1961: George Blanda Throws 7 TD Passes Against NY Titans

The Houston Oilers, defending champions of the American Football League, had gotten off to a rough start in 1961. They were 1-3-1 after five games, and George Blanda (pictured above), the 33-year-old quarterback who had revived his pro football career in ’60 while leading the club to the title, was benched for two games.

However, owner Bud Adams fired Head Coach Lou Rymkus at that point and replaced him with Wally Lemm. There was an immediate turnaround, and by the time the Oilers hosted the New York Titans at Jeppesen Stadium on November 19, they had reeled off four straight wins. Blanda was back at the helm. In the preceding four contests, he had passed for 1076 yards (including 464 in a game at Buffalo alone) with 11 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.

The Titans, coached by legendary QB Sammy Baugh, were 5-4 coming into the game. While the offense was capable of providing some excitement, in particular due to the presence of split end Art Powell and flanker Don Maynard, the defense was porous, especially the defensive backfield. Having started off 3-1, New York was in danger of falling out of contention in the Eastern Division.

There were 33,428 fans in attendance at the small venue as Houston took command quickly and decisively. Blanda tossed his first touchdown pass, of 28 yards to flanker Charley Hennigan, at the conclusion of an 80-yard drive early in the first quarter. With 4:40 remaining in the opening period, Blanda tossed a six-yard TD pass to HB Billy Cannon to conclude a six-play possession that covered 31 yards. Before the first quarter was over, the Oilers scored again as Blanda threw another pass to Cannon that covered 78 yards for a third touchdown.

The Titans offense didn’t threaten until midway through the second quarter. Flanker Don Maynard put New York on the board, making an outstanding catch on a four-yard pass from QB Al Dorow, but DE Don Floyd blocked the extra point attempt.


Blanda poured it on as he connected with split end Bill Groman for a 66-yard TD and with Cannon once more for a six-yard score. The tally at the end of the first half was 35-6 and the veteran quarterback had set a new AFL record with five touchdown passes.

Three minutes into the third quarter, Blanda threw for his sixth touchdown, connecting with Groman on a 46-yard play. He tossed his seventh, tying the NFL record held at that point by Sid Luckman of the Bears and Philadelphia’s Adrian Burk, in the fourth quarter on a play that covered 11 yards to Groman.

Dorow, who was constantly harassed by the aggressive Houston defense, tossed a second TD pass, of 11 yards to TE Thurlow Cooper, to salvage a slight bit of pride for the Titans. Houston won by a final score of 49-13.

The Oilers rolled up 555 yards, to 347 for New York, and the Titans further hurt their cause by turning the ball over four times, as opposed to just once by Houston. There was plenty of aggressive play on both sides, and several fights broke out, including one that cleared both benches. Altogether, 18 penalties were called, resulting in 193 yards (11 for 128 yards on Houston, 7 for 65 yards on the Titans). Three players were ejected.

In throwing for seven touchdowns, George Blanda completed 20 of 32 passes for 418 yards and was picked off once. Three Houston receivers gained over 100 yards – Bill Groman led the group with 5 catches for 152 yards and three TDs, followed by Charley Hennigan, who caught 8 passes for 123 yards and a touchdown, and Billy Cannon added 122 yards on 7 receptions with three scores. Cannon added another 41 yards on 14 rushes, behind FB Charley Tolar, who gained 58 yards on 11 carries, and FB Dave Smith with 49 yards on six attempts.

For the visitors, Al Dorow went to the air 47 times and had 21 completions for 278 yards with two TDs and three interceptions. HB Dick Christy led the club with 7 catches for 103 yards out of the backfield. FB Bill Mathis ran for 68 yards on 14 carries.

It was another big performance by the defending champions as they surged back into the Eastern Division race. Ultimately, the Oilers went undefeated the rest of the way, winning the division with a 10-3-1 record and again beating the Chargers for the AFL title. The Titans ended up in third place at 7-7.

The offense in particular achieved many superlatives. George Blanda threw 36 touchdown passes, exceeding the existing NFL record of 32, and also led the AFL in passing yards (3330), yards per attempt (9.2, almost two yards per pass better than the runners-up), yards per completion (17.8), and percentage of TD passes (9.9). Considering he had actually missed two full games due to being benched, it was an amazing overall performance. Blanda was selected as AFL Player of the Year by the Associated Press and UPI.


Bill Groman, with his three touchdown catches against New York, caught a TD pass in his 8th consecutive game. While he was shut out the next week, he ended up with 17 touchdown receptions to not only lead the league but tie the existing NFL record. Groman caught 50 passes for 1175 yards.

