Tag Archives: quarterbacks

The Super Bowl-winning offense

Before the season I posted a chart that looked at the 21 Super Bowl-winning offenses in the Free-Agent Era (1993-present). Almost all had a Top 10 quarterback (rating-wise), which shouldn’t surprise anybody. But it was striking how many didn’t didn’t have a running back and/or receiver who ranked that high (in terms of yards).

I bring the subject up again because the 2014 Patriots fit this same model. Tom Brady ranked fifth in the NFL in passer rating, but the Pats’ leading rusher, Jonas Gray (48th!), and leading receiver, Rob Gronkowski (15th), finished quite a bit farther down the list at their positions. This made New England the eighth NFL champion in the last 13 that didn’t have a Top 10 running back or Top 10 receiver. The details:

RECENT SUPER BOWL CHAMPS WITHOUT A TOP 10 RUSHER OR TOP 10 RECEIVER

Year Champion QB, Rating (Rank) Top Rusher, Yds (Rank) Top Receiver, Yds (Rank)
2014 Patriots Tom Brady, 97.4 (5) Jonas Gray, 412 (48) Rob Gronkowski, 1,124 (15)
2012 Ravens Joe Flacco, 87.7 (14) Ray Rice, 1,143 (11) Anquan Boldin, 921 (27)
2009 Saints Drew Brees, 109.6 (1) Pierre Thomas, 793 (T24) Marques Colston, 1,074 (18)
2008 Steelers B.Roethlisberger, 80.1 (24) Willie Parker, 791 (26) Hines Ward, 1,043 (15)
2007 Giants Eli Manning, 73.9 (25) B. Jacobs, 1,009 (T15) Plaxico Burress, 1,025 (21)
2005 Steelers B.Roethlisberger, 98.6 (3) Willie Parker, 1,202 (12) Hines Ward, 975 (22)
2003 Patriots Tom Brady, 85.9 (10) Antowain Smith, 642 (30) Deion Branch, 803 (32)
2002 Bucs Brad Johnson, 92.9 (3) Michael Pittman, 718 (32) K. Johnson, 1,088 (16)

As you can see — and as I noted in August — it’s more about Spreading the Ball Around these days. Not that it isn’t nice to have a DeMarco Murray or an Antonio Brown on your team; it just isn’t necessary. Far from it, in fact.

You can win the Super Bowl without a 500-yard rusher or a 1,000-yard wide receiver, as the Patriots just demonstrated. (Julian Edelman led their wideouts with 972.) You just need contributions from a lot of people — along, of course, with quality quarterbacking, It’s something to think about as the free-agency period approaches and owners get ready to whip out their checkbooks. More doesn’t necessarily mean more.

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Fran Tarkenton’s secret weapon

Fran Tarkenton says he’ll present Mick Tingelhoff at this summer’s Hall of Fame induction. This makes sense for several reasons:  (1) Tingelhoff was Tarkenton’s center for 12 seasons with the Vikings, (2) they’re the very best of friends and (3) Scramblin’ Fran liked to lateral the ball to him on occasion — as only Scramblin’ Fran could.

This last detail has been lost to history, but it’s likely to be brought up between now and August. Hopefully, NFL Films has some footage of it. After all, you don’t often see a center wind up with the ball (intentionally, that is, as opposed to scooping up a fumble or gathering in a batted pass). But then, you don’t often see quarterbacks like Tarkenton. In fact, we’re still waiting for another.

One Tarkenton-Tingelhoff play stands out from the rest. It happened on Nov. 7, 1965, at Metropolitan Stadium. The Vikings were leading the Rams 17-7 early in the fourth quarter when Tarkenton got creative. Here’s how The Associated Press described it:

From the Los Angeles 12-yard line, Tarkenton looked for pass receivers, then scrambled up the middle. Around the 5-yard line, he met solid resistance, so he tossed the ball backward two or three yards to Tingelhoff, the Viking[s] center.

