From time to time, since we’re in the midst of The Great Concussion Discussion, I’ll post photos I’ve come across of helmetless NFL players from the early days. The league didn’t make headgear mandatory until 1943 — two years before socks were required, by the way. Which makes you wonder: How did we get from there to the Fashion Police?
I found this photo the other day while nosing around The New York Times’ archives. It’s from a Giants-Bears game at the Polo Grounds in November 1934. The big bareheaded fellow in the middle, watching Ken Strong score a touchdown for New York, is Chicago’s left tackle, Link Lyman. We know this because, if you blow the photo up, you can see he’s wearing No. 12. That was Lyman’s number, according to the Bears’ media guide that year.
So we have a Hall of Famer scoring and a Hall of Famer, sans helmet, unable to prevent him from scoring. Nice. (In Link’s defense, it looks like the play might have been run away from him.)
But here’s what’s even better: Lyman’s NFL career began in 1922 with the Canton Bulldogs, who won the title his first three seasons. (They were the Cleveland Bulldogs in ’24.) Strong’s career, meanwhile, ended in 1947, by which time he was 41 and strictly a kicking specialist. So when you’re looking at this photo, looking at Lyman and Strong, you’re essentially looking at the first quarter-century of the NFL.
Note, too, in the background, how every seat seems to be filled — in the depths of the Depression, no less. The Times put the crowd at 55,000.
“[Bears running back] Red Grange, who attracted professional football’s largest crowd of more than 60,000 back in 1925, did not even get into the game as a substitute,” the newspaper reported. “Giant[s} officials clamed that yesterday’s crowd was the largest, college or professional, to see a football game in New York this year.”
Pro football in 1934 wasn’t quite the colossus it would become in the postwar years, but it was getting there.
In an eye blink Sunday, Cardinals fans went from dreaming about winning a Super Bowl on their home field to wondering whether there might be room for them on the Arizona State bandwagon. That’s the usual reaction, gloom and doom, when a starting quarterback goes down, especially the quarterback of an NFL-best 8-1 team.
The Cardinals weren’t a lock to take the title, but the way Carson Palmer was playing — he was 12-2 in his previous 14 starts before blowing out his knee against the Rams — they were definitely on the short list. Their defense, after all, has allowed more than 20 points only once (and all but won the last game by scoring two touchdowns). But now they have to look to Drew Stanton for salvation, the 30-year-old QB who has thrown 280 career passes.
Wonders never cease in these situations, though, and that’s not just a phrase. It’s truly amazing how often a backup quarterback has either led a team to the NFL title or kept his club in contention until the starter returned to finish the job (or at least come close). We’re not talking about a miracle here and a miracle there. We’re talking one, two, three . . . a slew of examples.
Almost every decade has a story like this — beginning with 1934, the NFL’s third championship game, which was won by a backup quarterback wearing sneakers on the frozen turf. That would
Ed Danowski
be Ed Danowski, a rookie (and New York kid) who’d done more running than passing before the No. 1 QB, Harry Newman, got hurt with three games left in the season.
The Giants were so panicked by the loss of Newman that they arranged to borrow Warren Heller from Pittsburgh, which had completed its schedule. (Crazy, isn’t it? The Giants still had three games to play, and the Pirates, as they were called then, were already done.) But the league disallowed the transaction after some owners squawked, leaving the Giants’ fate in the hands of Danowski. He wound up leading them to a key win over the second-place Boston Redskins in his first start, and was one of the heroes of the victory over the Bears in the legendary Sneakers Game, throwing for one touchdown and running for another.
And that’s just one for-instance. Here are 11 others that come to mind:
● Tobin Rote, 1957 Lions — Rote had been splitting time with Bobby Layne when Layne broke his ankle in the next-to-last game. With Rote under center, Detroit caught fire in the postseason, overcoming a 20-point deficit to beat the 49ers and obliterating the Browns 59-14 in the championship game (the last of the Lions’ three titles in the ’50s).