Charley Hennigan set a single-season record with 1746 receiving yards that not only was never beaten in the AFL, but wasn’t exceeded in the NFL until 1995. He ranked second in both receptions (82) and receiving touchdowns (12).

Billy Cannon led the AFL in rushing with 948 yards on 200 carries and was also the league’s all-purpose yardage leader with 2043. The 1959 Heisman Trophy-winner out of LSU scored a total of 15 touchdowns (6 rushing, 9 receiving). As his performance against the Titans demonstrated, Cannon was a potent pass receiving threat out of the backfield and caught 43 passes for 586 yards.

1961: Oilers Defeat Chargers for First AFL Championship

The American Football League wound up its first season with the Houston Oilers hosting the Los Angeles Chargers in the championship game at Jeppesen Stadium on New Year’s Day, January 1, 1961.

The Oilers, under Head Coach Lou Rymkus, cruised easily to the Eastern Division title with a 10-4 record (the second place New York Titans were 7-7). They boasted the most significant rookie signing of the inaugural season in HB Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner out of LSU. 33-year-old QB George Blanda had come out of a year’s retirement from the NFL’s Bears to direct the offense, throwing for 2413 yards and 24 touchdown passes along the way; he was also the new league’s second leading scorer with 115 points thanks to his consistent placekicking. Flanker Charley Hennigan and split end Bill Groman came out of nowhere to become productive receivers (Groman led the AFL in receiving yards with 1473).

The Chargers were coached by Sid Gillman, an innovator in the development of the passing game. QB Jack Kemp led the AFL in passing and was second in yards through the air (3018) and completion percentage (52.0). They also had an effective running game led by HB Paul Lowe, the second leading rusher with 855 yards on a league-leading average gain of 6.3 yards-per-carry. Unfortunately, the team drew poorly in Los Angeles playing at the Memorial Coliseum and competing against the NFL’s Rams.

There were 32,183 fans present in 50 degree weather for what proved to be a good game to cap the inaugural season. Defense dominated the first quarter, with 41-year-old Ben Agajanian kicking field goals of 38 and 22 yards to stake the Chargers to a 6-0 lead (Agajanian had kicked with the Los Angeles Dons of the AAFC in 1947-48 and also played in the NFL as one of the earliest kicking specialists).

Houston scored the first touchdown of the contest on a 17-yard pass play from Blanda to FB Dave Smith after a 40-yard drive in which the veteran quarterback passed 8 times in 12 plays. Blanda and Agajanian traded field goals, and at halftime the score stood at 10-9 in favor of the Oilers.

Both offenses opened up more in the second half. Blanda continued to rely on his passing game while Lowe ran effectively for the Chargers. Groman hauled in a 7-yard TD pass from Blanda, and the Chargers responded with a long drive capped by Lowe’s two-yard scoring run. Houston was still ahead by a point after three quarters, 17-16.


The biggest play of the game came early in the fourth quarter with the Oilers facing a third-and-nine situation at their own 12 yard line. Blanda hit Cannon on a pass out of the backfield and the prize rookie halfback outran the San Diego secondary for an 88-yard touchdown. Twice the Chargers drove into Houston territory, only to lose the ball on downs on each occasion. The last time was at the 22 yard line with a minute remaining; had the Chargers been able to score a touchdown they would have had the opportunity to try for a two-point conversion (an option the NFL didn’t adopt until 1994) and tie the game, but it was not to be. The Houston Oilers won the 1960 AFL Championship by a score of 24-16.

George Blanda (pictured dropping back to pass at top) directed the Oilers well, completing 16 of 31 passes for 301 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. Thanks to the long scoring reception, Cannon (pictured above left) had 128 yards on three catches and also led the team with 50 rushing yards on 18 carries. Dave Smith had the most receptions with five, for 52 yards. Hennigan had a solid four catches for 71 yards and Groman was three for 37 and a TD.


Paul Lowe (pictured at right) was the star for the Chargers, rushing for 165 yards on 21 carries and a TD. Jack Kemp completed 21 of his 41 passes for 171 yards with two picked off. Split end Don Norton and flanker Royce Womble both caught a team-leading six passes, although TE Dave Kocurek had the most receiving yards with 57 on three receptions (Norton had 55 and Womble 29).

Both teams repeated as division champions in 1961, but the Chargers were based in San Diego by then. After losing $900,000 and seeing his team play before far too many empty seats in the huge Memorial Coliseum, owner Barron Hilton responded to overtures to move the franchise down the Pacific coast where there was more fan potential and no NFL competition.

