Category Archives: 1950s

Why the Falcons eased up on the Bucs

One thing you never want to do in the NFL, funny as this might sound, is beat a team by too many points — by, like, 50 or more. The Falcons had that opportunity against the Bucs in Week 3, building a 56-0 lead through three quarters, and you could see they wanted no part of it. They basically said, “No mas,” put in backup quarterback T.J. Yates (who generously threw a pick-six) and gladly settled for a 56-14 win.

I say “gladly” because, well, look at the historical record. You’d think a 50-point margin would mean there’s a sizable gap between the two clubs. It’s the kind of blowout you might get if, oh, an expansion team had to play the defending Super Bowl champs in its NFL debut. (But only if the defending champs were total bullies.)

And yet, five times since 1940 a club that’s been clobbered by 50 or more points has beaten its clobberer the next time they met — either later the same year or the following season. (Hell hath no fury like a team that’s been annihilated.) Stunning, no? After all, there have been only 23 losses of this magnitude in the last 75 years, playoffs included; so we’re talking about 1 in 5 odds, roughly, that the squashed-like-a bug club will get immediate payback.

Heck, it almost happened last season. In 2012, you may recall, the Cardinals dropped a 58-0 squeaker to the Seahawks, committing eight turnovers and failing to advance beyond Seattle’s 37-yard line. As stinkers go, it was sulfur dioxide. But in Week 16 last year, in the Cards’ second meeting with the ’Hawks since the Great Embarrassment, they upset the Super Bowl winners-to-be, 17-10, at CenturyLink Field — Seattle’s only loss in its last 20 home games.

Without further ado, then, here are, arguably, the Five Greatest Extractors of Revenge in modern pro football history:

● 1977 Falcons — In the next-to-last game of ’76, the Los Angeles Rams steamrolled them 59-0 at the Coliseum (and outgained them by nearly 500 yards, 569-81). The Falcons — and their Grits Blitz defense — got even in the ’77 opener in Atlanta, handing the Rams a 17-6 defeat. The L.A. quarterback that day: Joe Namath. Margin of first game: 59. Point swing between the two games: 70.

● 1981 Packers — Late in the ’80 season, the Bears hammered them 61-7 at Soldier Field, the most one-sided game ever between the two ancient rivals. When the Pack returned to Chicago in Week 1 of ’81, they turned the tables on the Bears, 16-9. Margin of first game: 54. Point swing: 61.

● 1990 Houston Oilers — The feud in the ’80s and ’90s between Bengals coach Sam Wyche and Oilers counterpart Jerry Glanville was one of the most entertaining of all time. Wyche considered Glanville “probably the biggest phony in professional football,” and Jerry’s feelings toward Sam weren’t much warmer. So when Cincinnati got the chance near the end of the ’89 season, it poured it on Houston, onside kicking with a huge lead, booting a needless field goal in the final seconds and burying the Oilers 61-7 at Riverfront Stadium. The next time the clubs crossed paths, the following season in the Astrodome, Glanville was no longer in Houston. (He’d moved on to Atlanta and been replaced by Jack Pardee.) Too bad. He missed seeing Warren Moon toss five touchdown passes in a 48-17 rout of Wicky Wacky’s Bengals. Margin of first game: 54. Point swing: 85.

● 1979 Jets — In the second game of the season, the explosive Patriots pummeled the Jets 56-3 in Foxborough as Steve Grogan threw for TDs of 49, 37, 50, 44 and 28 yards. The rematch at Shea Stadium produced a much different result: a 27-26 Jets win that killed the Pats’ playoff chances. Margin of first game: 53. Point swing: 54.

● 1989 Steelers — Everything went wrong for Pittsburgh in its opener, a 51-0 loss to the Browns at Three Rivers Stadium. It gave the ball away eight times, managed just 53 offensive yards and watched in horror as the Cleveland defense scored three touchdowns (two on fumbles, one on an interception). Five weeks later, the Steelers rebounded to beat the Browns on the road 17-7, thanks to seven takeaways of their own. Margin of first game: 51. Point swing: 61.

Others of note:

● 1954 Baltimore Colts — It wasn’t just that the Rams obliterated the Colts 48-0 in Week 1 (in Baltimore, no less); it was that their first score, an 80-yard bomb from Norm Van Brocklin to Skeet Quinlan, came on a now-illegal Hideout Play. Quinlan stayed on the Los Angeles sideline until just before the snap, then stepped inbounds and darted downfield, uncovered.