Surrounded by Rams and convinced he was neither paid to take the lumps of a ball carrier nor likely to get anyplace, Tingelhoff quickly followed suit and pitched the hot pigskin to fullback Bill Brown. Brown had nothing to do but sprint 11 yards toward the corner of the end zone to score standing up.

That led to this headline in one of the Minnesota newspapers:

11-8-65 Albert Lea Evening Trib head

“I’ve learned to expect it,” Tingelhoff said afterward. “That’s about the third time I’ve been the middleman on one of those plays. I’ve never ended up with the ball, though. I let the backs score the touchdowns.”

Tarkenton, being Tarkenton, got a good laugh out of it. “We work on that play,” he said. “That’s one of our finest plays.”

But others just shook their heads. Deacon Jones, the Rams’ Hall of Fame defensive end, said, “You can expect anything from Tarkenton. He might lateral the ball to a fan. They say a quarterback can’t scramble in this league, but he’s been in the league five years and he’s still scrambling.”

In a game the previous season, Jones recalled, “I chased him three times. Twice I fell down. Finally on the third time I got him. But he threw the ball into the end zone for a touchdown.”

Vikings coach Norm Van Brocklin, meanwhile, was mortified. And old schooler, The Dutchman didn’t go in for any sandlot antics. “You can’t beat a real solid football team with stuff like that,” he said.

Still, Tarkenton kept doing it. When he was on the loose, anybody might wind up with the ball, even an innocent bystander like the center.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Tarkenton and Tingelhoff were so close they followed each other in the media guide.

Tarkenton and Tingelhoff were so close they followed each other in the Vikings media guide.

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Punters throwing postseason TD passes

Sorry to be bringing this to your attention so late. Things get a little backed up sometimes at Pro Football Daly. Still, I hope you’ll be amused.

In the NFC title game, you may recall, Seahawks punter Jon Ryan threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to tackle-eligible Garry Gilliam — on a fake-field-goal play, no less — to kick-start Seattle’s comeback from a 16-0 deficit. Many news outlets reported, as ESPN.com did, that the TD toss “was the first by a punter in NFL postseason history.”

Oh, please. In all of NFL postseason history? All 83 years of it? You might want to do a little more research on that.

Here’s a punter throwing for the game-winning score in the 1937 title game, won by the Redskins over the Bears, 28-21. It’s Sammy Baugh, who doubled as a punter-quarterback in those multitasking days (as did many others). Baugh booted five of Washington’s seven punts that afternoon — with limited substitution, it was often a shared responsibility — and also had three touchdown passes (measuring 55, 78 and 35 yards).

And here’s another punter throwing the last of his five TD passes — then a postseason record — in the Bears’ 41-21 mauling of the Redskins in the ’43 championship game. I’m talking about Sid Luckman, who also punted three times that day.

And here’s another punter throwing a touchdown pass in the 1960 title game. That would be the Eagles’ Norm Van Brocklin, a Hall of Famer like Baugh and Luckman (and the league’s MVP that season). Van Brocklin was second in passer rating (86.5) and fifth in punting average (43.1) in ’60 to lead Philadelphia to its last NFL championship.

I could go on — YouTube has some great footage of the Packers’ Arnie Herber and the Rams’ Bob Waterfield doing the same thing — but I just wanted to make a point. Yes, Ryan might be the first punting specialist to toss a TD pass in the postseason, but he’s far from the first punter.

Danny White, for goodness sakes, did it in eight different games for the Cowboys in the ’70s and ’80s. In the 1980 playoffs against the Rams, he threw for three scores and averaged 44.5 yards a punt. That’s better than Ryan’s 42.4-yard average. In the ’42 title game, Baugh had a touchdown pass and averaged 52.5 yards a punt, including a 61-yarder on a quick kick. In the ’50 championship game, Waterfield had a TD pass and averaged 50.8 yards a punt. These guys weren’t punters by default or something. They could really boot the ball.