1962: Dallas Texans Defeat Oilers in Overtime for AFL Championship

It was a gray, blustery day on December 23, 1962 as the Houston Oilers hosted the Dallas Texans in the AFL Championship game at Jeppesen Stadium. The Oilers, champions of the Eastern Division with an 11-3 record, had won the first two league championships and were looking to make it three straight. Under Head Coach Frank “Pop” Ivy, the team’s third coach in spite of their success, Houston had started slowly and was 4-3 at midseason, but won seven consecutive games to complete the regular season and get past the Boston Patriots. 34-year-old veteran QB George Blanda passed for 27 touchdowns, but also threw an astounding 42 interceptions. Stubby FB Charley Tolar (5’7”, 198 pounds) ran for 1012 yards and flanker Charley Hennigan led the receivers with 54 receptions for 867 yards and 8 TDs.

The Dallas Texans, owned by AFL founder Lamar Hunt, easily won the Western Division for the first time, also with an 11-3 tally (the second place Denver Broncos were a distant 7-7). Head Coach Hank Stram benefited from the arrival of QB Len Dawson, who led the league in passing after having ridden the bench in five NFL seasons. The Texans also had a thousand-yard rusher in flashy HB Abner Haynes (1049 yards and 13 TDs) and a well-balanced squad on both sides of the ball.


There were 37,981 fans filling the small stadium as Dallas dominated the first half. After Tommy Brooker booted a 16-yard field goal to give the Texans a 3-0 lead in the first quarter, Haynes (pictured at left) scored twice in the second quarter, first on a 28-yard pass from Dawson and then on a two-yard run. The Texans used two fullbacks in the backfield, Jack Spikes and rookie Curtis McClinton, with Haynes often moving out to the flank, and the combination provided excellent ball control. The half ended with the Texans holding a 17-0 lead.

However, in the second half it was all Houston. Blanda threw a 15-yard TD pass to TE Willard Dewveall in the third quarter and kicked a 31-yard field goal in the fourth period. When Tolar scored from a yard out with six minutes left, the score was tied at 17-17, and after a last-ditch Blanda field goal attempt was blocked by Texans LB Sherrill Headrick, that was how it stood after 60 minutes of play.

When it came time for the coin toss to start off the overtime period, Haynes made an error that could have cost Dallas the game. Due to concerns regarding the kicking game, Coach Stram had decided to kick off to start overtime, and instructed Haynes, the offensive captain, to take the wind advantage if he won the toss. The Texans did indeed win the toss, but when asked by referee Harold “Red” Bourne what his choice was, Haynes responded “We’ll kick to the clock”. Only the “we’ll kick” part mattered, and Houston was now able to get both the ball and the wind to start the “sudden death” overtime.

Blanda came out throwing, but on the first possession was intercepted by Dallas safety Johnny Robinson. The Texans were unable to capitalize and punted the ball back to the Oilers, and Blanda used short passes to methodically move the Oilers downfield. With time winding down in the fifth period, the veteran quarterback had the team in field goal range at the Dallas 35 yard line – Blanda was also one of the better kickers in the league, and with the wind at his back victory appeared to be in reach. But a second-down pass intended for Hennigan was intercepted by DE Bill Hull, who returned it 23 yards to midfield.

The first overtime period ended after the Texans ran their first play, and as the game continued into another extra period, they began to move down the field and now had the wind at their backs. On a crucial third and eight play, Dawson passed to Spikes for 10 yards to the Houston 38 yard line. Dawson then handed off to Spikes, who ran 19 yards for a first down at the 19, easily in field goal range. After a couple of short, safe runs to help line up the field goal, Brooker successfully booted it from 25 yards at 2:54 into the sixth period of play (pictured at top), and the Dallas Texans were the AFL champions with a 20-17 win.

Going 17:54 into overtime, the game was longer than the first postseason contest to go into “sudden death” (the 1958 NFL Championship game). That record fell in 1971, and was ultimately bested in turn by a 1984 USFL playoff game that went 33:33 into overtime.

Houston outgained Dallas by 359 to 237 yards. Dawson played conservatively, completing 9 of 14 passes for 88 yards and a TD – and most importantly, with no interceptions. The Texans, however, ran the ball effectively, accumulating 199 yards on 54 attempts; Spikes (pictured at bottom) led the team with 77 yards on 11 carries, with McClinton doing more of the heavy work at 24 rushes for 70 yards. Haynes led the receivers with three catches for 45 yards and a TD (and dodged a place in sports infamy when the Texans pulled out the win).

