There wasn’t a scoreboard that day. No game clock was in play. Press box announcers called the game. There were cameras, but the film taken that day was intended for coaches’ study only.
The date was February 24th, 1985, start of the United States Football League’s (USFL) third season. The teams were the Houston Gamblers, led by quarterback Jim Kelly, and the the Los Angeles Express, led by quarterback Steve Young. Those two would go on to Hall of Fame careers…in the NFL.
Houston QB Jim Kelly in 1985 playing against the LA Express (courtesy, Yahoo Sports)
The place is the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.There were 18,828 fans in attendance that day, a small crowd by any measure, especially in the vast Coliseum with its 93,000 seats.
Chris Dufresne, who wrote for The Los Angeles Times at the time, covered the game from the press box. He was quoted as saying, “It was so quiet in the stadium that you can almost hear the play calls in the huddle.”
By 1985 the fledgling league was declining in popularity. The game was supposed to be televised by ABC, but instead the network decided to cover Doug Flutie’s first pro game.
There wasn’t a scoreboard that day. No game clock was in play. It was left to press box announcers to call the game. There were cameras in the stands and on the sidelines, but they recorded highlight/game footage for the coaches to study. There was game video, but no audio.
The Gamblers took an lead early, but then the Express capitalized on Houston turnovers. With 9:47 left in the game the Express had a big lead, 33-14–even though Kelly had piled up 354 passing yards.
Fans thought LA had the game in the bag. Surprise!
But Kelly’s passing prowess in a loss wasn’t the story that day. The story was the next 220 years Kelly would compile — and how those yards added up to produce one of the biggest comebacks in pro football history.
Kelly ended the day with 574 passing yards, a U.S. pro football record that still holds til this day. The Gamblers won the game, 34-33, in what Sports Illustrated called “The greatest game no one saw.”
Kelly, who played later with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, went on to play in four Super Bowls. Despite that success, he says that fans still ask him about the 1985 game.
You can watch the game here.
