here at Distantreplay.org think it's the perfect venue for our BAD70's league to play it's championship game. What better place for 2 BAD teams to play than in Lombardi's "Shit Bowl". We'll keep it clean and call it the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl !

The first two participants will be the 1970 SD Chargers, coached by Stu Geller and the 1973 PHI Eagles coached by Andy Weinrib. Both teams got to the "big game" by winning close one's in their respective Conference Championship games. Stu's Chargers stunned Wayne's Colts in OT to advance and Andy's Eagles came on strong down the stretch to eliminate Bill Keller's Saints.

Due to Stu's travel schedule the game will be played in 3 weeks. I suspect there will be a lot of hype between now and then, especially during media week. Both coaches are heading to their first Distantreplay.org championship game. Good luck to all.