By my count, eight NFL players threw a touchdown pass in a postseason game — and also punted — before Ryan became the “first” to do it. Moreover, these eight accomplished the feat a total of 27 times. (I’m excluding John Elway, Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady, who also pulled it off — in Elway’s case, on four occasions — but can’t be considered punters. Brady, by the way, did it on a night he fired six TD passes.)

Anyway, just wanted to clarify that. Congratulations, Jon Ryan. You made a nice throw, one that helped put your club in the Super Bowl. But don’t let anybody tell you an NFL punter had never done that before. Once upon a time, punters could walk and chew gum.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Seahawks punter Jon Ryan heaves a TD pass in the NFC title game vs. the Packers.

Seahawks punter Jon Ryan lobs a TD pass in the NFC title game vs. the Packers.

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Brady vs. Montana vs. Bradshaw vs. . . .

Tom Brady’s fourth Super Bowl win with the Patriots puts him pretty close to the top of the heap, championship-wise. After all, only four other quarterbacks have won four or more NFL titles — Hall of Famers Bart Starr (5), Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw and Sid Luckman.

Here’s how Brady’s championship-game numbers compare to theirs. I included Otto Graham because he just seems to belong in this group. Graham played in the title game in all six of his NFL seasons (1950-55), and he might have played in more if he hadn’t spent his first four years in the rival All-America Conference.

BRADY VS. THE GREATS (CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES ONLY)

Span  Quarterback, Team W-L Att Comp Pct Yds TD Int Rating High Low
1981-89  Montana, 49ers 4-0 122   83 68.0 1142 11   0 127.8 147.6 100.0
1974-79  Bradshaw, Steelers 4-0   84   49 58.3   932   9   4 112.8 122.5 101.9
2001-14  Brady, Patriots 4-2 247 164 66.4 1605 13   4   95.3 110.2   82.5
1960-67  Starr, Packers 5-1 137   79 57.7 1026   8   2   94.7 130.9   54.7
1940-46  Luckman, Bears 4-1   76   41 53.9   680   7   4   93.1 135.6*     9.7
1950-55  Graham, Browns 3-3 160   86 53.8 1161 10 12   66.7 122.2     0.0

(Note: “Span” is the span of seasons they played in title games, not the span of their careers. “High” and “Low” are their best and worst passer ratings in those games.)

In Starr’s case, the first four games were NFL championship games and the last two were Super Bowls against the teams that won the AFL title. Interestingly, if you exclude the two Super Bowls — against a lesser league — and count the 1966 and ’67 NFL championship games against the Cowboys instead, his rating actually goes up. This is what his revised line would look like:

Span  Quarterback, Team W-L Att Comp Pct Yds TD Int Rating High Low
1960-67  Starr, Packers 5-1 142 83 58.5 1069 11 1 105.0 143.5 54.7

A 105 rating, of course, would move him ahead of Brady and not far behind Montana and Bradshaw. Starr was a gamer, all right.

As you can see in the chart, Montana and Bradshaw never posted a rating below 100 in a Super Bowl. Amazing. Brady hasn’t been able to match that, but he has topped 100 three times. The other three QBs all had at least one game where they stunk it up (or played well below their standards). Check out this game by Graham (a rating of 0.0!) and this one by Luckman (9.7). Yikes.

Keep in mind: We’re looking only at passing proficiency here. We’re not taking into account weather conditions, other abilities the quarterbacks might have (e.g. Graham’s running), the quality of the defenses they went up against or the rules they played under. All that would make for a much longer — if not endless — discussion. You have to admit, though, Brady measures up well against the legends, and he might not be done collecting rings.

*Luckman had a 156.3 rating in the 73-0 obliteration of the Redskins in 1940, but he attempted only four passes. So I went with his 135.6 rating against Washington in ′43, when he threw 26 times.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The Patriots' Tom Brady is fantabulous, but Joe Montana put up better numbers in the Super Bowl.

The Patriots’ Tom Brady is fantabulous, but Joe Montana put up better numbers in the Super Bowl.