The teams met again in L.A. in December. There wasn’t much to play for except pride; both were out of the championship hunt. The Colts had a little extra incentive, though, and avenged their earlier stomping, 22-21, on a late field goal. (I’d love to see Artie Donovan’s bar bill after that one.) Margin of first game: 48. Point swing: 49.

● 1981 49ers — In ’80, when the Niners were still a work in progress (and Steve DeBerg was still their quarterback), the Cowboys crushed them 59-14 in Dallas. But the next year, with Joe Montana at QB and rookie cornerback Ronnie Lott terrorizing receivers, San Francisco broke the Cowboys’ hearts twice at Candlestick Park — 45-14 in the regular season and 28-27 in the NFC title game – en route to winning the Super Bowl. Margin of first game: 45. Point swing: 76.

Finally, there are the 1961 Detroit Lions. Can’t forget about them. They got ambushed 49-0 in Week 3 when the 49ers unleashed their innovative Shotgun offense. In the Week 8 sequel, however, the Lions rose up in all their fury and . . . tied the Niners in San Francisco, 20-20. Ask yourself: Has there been a more satisfying deadlock in the annals of the game? Margin of first game: 49. Point swing: Ditto.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Peyton Manning: chasing more history

Not sure how much was made of this, but 50 minutes into the Broncos’ Week 3 showdown with the Seahawks, Peyton Manning still hadn’t thrown for a touchdown. And if Seattle had shut him out, Manning likely would have lost his last chance to break the record for most consecutive games with a TD pass. He is, after all, 38 — old enough to be Johnny Manziel’s . . . much older stepbrother.

Almost on cue, though, Manning hit tight ends Julius Thomas and Jacob Tamme for scores in the last 9:20 to push his streak to 42 (and tie the game at 20). If he can keep it going through the end of the season, he’ll be at 55 — one more than the mark set by the Saints’ Drew Brees from 2009 to 2012.

It’s a record that has always gotten a fair amount of attention, largely because Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas held it for more than half a century — so long that people began to wonder whether his 47-game streak was unbreakable. But then Brees came along, helped by all the passer-friendly rules that didn’t exist in Unitas’ day (not to mention climate-controlled indoor stadiums and sticky gloves for receivers).

Soon enough, the Patriots’ Tom Brady took a run at Brees, only to have his streak peter out at 52 last season. And now Manning is giving it a go himself, at an age when most quarterbacks are ex-quarterbacks (or, like Johnny U., hanging on by their high tops).

What tends to be forgotten with all these footballs flying around is that it’s hard — even now — to throw a touchdown pass in every game of a season, never mind in 42, 47, 52 or 54 games straight. If it weren’t, everybody would do it. And everybody hasn’t done it.

Joe Montana, for instance, never did it. Neither did John Elway or, for that matter, Sammy Baugh. (And Slingin’ Sam’s seasons were a lot shorter.) You have to be a consistently good passer, of course, but you also have to have luck on your side. You can’t get hurt and miss some time. You can’t run into one of those wicked bad-weather games, the kind NFL Films loves to turn into comic opera. You can’t get yanked early in the regular-season finale because your playoff spot is already set (a fate that befell Manning in 2005).

Something else to keep in mind: When Tom Brady racked up a then-record 50 touchdown passes in 2007, there was still one game where he came up empty — Dec. 16 against the Jets.

By my count, only 18 quarterbacks in NFL-AFL history have thrown a TD pass in every game of a season, be it 16 games, 14, 12 or whatever. The shorter-than-you’d-expect list:

● Three times (2) – Brady, Patriots (2010-12); Brees, Saints (2010-11, ’13).

● Twice (4) – Manning, Broncos (2012-13); Dan Marino, Dolphins (1984, ’86); Unitas, Colts (1957, ’59); Cecil Isbell, Packers (1941-42). (Yes, Cecil Isbell. We’ll get back to him in a moment.)

● Once (12) – Philip Rivers, Chargers (2013); Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers (2013); Matthew Stafford, Lions (2011); Daunte Culpepper, Vikings (2004); Brett Favre, Packers (2003); Kurt Warner, Rams (1999); Dave Krieg, Seahawks (1984); Daryle Lamonica, Raiders (1969); Sonny Jurgensen, Redskins (1967); Frank Ryan, Browns (1966); Milt Plum, Browns (1960); Sid Luckman, Bears (1943).

