Whipped Cream Difficulties

Daryle Lamonica, quarterback for the Oakland Raiders.

He started out playing for the Buffalo Bills in the AFL, behind Jack Kemp. But he couldn’t replace Kemp as the starter, and the Bills traded him to Oakland, where he was pretty successful.

He led the 1967 Raiders to a 13-1 regular-season record and the A.F.L. championship, throwing for 30 touchdowns and 3,228 yards. He passed for two touchdowns in the Super Bowl, which the Raiders lost to the Packers, 33-14.
Lamonica was part of an offense that emphasized precise timing between the quarterback and a receiver running his route. It was designed to create open space in the defense’s secondary, making it especially vulnerable to deep passing plays.

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Lamonica was selected for the Pro Bowl once with the Bills and four times with the Raiders.

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The Raiders were 12-1-1 in 1969 with Lamonica throwing for 34 touchdowns, including six in the first half of an October game against the Bills. He threw for another six touchdowns when the Raiders trounced the Houston Oilers, 56-7, in a playoff game, while Namath struggled in the Jets’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the other first-round matchup.

Worth noting, because that’s just the kind of hairball I am:

A sturdy 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Lamonica threw for 25 touchdowns and averaged nearly 250 passing yards per game in 1968. Perhaps his finest moment that season was seen by few: He threw the winning touchdown pass with 42 seconds left in the mid-November Raiders-Jets matchup at the Oakland Coliseum that became infamous as the “Heidi game.”

(Previously.)

Guy Lafleur, of the Montreal Canadiens. I’m not a huge hockey fan, but even I’ve heard of Guy Lafleur.

The winger affectionately known as “The Flower” and “The Blonde Demon” played 14 seasons with Montreal (1971-85) and was a cornerstone of five Stanley Cup-winning teams, including in 1977, when he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Lafleur was electric on the ice, becoming the first player in league history to produce six consecutive seasons with 50-plus goals and 100-plus points (1974-80).
During the height of his career in the 1970s, Lafleur was a three-time Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s points leader, a two-time Hart Trophy winner as league MVP and a three-time winner of the Lester B. Pearson Award (now known as the Ted Lindsay) as most outstanding player according to the NHL Players’ Association.

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