● Earl Morrall, 1968 Colts — Ol’ Flattop stepped in for Johnny Unitas, who missed virtually all of the season with an elbow injury, and guided Baltimore to a 13-1 record and the NFL championship, winning the MVP award in the process. Alas, the feel-good story had a horrible ending: a 16-7 loss to the AFL’s Jets in the Super Bowl, due in large measure to three interceptions thrown by Morrall.
● Mike Livingston, 1969 Chiefs — Livingston didn’t exactly tear it up after Len Dawson was sidelined with a partially torn ACL, but he did win all six of his starts to help Kansas City get in the playoffs. By this time Dawson was operational again, and he quarterbacked the Chiefs to victories over the Jets and Raiders to win the AFL crown and the NFL’s Vikings to capture the Super Bowl.
● Earl Morrall, 1972 Dolphins — Ol’ Flattop was four years older, 38, when he did for the ’72 Dolphins what he’d done for the ’68 Colts. He didn’t just hold the fort until Bob Griese recovered from a fractured leg, he won 10 straight starts, including the playoff opener over the Browns. Then Griese came off the bench in the AFC title game against the Steelers, rallied Miami to a 21-17 victory and remained the QB in the Super Bowl, which the Dolphins also won to cap their perfect 17-0 season. But without Morrall, it might never have happened.
● Mike Kruczek, 1976 Steelers — Kruczek was the Eddie Danowski of ’76, a rookie quarterback who was suddenly thrust into a starting role because of injuries to Terry Bradshaw. He didn’t need to shoulder that much of the load because Pittsburgh’s defense was nigh impenetrable that year, pitching five shutouts, and running backs Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier both topped 1,000 yards. Still, he went 6-0 during Bradshaw’s absence, putting the Steelers in position for a record-tying third consecutive championship. They might have won it, too, if Harris (bruised ribs) and Bleier (sprained toe) hadn’t been sidelined for the AFC title game.
● Vince Ferragamo, 1979 Rams — A third-year QB, Ferragamo got his big chance when Pat Haden broke his finger in Week 10. He responded by winning six of seven starts, leaning heavily on a staunch defense, as the Rams advanced to their first Super Bowl. They even led the heavily favored Steelers in the fourth quarter, 19-17, but then Bradshaw and John Stallworth burst their bubble with this famous play:
● Jim Plunkett, 1980 Raiders — The 32-year-old former No. 1 overall pick had fallen completely off the radar until Dan Pastorini broke his leg in the fifth game. But with a better supporting cast than he had in New England, Plunkett became the quarterback he was always supposed to be, leading Oakland to the championship that year (and again in ’83). Say this for the guy: He was a finisher. In the AFC title game and Super Bowl, he posted passer ratings of 155.8 and 145
● Jeff Hostetler, 1990 Giants — Phil Simms’ late-season foot injury opened the door for Hostetler, who was pushing 30 and had spent nearly six years as an understudy. He made the most of the opportunity, playing steady, interception-free ball in the last five games, all victories, including memorable postseason stare downs of the 49ers (15-13) and Bills (20-19 in the Super Bowl). His mobility (200 rushing yards, two touchdowns) brought a new dimension to the Giants offense.
● Erik Kramer, 1991 Lions — Undrafted coming out of North Carolina State, this one-time CFLer took over for Rodney Peete (torn Achilles) halfway through the season and guided Detroit to seven wins in a row, the last a 38-6 horse-collaring of the Cowboys in the second round of the playoffs. On that one he completed 29 of 38 for 341 yards and three TDs, with no picks. The NFC championship game against the Redskins didn’t go quite as well, but it was still a heck of a run. (And of course, the Lions haven’t gotten that far since.)
● Kurt Warner, 1999 Rams — We might never see another season like Warner’s. He was like Bill Murray in Caddyshack (except he really did win the Masters — or the Super Bowl, at least).
It still seems incredible, all these years later. Warner, a product of the Arena League and NFL Europe, was slated to play behind Trent Green that season. But then the Chargers’ Rodney Harrison bent Green’s knee the wrong way in a preseason game, and Kurt proceeded to toss 41 touchdown passes, win both the NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP awards and take his first steps toward Canton (I’m guessing).