In most cases, you’re talking about a guy’s career year, his absolute peak. Take Plum, for instance. Little remembered today, he had one of the greatest passing seasons of all time in 1960. His rating of 110.4 — still the 11^th best in history — was nearly twice that of the rest of the quarterbacks in the league (57.8). Mind-boggling. How did he accomplish this, you ask? Well, for starters, in the first 11 games (of a 12-game schedule) he was intercepted only once.

Which brings us to Isbell . . . and his unusual apparatus. Cecil, you see, had suffered a separated shoulder in college and was concerned about it popping out again. So he wore a harness that ran a chain from his waist to his (non-throwing) left arm and kept him from raising the arm above the shoulder. I wrote about this in a previous post.

How do you suppose the aforementioned quarterbacks would have done with a similar contraption attached to their anatomies? When Brees blew by Unitas in 2012, much was made — and rightfully so — of the difference between their two eras and how Johnny U.’s mark was more impressive (given how physical the defense was allowed to be with receivers, among other things). But maybe Isbell’s 23-game streak is the most amazing of all.

Especially when you consider he played in a single-wing offense, the Notre Dame Box, and at a time when the air was hardly filled with footballs. In 1942, the Lions (1), Steelers (2) and Brooklyn Dodgers (3) threw for fewer touchdowns all season than Cecil did in a single game against the Cardinals (5).

His 23-game run, counting a playoff for the Western Division title in ’41, stood as the record for 16 years, until Unitas broke it. Even now, tossing a TD pass in 23 consecutive games is no small feat. Plenty of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, recent ones, never pulled it off, including Montana (longest streak: 14), Elway (15), Troy Aikman (16), Steve Young (18), Jim Kelly (18), Dan Fouts (20) and Warren Moon (21).

So why haven’t you heard more about Isbell? Because he retired after five seasons to go into college coaching. The explanation he gave in Chuck Johnson’s book, The Green Bay Packers:

“I hadn’t been up in Green Bay long when I saw [coach Curly] Lambeau go around the locker room and tell players like [Arnie] Herber, [Milt] Gantenbein and Hank Bruder that they were all done with the Packers. These were good players who had given the team good service for years, and they had no money in the pot. But there was no sentiment involved. I sat there and watched, and then I vowed it would never happen to me. I’d quit before they came around to tell me.”

Who knows how much farther Isbell could have extended his streak? He was just 27 when he called it quits, and his go-to receiver, the legendary Don Hutson, still had some good years left. In a war-weakened league, the duo could have continued their assault on the record book until Hutson hung ’em up in 1945. (Cecil’s shoulder kept him out of the military.)

“Isbell was a master at any range,” Lambeau told Johnson. “He could throw soft passes, bullet passes or feathery lobs. He was the best, with Sid Luckman of the Bears a close second and Sammy Baugh of the Redskins a long third. Luckman wasn’t as versatile and Baugh couldn’t compare on the long ones.”

But then, Curly was prejudiced. Mel Hein, the Giants’ Hall of Fame center, ranked the passers a little differently — Baugh first, then Isbell and Luckman. “Isbell reminds me of the old days,” he once said. “It’s a rare thing in these times to see the passer fade out of his pocket or normal passing zone, but Isbell will do it casually, up to 15 yards or more. I remember seeing him back up 20 yards before he let go with a 55-yarder that beat us in a Los Angeles all-star game. This is where he differs chiefly from Baugh, who dotes on the short pass.”

(“It was passing at its most perfect and sensational,” Henry McLemore of the United Press said of the bomb to Hutson in the all-star game. “The ball traveled 67 yards in the air.”)

Here’s Isbell flipping a 31-yard touchdown pass to Joe Laws in the ’39 championship game win over the Giants. Note how he gets hit just after he releases the ball.

However you rank ’em, ol’ Cecil could play — and definitely belongs in the same sentence with Brees, Unitas and Manning, chain or no chain.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, NFL.com

Talk about your Short Work Weeks

Thursday night NFL games are one of our better examples of Man’s Inhumanity to Man. The human body simply isn’t built to play pro football twice in five calendar days. It probably isn’t built to play pro football once every seven calendar days, but that’s another matter.

Anyway, as you watch tonight’s Redskins-Giants hostilities at FedEx Field, keep in mind how much worse it used to be for NFL players. Yes, worse. In the 1920s, for instance, games on back-to-back days were far from uncommon. When the Frankford Yellow Jackets won the championship in 1926, they had three weeks where they played on Saturday and Sunday and another where they played on Thursday and Saturday. Amazingly, they won seven of the eight games.

