1984 Pro Football Yearbook*

Replay Publishing invites you to travel back twenty years in pro football history, and re-live the 1984 season with the all-new 1984 Pro Football Yearbook for Second Season Pro Football Game!

Anyone who experienced the '84 season in real-life has never forgotten it! The season started with the anticipation of Chicago's "Sweetness" breaking the long-standing career pro rushing record, something he did in the season's sixth week. By the end of the season, though, fans were talking about the passing game! Miami's second-year passer set the pro football world ablaze with a one-for-the-ages passing performance. By season's end, he'd thrown for over five thousand yards and almost fifty touchdown passes, passing his club into the playoffs and--eventually--into the league championship game.

Unlike many seasons, in 1984 the championship game featured two clubs which were indisputably the best in their conferences. Miami's pass-happy club finished with a 14-2 regular season record and met a San Francisco team led by the legendary "number 16," a team which had lost just once all year. Almost 85,000 fans packed into Stanford Stadium to watch the contest. At first, Miami did what they'd been doing all season, as their young passer connected on 9 of his first 10 passes for over 100 yards and an early 10-7 lead. But the San Francisco defense slowly took control, and San Francisco pulled away to register a convincing 38-16 victory.

Many of the events of the 1984 pro football season were noteworthy and memorable...

The city of Los Angeles fielded two pro clubs, one in each conference, and both had winning seasons. The blue-and-gold L.A. club was led by a stiff defense and a hard-charging running back who broke the pro football single-season rushing record with over 2100 yards rushing! The other L.A. team, the silver-and-black "swash-bucklers," had a top runner and defense of their own, and a more settled quarterback situation. Still, their 11-5 record was only third-best in their powerful division, behind Denver and Seattle. Denver stormed through the season with a fierce "Orange Crush" defense and a predictable, but effective offense. For Seattle, 1984 produced one of its best-ever squads, with a marvelous deep-pass attack that lit up the scoreboard for 32 touchdowns and over 3500 yards. Never in the history of pro football, before or since, has one division featured a cluster of three top teams such as this.

1984 saw a "changing of the guard" in cities like Pittsburgh, San Diego, Minnesota and Dallas. Pittsburgh's "Steel Curtain" dynasty was coming to an end, with many of the stars of the 1970s championship seasons reaching the ends of their careers, but the club still managed a modest divisional title with a 9-7 mark. Dallas also finished 9-7, but failed to make the playoffs for the first time in almost 20 years. San Diego--a playoff regular since the late 70s--saw its pass attack dampened by age and injury and fell to the divisional basement against tough competition. Minnesota's plunge from respectability was even deeper, with a new coach overseeing a demoralizing 3-13 season, worst in the franchise's history.

Some well-established players wore new uniforms in 1984. Most notable was Pittsburgh's legendary fullback, who held out in a contract dispute, and wound up spending his final season on the Seattle bench.

Other stories of the '84 season included the "Big Blue" New York squad earning a surprise bid to the playoffs, a dominating performance by Chicago's "46" defense a year ahead of their own championship season in '85, and the best season of the 80's in St. Louis for the legendary "Big Red." In Houston, there were the origins of the "run-and-shoot" offense which would--for a time--capture the fancy of the pro leagues. And two clubs--Green Bay and Cincinnati--staged dramatic turnarounds in the second half of the '84 season to finish with respectable 8-8 records.

With Second Season's new 1984 Pro Football Yearbook, you can go back in time and experience the ups and downs and turnarounds of this historic season of pro football. All players and teams are rated to include the newest Second Season ratings enhancements. You'll get all twenty-eight pro teams, over 1100 players each individually rated*.

*Abbreviated names are used to represent real-life pro football players in this yearbook.  Players are identified by six-to-eight letter "codes," such as "john.elw" or "walt.payt."