● Tom Brady, 2001 Patriots — Brady, the 199th pick in the previous year’s draft, had hardly set foot on the field when Jets linebacker Mo Lewis knocked Drew Bledsoe out of the lineup in Week 2 with this crushing hit:
That was the last game Bledsoe started in New England. Brady took the job and ran with it, winning an improbable ring that year — thanks to a couple of last-second field goals by Adam Vinatieri — and two more in 2003 and ’04.
And now we have Stanton trying to add his name to the list. He doesn’t have the crunching ground game Kruczek had at his disposal, the offensive talent that glittered around Warner (and others) or a Hall of Fame coach running the show (as Livingston, Morrall, Kruczek, Hostetler and, almost certainly, Brady did). But as we’ve seen over the decades, from Danowski on down, there are more championship quarterbacks in the NFL than we think. All they need, some of them, is a break — of a leg, an ankle or some other part of their competition’s anatomy.
In fact, here are two of them. The first is Stephen Gostkowski, who went over 100 points for the season in the Patriots’ ninth game. He’s only the second pure kicker in NFL/AFL history to get to 100 points — 101, actually — that fast. The other is Lawrence Tynes with the Giants two years ago (102).
But . . . three running backs and four multitaskers — guys who played an offensive position and doubled as kickers — also have accomplished the feat. Two of the seven did it twice. The details:
NFL/AFL PLAYERS WHO HAVE SCORED 100 POINTS IN THE FIRST NINE GAMES
Year
Player, Team
TD
FG
PAT
Pts (Final Total*)
2014
K Stephen Gostkowski, Patriots
0
34
29
101 (TBD)
2012
K Lawrence Tynes, Giants
0
26
24
102 (145)
2006
RB LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers
18
0
0
108 (186*)
2005
RB Shaun Alexander, Seahawks
17
0
0
102 (168*)
1962
WR-K Gino Cappelletti, Patriots (AFL)
4
16
28
100 (128)
1962
RB-K Gene Mingo, Broncos (AFL)
4
18
23
101 (137*)
1961
RB-K Paul Hornung, Packers
10
12
34
130 (146*)
1961
WR-K Gino Cappelletti, Patriots (AFL)
7
12
32
110 (147*)
1960
RB-K Paul Hornung, Packers
11
11
30
129 (176*)
1958
RB Jim Brown, Browns
17
0
0
102 (108*)
1942
WR-K Don Hutson, Packers
15
0
29
119 (138*)
*led league
Notes: Hornung reached 100 in just seven games in 1960 (100 exactly) and again in 1961 (101). Cappelletti had 100 through eight games in ’61, and Hutson had 104 through eight in ’42. . . . Hornung missed two games in ‘61 because of a military commitment.
Anyway, that’s a pretty impressive bunch. Hornung, Brown and Hutson are in the Hall of Fame, and Tomlinson figures to join them soon enough.
The second kicker I wanted to call to your attention is Shayne Graham, currently with the Saints. I say “currently” because Graham has certainly been making the rounds lately. Since he left the Bengals as a free agent in 2010, he’s been with 10 different teams and played at least one regular season game with five of them.
● 2011 – Redskins (cut in camp), Cowboys (cut before season), Dolphins (2 games), Ravens (1).
● 2012 – Texans (16 games).
● 2013 – Browns (cut in camp), Steelers (on their roster for a game but wasn’t active), Saints (2).
● 2014 – Saints (9 games and counting).
How do ya like them frequent-flyer miles? But here’s the thing: Despite his job tenuousness, Graham has kicked the ball very well. In fact, in these five seasons — or parts thereof — he hasn’t missed a field goal try under 40 yards. The breakdown:
SHAYNE GRAHAM’S FIELD GOAL KICKING BY DISTANCE, 2010-14
0-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50+
Made
Missed
%
2-2
22-22
22-22
18-14
10-5
65
9
87.2
(Numbers below distances are field goals attempted and made.)
To live out of a suitcase — well, practically — for five years and still perform at this level is . . . the definition of a pro. A guy like that deserves to kick in a dome at this stage of his career. He’s earned it.
