Pro-Football

The 2-player version is Gottlieb's 1977 'Gridiron' but with different artwork. John Osborne explains that he did not design Pro-Football but did design Gridiron:The single-player Pro Football was just going into production when I started at Gottlieb. Pro Football was the only game that ever injured me. The story: Since the game was in early production, there was one or two set up in the showroom at Gottlieb. Sometimes after lunch we'd go play these games. What I hated about Pro Football was that the ball could go out the side rollover while the motor was still running because of other scoring. The outlane rollover was very important --- it completed the football "run" across the playfield and gave a touchdown score. I am not much of a game pusher or tilter, but I got so frustrated from losing the outlane rollover score that I actually kicked the game. Being an amateur at this, all I did was cause an enormous bruise on my shin. At the same time I vowed that I would never design a feature like that, such a cheat for the player. Of all games for Wayne to ask me to remake! This was my chance to fix this unjust feature. I made no change in the playfield but rather added a delay relay so that the rollover was "remembered" until the motor finished. I didn't tell Wayne I was doing it because I was afraid he might veto it on the grounds of adding expense. When he saw the result he was glad I had done it.We previously showed a date for this game of February 1973. The new date is per Gottlieb documentation.