In the ’30s, the Portsmouth Spartans were fond of Wednesday home games under the lights at Universal Stadium. One season they had two Sunday-Wednesday-Sunday trifectas on the schedule — three games in eight days — and another week they played on Wednesday and Sunday. And this was the era, I’ll just remind you, of 20-man rosters and 60-minute men (not to mention looong train rides).

Even in the ’50s it could get a little crazy. The New York Yanks began the 1950 season with a Sunday/Friday week — on the West Coast — and later had two Sunday/Thursday weeks. Little wonder they wore down after a 6-1 start and finished 7-5.

So, yeah, Thursday night games are a raw deal. But the players of yore were treated even less gently.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The Princes of Ties

This is as good a time as any to mention — in the wake of Sunday’s Seahawks-Broncos classic — that this week is the 40^th anniversary of the NFL’s first regular-season overtime game. Yup, until 1974, we would have had to settle for a 20-20 tie at CenturyLink Field . . . and done without Seattle’s eviscerating 80-yard touchdown drive in OT. Bummer.

(Actually, now that I think about it, there was no two-point conversion in ’74, either. So Denver would have trailed 20-19 after its last TD and been forced to onside kick. Amazing how much of an impact these rule changes have had.)

But back to the subject at hand: ties . . . and their virtual elimination. The Broncos, it turns out, were involved in the first regular-season overtime game, too. As fate would have it, things didn’t

Sept. 22, 1974

work out that day quite as planned. Despite 15 minutes of bonus brutality, neither they nor the Steelers could break the 35-35 deadlock. Here’s Vito Stellino’s story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about this Sorta Great Moment in NFL History.

Chuck Noll, Pittsburgh’s Hall of Fame coach, had a funny quote afterward. “I don’t like the idea of overtime,” he said. “I have a tired football team that has to get ready for a football game next week. If we’d have one of these every week, it’d kill our team.”

(One of the reasons it’s funny, in retrospect, is that the Steelers didn’t have another OT game for four years.)

Fortunately for the NFL, there have been only 18 more ties in the four decades since, a huge — and necessary — break from the past. In the ’60s, after all, there 72 (counting the AFL), and in the first four years of the ’70s, before OT came in, there were 29. Way too many.

In recent seasons, David Akers (currently team-less) has been the NFL’s Prince of Ties. Akers played a principal role in two of the last three deadlocks — as a 49er in 2012 and an Eagle in ’08.

Two years ago against the Rams, he kicked a 33-yard field goal with three seconds left to make it 24-24 and send the game to overtime. Then he missed a 41-yarder in OT to preserve the stalemate. (Attaboy.)

Four seasons earlier, he was good from 27 yards with 5:18 remaining to pull Philadelphia into a 13-13 tie with the Bengals. Once again, the overtime was scoreless (thanks to an errant 47-yard field goal try by Cincinnati’s Shayne Graham with seven seconds to go).

Not that Akers’ historical contribution figures to be remembered. That’s the thing about tie games; because they lack resolution, they usually don’t leave any footprints. Heck, for a long time, the league didn’t even count them when calculating winning percentage. (The 7-1-6 record, for instance, compiled by the title-winning Bears in 1932 was considered a 7-1 mark. It was as if their other six games never happened.)

So why don’t we pay homage to those forgotten heroes who shined brightest in tie games — even if, at the end of the day, they had to settle for half a loaf? The honor roll:

● QB Tommy Maddox, Steelers (Nov. 10, 2002, 34-34 tie vs. Falcons) — 473 passing yards (a record for a tie game and the highest total in the NFL that season) and four touchdown passes weren’t enough to avoid a Dreaded Deadlock.

● LB Ken Harvey, Redskins (Nov. 23, 1997, 7-7 tie vs. Giants) — Racked up four sacks, the most in a tie game since the NFL began keeping track of the statistic in 1982. Alas, they were overshadowed

Wall 1, Frerotte 0

by the antics of Washington quarterback Gus Frerotte, who celebrated his team’s only score — on a 1-yard bootleg — by bashing his head into the end zone wall and suffering a neck injury that knocked him out of the game.

● WR John Gilliam, Cardinals (Oct. 26, 1969, 21-21 tie vs. Cleveland) — Had four catches for 192 yards and all three St. Louis touchdowns. The first two TDs measured 84 and 75 yards; the third, a 15-yarder, came with just eight seconds to play.