Source: pro-football-reference.com
Much-traveled Shayne Graham has made 14 of 15 field goal tries for the Saints this season.
Not every militarized NFL player saw action in World War II. Some played football on various service teams and/or helped sell war bonds. Here’s one of a series of ads that ran in newspapers in 1943. Featured is Norm Standlee, the Bears’ Nagurski-esque fullback.
If you want to be exact about it, Rodgers threw for six scores in 20 minutes, 59 seconds in the Packers’ 55-14 blowout of the Bears. That’s quite a bit less than a half. It went like this:
1. 6:13 left, first quarter: 1-yard TD to TE Brandon Bostick.
2. 3:53, first quarter: 4-yard TD to TE Andrew Quarless.
3. 14:48, second quarter: 73-yard TD to WR Jordy Nelson.
4. 12:09, second quarter: 40-yard TD to Nelson.
5. 4:48, second quarter: 56-yard TD to RB Eddie Lacy.
6. 0:14, second quarter: 18-yard TD to WR Randall Cobb.
Consider: The record for a game is seven, and it’s been done only seven times. But Rodgers threw six in barely a third of a game. I know the Bears played atrocious defense, but is this a really good thing? Is it good that the rules are now so pro-passer that a QB can toss six touchdown passes in a tick less than 21 minutes?
After all, earlier in the day, Peyton Manning had thrown five in just 16:43 in the Broncos’ 41-17 scrimmage against the Raiders. His timeline looked like this:
1. 2:44 left, second quarter: 51-yard TD to RB C.J. Anderson.
2. 0:28, second quarter: 32-yard TD to WR Emmanuel Sanders.
3. 12:43, third quarter: 10-yard TD to TE Julius Thomas.
4. 6:52, third quarter: 32-yard TD to Thomas.
5. 1:01, third quarter: 15-yard TD to Sanders.
Granted, the Raiders, like the Bears, have one of the worst defenses in the league, but this is still a bit much. The game has gotten out of whack, if you ask me. And the way things are going, it’s only going to get out-of-whacker.
My favorite stat might be this: Together, Rodgers and Manning threw for 11 scores in 37:42. Now that’s what I’m looking forward to — the 11-TD game.
The only other quarterback to toss six touchdown passes in a half is the Raiders’ Daryle “The Mad Bomber” Lamonica in this battering of the Bills in 1969, the last year of the AFL. According to the Oakland Tribune, four of Lamonica’s TDs came in just six offensive plays during an eight-minute stretch of the second quarter.
“The [Buffalo] turnovers were coming so rapidly that [wide receiver] Warren Wells dashed onto the field without his helmet, so anxious was he to get in on the fun,” the Tribune said. “He was stopped by an official, more than Buffalo could do to him.”
Lamonica’s first half numbers: 24 attempts, 17 completions, 275 yards, 6 touchdowns. That’s awfully close to Rodgers’ 24-18-315-6 line.
The timeline of The Mad Bomber’s scoring tosses:
1. 12:53 left, first quarter: 53-yard TD to TE Billy Cannon.
2. 0:46, first quarter: 10-yard TD to RB Pete Banaszak.
3. 12:54, second quarter: 1-yard TD to Banaszak.
4. 12:17, second quarter: 13-yard TD to Wells.
5. 9:04, second quarter: 16-yard TD to WR Fred Biletnikoff.
6. 4:33, second quarter: 23-yard TD to Biletnikoff.
For those of you scoring at home, that’s six touchdown passes in 23:20 (to Rodgers’ 20:59).
But get this: Lamonica came close to throwing seven in the first half. The Tribune said he “fell six yards short of equaling the pro record of seven in a game when [wide receiver] Drew Buie was carried out of bounds short of the end zone on a 37-yard completion on the last play before the half.”
There was a funny sidelight to The Mad Bomber’s big day, by the way. The backstory: The year before, a crucial game between the Raiders and Jets had run long, and NBC made the infamous decision to cut away from it in the final minutes so it could begin airing the children’s movie Heidi on time. It was a public relations disaster for the network, even though it returned to the game before it was over (after being swamped with phone calls from irate fans).