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Payback for all those 1-yard TD passes

There were 66 1-yard touchdown passes in the NFL this season. I know this because I just researched it at pro-football-reference.com. Sixty-six 1-yard TD passes is enough of an abomination in this he-man sport, but this next statistic is even worse: Until Malcolm Butler saved the Super Bowl for the Patriots by picking off Russell Wilson’s throw in the final minute, the defense hadn’t intercepted a single pass in that situation.

As we all know, pro football is out of whack. The offense-defense balance has been lost, probably forever, thanks to a succession of quarterback-friendly rule changes. And few things represent this out-of-whackness better than the 66 1-yard touchdown passes QBs tossed this season. Heck, it’s practically taunting when a team dials up a 1-yard TD pass, especially when the receiver is somebody like J.J. Watt (two caught two of them this year).

Think about it: Against a spread offense, with pick plays and push-offs virtually legal now, how exactly are you supposed to defend a pass from the 1-yard line? Somehow, though, Butler did. If that isn’t reason to celebrate — the defense won for a change! — I don’t know what is.

Once upon a time, the NFL scoffed at throwing such an itty-bitty pass. In 1942, when the Packers’ Cecil Isbell lobbed a 4-incher to Hall of Famer Don Hutson for a touchdown, the league thought it was so hilarious that it added it to the record book. Now, keep in mind: Nowhere in the book could you find the shortest TD run or shortest field goal or shortest anything else. But the shortest TD pass — I’m surprised it wasn’t labeled Biggest Wimpout — was right there on Page 21:

1943 Rule Book shortest TD pass

Here’s how Stoney McGlynn of the Milwaukee Sentinel described this not-so-great moment in NFL history:

10-19-42 Sentinel description

Even better, the Milwaukee Journal ran a photo of the play — a terrific one. What are the odds of that? Check it out:

Journal photo of TD catch

As you can see, Isbell, after taking the shotgun snap in the Packers’ single wing, released the ball from the Cleveland 9. (I’m guessing he faked a handoff before throwing.) I particularly like the X-marks-the-spot in the left corner of the end zone, which is where Hutson made the grab.

{Miscellaneous note: Dante Magnani, the Rams defensive back who “let Hutson get a step behind him,” had had a whale of a game, scoring on a 52-yard run and a 67-yard reception. But in those days, of course, you had to play defense, too.)

Anyway, Hutson’s “mark” stood for 18 years. Then Cowboys tight end Dick Bielski broke it by hauling in a 2-inch touchdown heave from Eddie LeBaron in a 1960 game against the Redskins.

The Associated Press’ account read thusly:

AP on Bielski TD

(Miscellaneous note No. 2: This happened in the third game in Cowboys history. They went 0-11-1 that first season, so Bielski’s TD must have been one of the high points of the year.)

Naturally, Dick’s feat was included in the record book, too, and the revised entry looked like this:

1970 Record Book including Bielski

It wasn’t until 1971 that the NFL stopped listing the “Shortest Pass Reception for Touchdown” among its records. (Bielski and Hutson were still 1-2.) Maybe the league was just starting to lose its sense of humor. Then, too, by the early ’70s the short TD pass was no longer such a novelty. You have to remember: Until the ’30s, an incompletion in the end zone was ruled a touchback. The offense actually lost possession of the ball. That, as much as raging testosterone, is why teams didn’t throw much when they were close to the goal line. They didn’t want to risk a turnover. As it became more of a passing game, though, and as the rules loosened up, most of the risk went out of such a play.

But in Super Bowl 49, glorious Super Bowl 49, we had the proverbial Once in a Blue Moon. On second and goal from the New England 1, Wilson fired to Ricardo Lockette on a quick slant and, lo and behold, Butler broke for the ball and all but plucked it out of Lockette’s hands. Game over (except for some pushing, shoving and punching). Patriots 28, Seahawks 24.

Come to think of it, that would make a great title for the Super Bowl highlight film: Blue Moon Over Arizona.

