Card dice football part ii

[wdm1219inpenna]

For the purposes of my card/dice football league, I have done the following.  I have taken a page from the old NHL days in renaming conferences and divisions:

The AFC is now the HUNT Conference, named in honor of Lamar Hunt, owner of the KC Chiefs and a founder (or at least co-founder) of the original AFL.  The Lamar Hunt trophy is awarded to the AFC Champion each year.

Similarly, the NFC is now the Halas Conference, in honor of George S. Halas, former Chicago Bears owner, founder, player, coach, etc. not to mention one of THE founding fathers of the NFL, if not THE Founding Father of it!

I would get rid of "North" "South" "East" and "West" and rename the divisions, and realign the divisions as follows.  Note: Some teams will re-relocate.

HUNT CONFERENCE (Formerly called AFC)

Shula Division: Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills

Noll Division: Pittsburgh Steelers, Houston Oilers, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals

Unitas Division: Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Antonio Texans

Stram Division: Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders

Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history would have the former AFC East named in his honor.

Noll, the first (and only coach still to my knowledge) to have won 4 Super Bowls.  I move the Titans out of Tennessee back to Houston, to reunite ALL former AFC Central teams from 1970-1994 seasons.

Unitas, in honor of the late great QB who quarterbacked in Baltimore (home of the Ravens) and QB'd for the Colts (Indy).  Since the Oilers are back in Houston, the Texans had to up stakes and move to San Antonio.  Was there not a WLAF team w/that name (San Antonio Texans)??

Stram, in honor of the ONLY AFL Coach to remain for the entire 10 years history of the league.  In honor of the first AFL coach in the Super Bowl, and in honor of winning Super Bowl IV in an upset.

HALAS CONFERENCE (Formerly NFC)

Landry Division: Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles

Grant Division: Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears

Thorpe Division: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks

Walsh Division; San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons

Landry, in honor of the legendary Tom Landry, head coach of the Cowboys from 1960-1988 season.  Led his team to 5 Super Bowls, 17 post season appearances in an 18 year span as I recall, countless NFC Championship games, and a couple of NFL Championship games where they fell just short to Green Bay.

Grant, in honor of Bud Grant, the longtime, outstanding head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.  He led them to 4 of the first 11 Super Bowls, and while he never won any, his long standing tenure with the team, and his outstanding calm demeanor makes him deserving of having this "black and blue" division named in his honor.  

Thorpe, in honor of Jim Thorpe, considered the greatest all around athlete.  He played with the Chicago Cardinals and since no other team had a real legend associated with them, since the Hawks, Bucs & Panthers are all expansion teams, Jim Thorpe is honored accordingly.  I actually toyed with the idea of calling this the McCay division, in honor of Tampa Bay's first head coach, but it didn't have the staying power of the other names (Noll, Unitas, Landry, Grant, etc.)

Walsh, in honor of the grand wizard of the San Francisco 49ers organization, Bill Walsh, former protegee (sp) of legendary coach Paul Brown.  Three Super Bowl rings to his credit don't hurt either.

Some could argue to call the Landry Division the Gibbs division.  Since he's back w/the Redskins, I felt that wouldn't work.

The Butkus division just didn't sound as impressive as Grant to me.  Lombardi's name's already associated w/the Super Bowl trophy, otherwise I would have used his name.  Ditka is still too recent to me, despite winning Super Bowls as a player and coach.  The Lions really don't have anyone that stands out, except Barry Sanders, and again, he's much too recent to me to name a division after him.

I considered doing the Madden division instead of STram, but STram's been out of the limelight for quite a while, and he's the only AFL coach to coach for the entire 10 year run of the AFL, not to mention a few years after the AFL/NFL Merger w/the Chiefs, and later w/the Saints.

Shula Division might have been the Levy Division, except Shula's been out longer, and has 6 head coaching appearances in the SUper Bowl going 2-4, vs Levy who has 4 and going 0-4, plus Levy is much more recent, and too modern, despite his age.

I went with Noll division because Noll was there for such a long time in Pitt, and won all those Super Bowls.  Calling it the Brown division in honor of Paul Brown, would have been a bit bland to me, not that he doesn't deserve a great deal of credit.  He invented the facemask and the "pocket" and I acknowledge that, not to mention creating the Bengals.  Perhaps since half those teams are due to him, it SHOULD be the Brown division??

I wanted to use people who have been retired from the game for a while, or who have died to name the divisions after.  Shula, Noll, Landry all legendary, all Super Bowl coaches, all Super Bowl winners (multiple times) as was Walsh.

What do you think?  I await your posts, or email me at NFLfansince73@aol.com

Regards,

Bill McD.

[KCScout76]

Bill,

What a great set up.  I'm old school and I love your new divisions and Conference names.  Reminds me of the good old NHL days; Norris, Smythe, etc.

I created my own (with assistance from a former student of mine) a dice baseball game.  Includes base stealing, # of runners on base, # of outs and some 'hit & run'.

Great stuff!

KCScout76 (Kennedy Johnson)