Anyway, NBC had planned to follow the Raiders-Bills game with Heidi again, but there was no way it was going to make the same mistake twice. When the game spilled over into the next time slot — by eight minutes — the network stuck with it until the end. Only then was Heidi allowed to prance across the television screen.
Five days after Veterans Day 1941 — and three weeks before Pearl Harbor — the Lions beat the Eagles 21-17 in Detroit. The winning score came with four minutes left on a pass from Dick Booth to Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound end from Arkansas, “who sprinted in solitude for 45 yards,” The Associated Press reported.
It was the only catch of Britt’s NFL career. After the season he went into the army and became the first U.S. soldier to receive the three top combat decorations — the Congressional Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star — in the same war (a feat later duplicated by Audie Murphy).
Britt’s combat record was the stuff of legend. Whenever I’ve talked to players from that era about their war experiences, they’ve almost always mentioned Britt, everybody’s hero. The unspoken message was: Yeah, I served, but have you heard about what That Guy did?
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Disdaining enemy hand grenades and close-range machine pistol, machine gun, and rifle, Lt. Britt inspired and led a handful of his men in repelling a bitter counterattack by approximately 100 Germans against his company positions north of Mignano, Italy, the morning of 10 November 1943. During the intense fire fight, Lt. Britt’s canteen and field glasses were shattered; a bullet pierced his side; his chest, face, and hands were covered with grenade wounds. Despite his wounds, for which he refused to accept medical attention until ordered to do so by his battalion commander following the battle, he personally killed 5 and wounded an unknown number of Germans, wiped out one enemy machine gun crew, fired 5 clips of carbine and an undetermined amount of M1 rifle ammunition, and threw 32 fragmentation grenades. His bold, aggressive actions, utterly disregarding superior enemy numbers, resulted in capture of 4 Germans, 2 of them wounded, and enabled several captured Americans to escape. Lt. Britt’s undaunted courage and prowess in arms were largely responsible for repulsing a German counterattack which, if successful, would have isolated his battalion and destroyed his company.
And that was just one day in the soldier’s life.
Early in 1944, during the bloody battle of Anzio, Britt lost his left arm. He later recounted the episode in the Chicago Tribune in a series of articles chronicling his heroism — and that of Company L, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.
“Our company command post was . . . in a house,” he wrote, “one of those standard Italian concrete or stone houses with the stairway on the outside. It stood on a knoll behind the lines and commanded a fine view of Cisterna and the network of roads behind the town. . . . Soon the Germans resumed shelling us. The roof and front of the house were now gone, and I stood at a window on the first floor, looking through my field glasses at German troop movements. Kneeling on the floor beside me was Lt. Carter of M company, who was assisting in directing mortar fire.
“I had just raised my arm to point out something to Lt. Carter when a tremendous blast shook the whole house. A shell had struck the casement of the window where we were standing.
The war took the lives of 23 NFL men — 21 active or former players, an ex-coach and a front-office worker. Among them was Al Blozis, a mammoth — especially for those times — 6-6, 250-pound tackle for the Giants. You can read his story, in comic-book form, here.
At first, the army wouldn’t take him because of his size. But in 1944, when the Allies were making their final push, he was inducted. I once asked one of his Giants teammates if he knew what had happened to Blozis on the battlefield. He gave me a sad expression, shook his head and said, “He stood up.”
As for Britt, he lived to be 76. After starting out in business, he went into politics, was twice elected Arkansas’ lieutenant governor, then settled into a post in the Small Business Administration. The New York Times, in his 1995 obituary, said he was “the first Republican elected lieutenant governor in Arkansas since Reconstruction . . . and paved the way for a new generation of Arkansas politicians, including Democrats in a new mold, like Bill Clinton.”
He was a veteran’s veteran, Britt was. Few soldiers had gone through what he had — and been able to tell about it later. I’ll end with another passage from his Tribune series, describing another battle in the Italian mountains:
We took the second peak and dug in again. We had been in action or ready for action two days and a night without sleep and without fresh supplies of food or water. That night it rained again, and some of the men tried to catch water in a blanket that they formed into a kind of trough. They managed to collect a little bit in a helmet by wringing out the blanket.