I’ll close with this from the Aug. 13, 1962, Milwaukee Journal:Kuechle letter from reader 8-13-62 Journal

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A decade between championships

Hall of Fame quarterbacks tend to win titles in bunches. Terry Bradshaw won his four in six seasons. Troy Aikman won his three in four. John Elway and Bob Griese won their two back-to-back. It looked like it might be that way for Tom Brady, too. He won three championships in four years (2001, ’03-04) and then . . .

Until Sunday night, that is. Against the defending champion Seahawks, the Patriots’ living legend finally got his fourth ring — a decade after No. 3.  His 10-year gap between titles is the second-longest in NFL history for a quarterback. Indeed, only half a dozen QBs have had even a 5-year gap. The list looks like this:

LONGEST GAP BETWEEN TITLES FOR AN NFL QUARTERBACK

Quarterback, Team Won in Next Title Gap
Johnny Unitas, Colts 1959     1970 11 Years
Tom Brady, Patriots 2004     2014 10 Years
Norm Van Brocklin, Rams/Eagles 1951     1960 9 Years
Roger Staubach, Cowboys 1971     1977 6 Years
Tobin Rote, Lions/Chargers 1957     1963 6 Years
Bob Waterfield, Rams 1945     1951 6 Years
Sammy Baugh, Redskins 1937     1942 5 Years

As you may have noticed, I slipped in a seventh quarterback — Rote, who won with the ’57 Lions and ’63 Chargers (when they were still in the AFL). Tobin even spent some time in Canada between those titles. Gotta love that. Also, Waterfield and Van Brocklin shared the quarterbacking for the ’51 Rams. But since they’re both in Canton, I thought they should be included.

Of course, we’re dealing with a pretty small pool here. It’s hard enough, after all, to win one championship, never mind two (or more). Unitas, by the way, lost two title games between 1959 and ’70 (1964 plus the ’68 Super Bowl as a backup), just as Brady did between 2004 and ’14 (2007, ’11). So they have that in common as well.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The one and only Johnny U, getting ready to throw a long one.

The one and only Johnny U, getting ready to throw a long one.

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The myth of Super Bowl distractions?

Tom Brady wasn’t in a very good place when he began his Super Bowl preparations. Deflategate — and its attendant tempest — blindsided him worse than any Terrell Suggs sack. Some people thought the Patriots cheated in their 45-7 AFC title game win over the Colts. Some of those same people thought Brady, as the quarterback, must have had something to do with it. The NFL, meanwhile, was conducting an investigation at its usual glacial pace. Oh, it was a mess.

A mess, of course, that’s still to be resolved — which may or may not have made it worse for Brady. This much we do know: He took it, “very, very personal” (as Sonny Corleone said to Michael in The Godfather). Or as Tom put it on a Boston radio show:

I personalized a lot of things and thought this was all about me and my feelings got hurt, and then I moved past it because it’s not serving me.

I think what’s serving me is to try to prepare for the game ahead, and I’ll deal with whatever happens later. I’ll have my opportunity to try to figure out what happened and figure out a theory like everyone else is trying to do. But this isn’t the time for that, and honestly I’m not interested in trying to find out right now because we have the biggest game of our season ahead.

Well, how to you like the way Brady “moved past it”? Against a Seahawks defense that’s the best in the league and possibly the finest since the 2000 Ravens (if not the 1985 Bears), he had the greatest of his six Super Bowls on Sunday night. Not only did he complete 37 of 50 passes for 328 yards and four touchdowns, each to a different receiver, he drove the Patriots to two fourth-quarter TDs, the second of which capped a rally from a 10-point deficit and won the game, 28-24.

In other words, after taking Deflategate “very, very personal,” he did to the defending champions at University of Phoenix Stadium what Michael did to Sollozzo and the police captain at Louis Restaurant. Not to get too graphic about it.

That’s how you win a record-tying four Super Bowls — by being able to compartmentalize; by taking the latest scandal, zipping it up in a bag with the rest of the semi-inflated balls and going about your business. What a talent to have, apart from the passing and vision and decision-making and all the other things that go into quarterbacking. It might be what puts Brady a little higher on the podium than other QBs, past and present.