Blanda went to the air 46 times, completing 23 for 261 yards and a score, but also threw five interceptions. TE Dewveall and HB Billy Cannon both caught six passes, with Dewveall leading all receivers with 95 yards and scoring once. The Oilers gained just 98 yards on 30 rushes, with Tolar being limited to 58 yards on 17 attempts and a TD.

The AFL championship victory was the end of the road for the Texans; after battling the NFL’s Cowboys for attention in Dallas for three seasons, Lamar Hunt chose to move the franchise and they became the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963. The loss for Houston also signaled a change; the team had losing records over the next four seasons before returning to a league championship game in 1967.

1961: Charley Hennigan Has Third 200-Yard Receiving Game of Season

The Houston Oilers, defending champions of the AFL, looked as though they wouldn’t defend their title very effectively when they got off to a 1-3-1 start in 1961. However, after owner Bud Adams dismissed Head Coach Lou Rymkus and replaced him with Wally Lemm, the team caught fire. On December 3, they hosted the top team in the Western Division, the San Diego Chargers, at Jeppesen Stadium. The result was a convincing 33-13 win, spurred by four George Blanda touchdown passes, three of them to flanker Charley Hennigan.

Hennigan was one of the key offensive performers behind Houston’s success, and on this day he caught 10 passes for 214 yards. It marked his third 200-yard game of the season, on the way to accumulating an overall pass receiving yardage record that would last for 34 years.

It hardly seemed likely that Hennigan would become a successful pro football player when he arrived at the team’s first training camp in 1960. He had drawn scant attention from the NFL when he came out of Northwest Louisiana in ’59, and had played briefly in Canada. Hennigan was teaching high school Biology in Jonesboro, Louisiana when he decided to take a shot at the new pro football league and signed with the Oilers. Fast but thin at 6’1”, 187 pounds, he didn’t do much in training camp or the preseason, but gained an advocate in assistant coach Mac Speedie, the former star end for the Cleveland Browns who coached the Houston receivers.

In the 1960 season opening game, Hennigan scored the first touchdown in team history on a 43-yard pass play from Blanda and had four catches for 85 yards in the first half – and then suffered a separated shoulder that required surgery and kept him out of action for three weeks. He came back to catch 44 passes for the Oilers in ’60, and did much more in 1961.

The team may have started slowly, but Hennigan didn’t as he went over a hundred yards in each of the first seven games, and twice went over 200 yards with a high of 272 yards on 13 receptions on October 13 at Boston. Two weeks later he caught 9 passes for 232 yards at Buffalo.

In all, Hennigan ended up with 10 hundred-yard games on the way to a season total of 1746 yards on 82 receptions (a 21.3 average gain) with 12 touchdowns (his three against the Chargers were his single-game high). The yardage total was finally exceeded in 1995 by both Jerry Rice of the 49ers (1848) and Isaac Bruce of the Rams (1781), and of course they did it in a 16-game season as opposed to 14. Oddly enough, Hennigan was even shut out in one game in ’61.

Hennigan and split end Bill Groman, who caught 50 passes for 1175 yards and 17 touchdowns (equaling the record at the time, held by Don Hutson and Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch) helped the Oilers to accumulate a team record 4392 yards through the air (not exceeded until 1980 by the Chargers). QB Blanda threw for 3330 of those yards, with a then-record 36 TD passes.

While Hennigan’s yardage total was eventually exceeded, the three 200-yard games in a season have not. Nor have the seven consecutive hundred-yard performances, although that was tied by Michael Irvin of the Cowboys in 1995, when, with 11, he also became the only NFL receiver to exceed Hennigan’s 10 hundred-yard games in ’61 (three others have also had 10). Granted, the level of competition in the AFL in 1961 was not on a par with the NFL or as high as it would be in just a few more years, but the numbers remain impressive decades later, when rules changes have significantly opened up the passing game.

Houston ended up winning nine consecutive games under Coach Lemm to finish the season, compiling an overall 10-3-1 record to again place first in the Eastern Division. They faced the Chargers, 12-2 and easily the best team in the West, in the AFL Championship game, which the Oilers won by the surprisingly low score of 10-3.

While Bill Groman’s numbers dropped off significantly after ’61, Hennigan remained one of the AFL’s best receivers and again led the league in pass receiving yards in 1964 (1546), the same year that he set a record with 101 receptions.