Our mouths were so dry that cigarettes tasted like dust. We tried to wet our tongues, but there was no saliva. Our lips were crusted and cracked. Our stomachs had an empty, drawn feeling. But there was nothing to be done about it. The only men we could spare to run supplies had to carry ammunition, not food and water.
The Seahawks’ 38-17 win over The Giants in Week 10 was a statistical feast. Russell Wilson’s third 100-yard rushing game of the season — discussed in an earlier post — was just one aspect of the game that was out of the ordinary.
Seattle also won the rushing battle by 296 yards — 350-54. There have been only five bigger rushing margins since the 1970 merger.
BIGGEST RUSHING MARGINS IN AN NFL GAME SINCE 1970
Date
Winner, Yards
Loser, Yards
Edge
12-10-06
Jaguars, 375
Colts, 34
341
11-4-7
Vikings, 378
Chargers, 42
336
11-30-87
Raiders, 356
Seahawks, 37
319
10-5-80
Cardinals, 330
Saints, 15
315
11-11-01
Rams, 337
Panthers, 31
306
11-9-14
Seahawks, 350
Giants, 54
296
11-7-76
Steelers, 330
Rams, 34
296
The first three games are also notable for these reasons:
● The 2006 Colts went on to win the Super Bowl – overcoming their league-worst rushing defense in the process. Quite a trick.
● Finally, the Raiders got 221 yards from Bo Jackson, who had joined them after the Kansas City Royals’ baseball season was over and was playing in just his fifth NFL game.
The game is mostly remembered, though, for this 91-yard run of Bo’s:
One of the all-timers.
One other thing struck me as I was looking over the Seahawks’ stats Sunday night. Wilson threw two interceptions and no touchdown passes, yet Seattle still won by 21. Bet that hasn’t happened too often, I thought. When I researched it at pro-football-reference.com, I found only three other games like it in the past 16 seasons. In other words, it’s a once-every-1,000-games (or so) occurrence. Pretty rare.
And obviously, that makes sense. In this day and age, with quarterbacks passing so proficiently, you wouldn’t expect a club to win so easily when its QB has a 53.7 rating, as Wilson did (largely because of his two picks and zero TD passes).
Any day’s a good day when the Rochester Jeffersons get resurrected. The Bears did that Sunday when they lost to the Packers, 55-14 — after getting pasted in their previous outing by the Patriots, 51-23. This made them the first team since the 1923 Jeffersons to give up 50 points in consecutive games. How’s that for an accomplishment?
There isn’t much to remember about the NFL’s Rochester franchise. Though a charter member of the league in 1920, it lasted only six seasons and didn’t win a game in its last four, going 0-21-2. The low point was those back-to-back shellackings in the first two games of ’23 – 60-0 to the Chicago Cardinals and 56-0 to the Rock Island (Ill.) Independents. The man who managed (and sometimes coached) the Jeffersons, a paint manufacturer named Leo Lyons, simply didn’t have the money or material to compete with most clubs.
There’s an interesting connection between the Bears and Jeffs, as they were called. Before George Halas hooked up with the Staley Starch Co. in Decatur, Ill., and launched the Bears (originally the Decatur Staleys), he inquired about playing for the Rochester team. As Lyons told The Associated Press in 1960: “He asked for $75 a game. I didn’t know anything about him, and besides, I had two good ends. The league rule was that no club could have more than 18 players.”
So George made history someplace else.
“It was rough going,” Lyons said. “I hung on until 1925, but I lost everything and had to go back to my business. In 1921 I wrote to John McGraw of the New York [baseball] Giants and Ed Barrow of the Yankees – both teams were using the Polo Grounds then – trying to interest them in transferring the Jeffs to New York. They replied that professional football would never be a success there, and they were going to stop college teams from using the Polo Grounds as the cleats tore up the turf.”
