At the stadiums,Cheap Wholesale Air Max Shoes, flags were at half-staff and there was a moment of silence before the game. Fans were asked to join in singing the national anthem, and many had transistor radios tuned in to the latest developments in Dallas and Washington.
The NFL was hardly the sports behemoth it is today. It had just 14 teams 鈥?the Detroit Lions were sold that week for $6 million 鈥?and lagged behind baseball and college football in popularity. The league had just weathered a gambling scandal, it faced competition from the upstart yet still decidedly inferior AFL and the first Super Bowl was still four years away.