The Kansas City Chiefs at Los Angeles Rams game tonight (8:15 ET, ESPN) on Monday Night Football could be a Super Bowl LIII preview. The teams sport best-in-the-NFL 9-1 records. They own electrifying offenses paced by two of the league’s best young quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff.
But this Week 11 game, relocated from Mexico City to Los Angeles last week, also has historical significance for the MNF franchise as ESPN senior writer Arash Markazi shared on social media last week.
And this will be the first Los Angeles Rams Monday Night Football Game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum since Nov. 19, 1979.
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 13, 2018
Exactly 39 years ago tonight on ABC, Rams quarterback Vince Ferragamo threw two touchdown passes to beat the visiting Atlanta Falcons, 20-14. Note: Ferragamo, a Nebraska star who started his collegiate career at Cal, led the Rams to Super Bowl XIV that season. Goff starred at Cal before the Rams drafted him first overall in 2016.
Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who will be plotting against Goff tonight, has strong California roots. He actually made a “big” MNF cameo decades before he began his long tenure on NFL sidelines, as Markazi notes in the tweet below.
Andy Reid competing in the Punt, Pass and Kick competition in Los Angeles as a 13-year-old back in 1971. pic.twitter.com/MKyg0FRu6F
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 14, 2018
After the Rams moved to Anaheim in 1980, the Oakland Raiders left the Bay Area to call the Coliseum their home in 1982. The last time the primetime NFL showcase aired a regular-season home game from the Los Angeles Coliseum was Oct. 28, 1985. That night on ABC, Marcus Allen’s (pictured above) three touchdowns paced the then-Los Angeles Raiders past Dan Fouts and the then-San Diego Chargers 34-21.