The Football Giants, of course, called the Polo Grounds home for years (1925-55) before moving to Yankee Stadium and later the Meadowlands.
Here’s the headline from The Davenport Democrat and Leader after Rock Island ran over Rochester:
From the sound of things, the game was a lot like the one between the Bears and Packers. The Independents unleashed a dazzling passing attack and threw “the wind-filled bag” all over the lot (which was hardly the norm in those conservative days). Indeed, if they hadn’t eased up a bit and run the ball in the third quarter — which was scoreless — their point total might have been in the 70s. According to the newspaper story, “The Independents didn’t have to boot [punt] the ball during the entire game.”
Lyons never lost his love for pro football, even if he did lose his house at one point trying to keep the Jeffersons afloat. In later years, the New York license plate on his car read: “NFL 1.” “Never in my wildest dreams did I think the game would grow to what it is today,” he said in 1972.
He probably wouldn’t have believed, either, that one Sunday in 2014, the club founded by an end who once asked him for a job would bring the Rochester Jeffersons back to life.
For a while Sunday, as the fourth quarter wound down, the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson was sitting with 100 rushing yards in 10 carries. And I’m thinking: Oh, great. He’s going to kneel down on the last play or two and lose his 100-yard game.
You have to understand: This wasn’t just any 100-yard rushing game. It was his third 100-yard rushing game of the season, which is as many as any NFL quarterback has ever had in one year.
My fears, as it turned out were unfounded. Wilson kept going (mostly) forward and finished with 107 in 14 attempts in Seattle’s 38-17 win. This enabled him to join Michael Vick atop the following list:
MOST 100-YARD RUSHING GAMES BY A QUARTERBACK IN A SEASON
Year
Quarterback, Team
Rushing Yards (Opponent)
No.
2014
Russell Wilson, Seahawks
122 (Redskins), 106 (Rams), 107 (Giants)
3
2006
Michael Vick, Falcons
127 (Bucs), 101 (Cardinals), 166 (Saints)
3
2004
Michael Vick, Falcons
109 (Rams), 115 (Broncos), 104 (Giants)
3
2013
Terrelle Pryor, Raiders
112 (Colts), 106 (Steelers)
2
2010
Michael Vick, Eagles
103 (Packers), 130 (Giants)
2
2002
Donovan McNabb, Eagles
100 (Jaguars), 107 (Giants)
2
1972
Bobby Douglass, Bears
117 (Browns), 127 (Raiders)
2
1951
Tobin Rote, Packers
150 (Bears), 131 (Lions)
2
And, of course, Wilson still has seven games left, so he’s got a real shot at the record.
Only one of these quarterbacks, by the way, had back-to-back 100-yard rushing games. Any guesses? Answer: Rote. He did it, moreover, in the space of five days — against the Bears on Sunday and against the Lions on Thanksgiving. (Don’t count on another quarterback rushing for 281 yards in five days again. It’s one of those quirky marks that just might last forever.)
According to reports, Packers coach Gene Ronzani had Rote run out of a spread offense that was probably similar to what teams use today. An excerpt from the Milwaukee Journal story on the Bears game:
Rote had an even better game on Turkey Day. This is from the Journal again:
So Rote rushed for 131 yards against Detroit and threw for three touchdowns. Only two other quarterbacks have done that in the 63 years since: Vick in this game and the Eagles’ Randall
So what did the Packers do? They traded him to the Lions, one of their conference rivals, for three offensive linemen and a running back. “He is a great competitor — a great football player,” coach Lisle Blackbourn said, “but we need linemen if we are to have a chance.”
When Bobby Layne broke his ankle in the next-to-last game of ’57, Rote, who had been sharing the position with him, took over and led the Lions to an improbable NFL title. Six years later, he quarterbacked the Chargers to the AFL championship. Total points scored by his team in those two games: 110 (59 vs. the Browns and 51 vs. the Patriots).
Anyway, that’s the ghost Russell Wilson is chasing as he tries to become the second quarterback to rush for 100 yards in consecutive games in a season. The other QB in his sites, Vick, is — at last report — still up and running with the Jets.