You know what’s really strange? There have been a handful of Super Bowl quarterbacks in 49 years who have been caught in a storm, so to speak, and every one has ended up playing well in the game. Brady is just the latest — and probably the greatest. But look at some of these other guys:

● Len Dawson, Chiefs, Super Bowl 4 — Early in the week, Dawson’s name was linked to nationwide gambling probe involving a “casual acquaintance,” a Detroit restaurateur who had already been arrested. He admitted being “shocked” by the development, and the pressure on him going into the game was heavier than Buck Buchanan.

“If we lose Sunday and he throws some bad passes, you know what they’ll say don’t you?” Chiefs defensive end Jerry Mays said. “Winning or losing usually is going to fall back on 40 players, but this one would fall back on Lenny.”

The upshot: Dawson responded with an MVP performance, hitting 12 of 17 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown in a 23-7 upset of the NFL’s Vikings.

● Doug Williams, Redskins, Super Bowl 22 – Williams had to deal with a different kind of stress: He was the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl. (You can imagine what that was like.) He was asked question after question about it in the days leading up to the game, and answered each time with great equanimity.

The upshot: Another MVP performance, one highlighted by a Super Bowl record four TD passes in the second quarter. Final score: Redskins 42, Broncos 10.

● Joe Namath, Jets, Super Bowl 3 — The loquacious Namath brought the controversy on himself by saying he would “guarantee” a victory over the NFL’s Colts. To stir things up even more more, he nearly got in a fight with Baltimore’s Lou Michaels in a Miami cocktail lounge. Here’s Michaels’ version of it (as told to The New York Times), which begins with Joe walking in and introducing himself:

I’m still resentful of the way it started out. I thought Joe was at fault. I never had the privilege of meeting Joe, but I knew who he was. I went to school with his brother at Kentucky. Joe walked up to me, and the first thing he said was, “We’re going to beat the heck out of you,” only he didn’t say heck. And he said, “And I’m going to do it.”

If you’re looking for a fight, that’s going to do it. Instead of saying, “Hello, I’m Joe Namath, how are you?” I think he was a little arrogant there. I said, “Suppose we beat you?” And he said, “I’ll sit in the middle of the field, and I’ll cry.”

I believe in that little thing called modesty. I asked him about that, and he said, “That’s not in my dictionary.” I don’t know why he came on so strong. It worked out fine. I have nothing against Joe. If I was in his shoes, I’d be a little down to earth.

The upshot: Yet another MVP performance. Namath picked apart the vaunted Colts defense, connecting on 17 of 28 passes for 206 yards as the Jets won, 16-7.

So there you have it: four quarterbacks, all under the gun — even by Super Bowl standards — and they all came away with MVP honors, Brady included. Maybe this business about avoiding distractions before big games is a bunch of hooey. It certainly didn’t do Brady, Dawson, Williams and Namath any harm, did it?

After a chaotic week in which he got caught up in a gambling investigation, the Chiefs' Len Dawson was MVP of Super Bowl IV.

After getting caught up in a gambling investigation, the Chiefs’ Len Dawson was MVP of Super Bowl IV.

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The youngest QBs to win two rings

Not long ago I was marveling at Tom Brady’s historic staying power. Seems only fair to spend a little time gushing about Russell Wilson’s youthful accomplishments.

As I noted, Brady’s six Super Bowls with Patriots span 14 seasons, the longest such stretch for an NFL quarterback. But let’s not forget the Seahawks’ Wilson, who has a chance Sunday to become the second-youngest QB to win two titles, which would put him behind only . . . well, check out the chart:

YOUNGEST QUARTERBACKS TO WIN TWO NFL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Years Quarterback, Team Title No. 1 Age Title No. 2 Age
1940/41 Sid Luckman, Bears 24-017 25-023
2013/14 Russell Wilson, Seahawks 25-065 26-064 (?)
2001/03 Tom Brady, Patriots 24-184 26-182
1958/59 Johnny Unitas, Colts 25-235 26-234
2005/08 Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers 23-340 26-336
1952/53 Bobby Layne, Lions 26-009 27-008
1992/93 Troy Aikman, Cowboys 26-071 27-070
1934/38 Ed Danowski, Giants 23-070 27-072
1974/75 Terry Bradshaw, Steelers 26-132 27-138
1981/84 Joe Montana, 49ers 25-227 28-223

Quite a club. Only Danowski isn’t in the Hall of Fame — or headed there, in my opinion — and his is an unusual case. After all, he wasn’t the Giants’ main passer for most of that year; he took over at tailback (on a single-wing team) after original starter, Harry Newman, got hurt late in the season. But Eddie helped win the title game, the famed Sneakers Game, over the previous unbeaten Bears, so you certainly can’t leave him off the list.

In fact, here he is, ol’ No. 22, making a nifty throw under pressure that nearly went for a touchdown in that game:

Danowski, by the way, is the youngest quarterback to win the NFL title — in modern (1932-) times, at least. Wilson (25-065) comes in sixth in that competition, behind Eddie (23-070), Sammy Baugh (23-270), Ben Roethlisberger (23-340), Luckman (24-017) and Brady (24-184).

One last thing: Six of the 10 quarterbacks in the above chart won at least one other championship (Luckman 4, Brady 3, Unitas 3, Aikman 3, Bradshaw 4, Montana 4). That bodes well for Wilson, too — provided, of course, he and his mates can beat the Patriots.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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The Patriots’ first quarterback

The Patriots’ current quarterback, Tom Brady, is one of the most recognized athletes on the planet. He’s screen-star handsome, married to a supermodel and makes so much money that he recently gave his team some of it back. (Well, sort of.)

The Patriots’ first quarterback, Ed “Butch” Songin, wasn’t nearly as famous or well-off. In fact, when he wasn’t calling signals for the 1960 Pats, he was coaching the football team at Marian High in Framingham. Here’s the headline that ran in The Boston Globe:

9-12-60 Boston Globe

NFL players having high school coaching jobs on the side wasn’t unheard of in the early years. It was a way to supplement their generally modest salaries and prepare for their next career. By 1960, though, when the AFL came along, the money had gotten better, and it was pretty rare to see a pro footballer pacing a high school sideline — rare enough for Hank Hollingsworth of the Long Beach Press-Telegram to mention it in his column when the Chargers were in Boston.

“Butch Songin, the people’s choice here, is platooning his talents,” he wrote. “The former Boston College ace is quarterbacking the Patriots and also coaching the Marian High School team here.”

(The AFL was quite a show in those days. Later in his column, Hollingsworth noted: “There’s agitation here over commissioner [Joe] Foss. Boston wanted a player decision resolved by the commish last week, and when the Patriots checked Joe’s office a secretary informed them that good ole Joe was b’ar hunting in Alaska!”)

Songin was different from most guys in the young league. He was 36 years old. He’d spent the past several seasons playing semipro ball and, before that, had helped the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats win the 1953 Grey Cup. (His NFL chances — the Browns drafted him 247th overall in 1950 — had been hurt by a knee injury suffered in a college all-star game.)

Songin football cardSongin, a local legend who grew up in Walpole, was able to pull off the “double grid duty” because the Patriots played their home games on Friday nights. Marian, on the other hand, usually teed it up on Sundays. He’d work out with the Pats in the morning, then drive to Framingham and run practice after school.

“The only let-up, if that is the word, Songin will get is when the Patriots are on the road,” the Globe reported. “Then he will be spelled at Marian by John Ferri, former U. of Mass. back and Westwood coach. Also on deck will be Roger Smith, in his third year as line coach at Marian.”

As it turned out, Songin had a better year at Marian than he did with the Patriots. His high school team went 6-2 and shared the Catholic League title. The Pats, meanwhile, lost their final four games and wound up last in the Eastern Division at 5-9 — not that their quarterback was to blame. Butch actually had a fine season, posting the second-best passer rating in the league (70.9) and throwing for 22 touchdowns.

