Blitz, Sam, Blitz!

     A lot of you have been asking where the logo I'm using for the title of this blog comes from. That's the "Sam-Will Blitz" defensive card from "NFL Strategy," a game I played a lot back when I was a kid.

     It was a surprisingly sophisticated pro football sim for something so mass-marketed ( I think I got it out of the J.C. Penny catalog in '73 or '74). You played by selecting an offensive card and matching it to a defensive card which gave you a range of results. One I remember in particular was a corner pattern pass vs. a strong zone defense which yielded a gain of 22 yards in one of the big spaces. (In real life, Dom Capers is always running this stinking zone play and the opposing team never fails to get 22 yards against it!)

A sample of the offensive playbook.

     The game emphasized the location of the hash marks in the 1970s. When you were on the left hash, it was easier to run a play to the right (because there was more room to maneuver).  The defensive player knew this, of course, so you could run a play to the left knowing he'd be over-stacked in the other direction. There was a lot of cat-and-mouse in this game.

Some of the defenses.

     When you laid the defensive card over the top of the offensive card, the yardage results showed in the little boxes (see pic above). Each box corresponds to a percentage chance of occurring, as depicted by the length of the bars on the right of the defensive cards. You would then slide both cards into a randomizer slot on the game board and draw the spring-loaded bead that would then land in one of the spaces. The larger the space, the greater was the chance of landing there. The result was a pretty decent simulation of football.
     For example, a quick slant killed a blitz, as did screen passes. You could play man-to-man or zone. TE crosses over the middle worked well against zones, for another example. Really a pretty awesome game.
     I found a Vassal version of the game here if you want to play it. You need the current version of Vassal, which you can find on the same site. It's all free.
     This game was my introduction to the terms "Sam" and "Will." The thing you have to remember about Sam is that Sam Will Blitz. (Groan!) It's what he does.