The high point for him came in mid-November. Check out his game-by-game:

● Nov. 11 — Completes 19 of 34 passes for 234 yards, with three TDs and no interceptions (rating: 106.7) in a 38-21 win over Sammy Baugh’s New York Titans.

● Nov. 13 — Marian beats Columbus, 22-8.

● Nov. 18 — Goes 25 for 35 for 220 yards, again with three TDs and no picks (rating (116.4), in a 42-14 victory over Hank Stram’s Dallas Texans.

● Nov. 20 – Marian defeats St. Columbkille, 16-6.

How’s that for a 10-day stretch?

After the season, it came out that Songin had suffered a pinched neck nerve in the fifth game and, to stay in the lineup, “took secret treatments for the ailment” the last two months. “I’ll get another treatment,” he told The Associated Press, “rest a few days and then back to work as a probation officer in Wrentham and hockey coach at Marian High.”

Oops, almost forgot: Songin coached high school hockey, too. Indeed, he was an All-American at BC and led the Eagles to the 1948 Frozen Four.

Remember that when Super Bowl 49 is over — and Tom Brady goes off to wherever Tom Brady goes off to. Butch Songin, their first quarterback, went off to coach hockey at Marian High. But only after he’d coached their football team first.

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Sammy Baugh threw deflated footballs

Just dug out the transcript of an interview I did with Redskins Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh back in the ’90s. I remembered him talking at some point about manipulating the air pressure in footballs — which happens, of course, to be one of the topics du jour after Sunday’s AFC title game in New England.

We got off on this tangent when I asked Baugh about an old tale: That when the Steelers were playing at home, they’d use the fat, 1920s footballs instead of the slimmer, modern ones to make it harder for opponents to throw against them. (Those early Pittsburgh teams, you see, never placed much emphasis on the pass — indeed, they stuck with the single wing through the ’51 season — so the size of the ball didn’t really matter to them.)

“The home team supplied the balls back then,” Baugh told me, “and if they didn’t have a good passer you wouldn’t get that slim ball, you’d get the big fat one. The Steelers would do that. I Can see Goldsmith football laces better in this onethink Goldsmith used to make a ball with 10 laces instead of eight, and it was just fatter than everything. I don’t blame ’em. If I didn’t have a good passer on the team, I’d put that damn fat ball out there, too. You could throw it, but it was a different kind of ball.”

Sammy also volunteered this information, which fits in nicely with Deflate-gate:

“Kelly [Harry “Kelly” Miller], our clubhouse guy, would put the air in the balls we were going to use in the game. One day I asked him, ‘Kelly, how much air do you put in those damn balls?’ He said, ‘Thirteen pounds.’ I said, ‘Put in 11 today.’ So he did. And from then on, every time we played at home, we played with an 11-pound ball instead of 13. I liked the feel of it better. I knew what 13 felt like, and I had played with an 11-pound ball some in college, and it felt better to me.”

This would be fine except that the ball, according to the rules then and now, is supposed to be inflated with between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds of air. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the 1942 Record and Roster Manual:

Ball inflation guidelines, 1942

(I included the supplemental notes for your amusement, specifically the one about the white ball for night games.)

So, by his own admission, Sammy Baugh, one of the greatest passers in pro football history, played with an illegal ball whenever the Redskins were home, a ball he “liked the feel of” better and presumably made him more effective. I’m guessing this more than made up for his annual trips to Pittsburgh, where he’d have to throw that dang Goldsmith ball.

Just thought I’d mention this while the NFL is deciding what, if anything, to do about the Patriots’ situation. Maybe the Pats did deflate the balls, but they certainly aren’t the first to come up with the idea.

Redskins great Sammy Baugh looks to pass -- presumably with a deflated 11-pound ball (since this game was at Griffith Stadium).

Redskins great Sammy Baugh looks to pass — presumably with a deflated 11-pound ball. (This was a home game.)

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