● RB Gary McDermott, Bills (Oct. 12, 1968, 14-14 tie vs. Dolphins) — McDermott tied the game in the final seconds with an eight-point play, catching a three-yard touchdown pass from Dan Darragh and a two-point conversion toss from Ed Rutkowski. He’s the last player, by the way, to do that. (It was also, to give it its proper due, one of only two games that year that 1-12-1 Buffalo didn’t lose.)

● QB Sonny Jurgensen, Redskins (1967) — Threw four touchdown passes in a tie game not once but twice, in a 28-28 tie with the Rams (Oct. 22) and a 35-35 tie with the Eagles (Dec. 3). In the latter, Norm Snead, the quarterback Philadelphia acquired for Sonny in a 1964 deal, also tossed four TD passes. So for a day, at least, it was an even trade.

● FB Jim Taylor, Packers (Dec. 13, 1964, 24-24 tie vs. Rams) — Gained 221 yards from scrimmage (165 rushing, 56 receiving) and ran for a touchdown to knot the score with two minutes left. He accomplished this, moreover, against the Rams’ vaunted Fearsome Foursome (Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen et al.), which led the league in rushing defense.

● Lou Groza, Browns, and Jim Bakken, Cardinals (Sept. 20, 1964, 33-33 tie) — Only two kickers in history have booted as many as four field goals in a tie game: Groza and Bakken . . . in the same game. Groza connected from 32, 12, 37 and 25 yards, Bakken from 30, 51, 44 and 28 (his last with five seconds to go). That same afternoon, Lou scored his 1,000^th NFL point and Jim broke the franchise record for longest field goal. All in all, not a bad day.

● WR Charley Hennigan, Houston Oilers (Oct. 13, 1961, 31-31 tie vs. Patriots) — Set an AFL mark — never broken — for receiving yards in a game with 272.

● RB Larry Garron, Patriots — Nobody got up for the tie games like Larry. Check out his performance in four of them:

1. Oct. 13, 1961 vs. Oilers (31-31) — 89-yard kickoff return touchdown.

2. Nov. 3, 1962 vs. Bills (28-28) — 95-yard kickoff return TD and, in the fourth quarter, a 23-yard scoring grab to tie it at 28. (In case you’re wondering, the aforementioned kickoff return TDs are the only two of his career.)

3. Nov. 17, 1963 vs. Chiefs (24-24) — 47-yard TD run.

4. Oct. 16, 1964 vs. Raiders (43-43) — Three TDs (one rushing, two receiving), as many as anyone has scored in a tie game.

● QB-K Bobby Layne, Steelers (Nov. 8, 1959, 10-10 tie vs. Lions) — Fired a 20-yard touchdown pass to Tom Tracy in the last few minutes, then kicked tying extra point. And consider the backdrop: It was the first time the Hall of Fame quarterback had faced the Lions since they traded him in ’58. Talk about a clutch tie.

● QB Frank Filchock, Redskins (Oct. 8, 1944, 31-31 tie vs. Eagles) — Tossed five touchdown passes, the most ever in a tie game. How did the Redskins end up with only 31 points, you ask? Simple. They botched four PATs.

● WR Don Hutson, Packers (Nov. 22, 1942, 21-21 tie vs. Giants) — Caught 14 passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns. The 14 receptions tied the NFL record for a single game.

Other items of interest:

Miller Farr vs. Don Maynard

● In 1967, the Houston Oilers’ Miller Farr picked off three passes in a 28-28 tie with the Jets. According to my research, that’s the most in a tie game. A month later, his brother Mel Farr rushed for 197 yards for the Lions in a 10-10 tie with the Vikings — the biggest rushing day in a tie game since 1960.

● Little-known fact: Not once since 1974, when overtime was adopted, has a two-point conversion been the last score in a tie game. (The Broncos, in other words, would have been the first if Sunday’s game had wound up a draw.)

● Another little-known fact: Nobody has ever kicked a really long field goal to cause a game to end in a tie. The longest I’ve come across is a 41-yarder by the Chiefs’ Nick Lowery in a 10-10 defensive struggle with the Browns in 1989. His boot wasn’t a buzzer-beater, either. It went through with 3:48 still on the clock.

● Finally, the ’74 Steelers club that played the Broncos to a 35-35 standoff in the first regular-season overtime game went on to take the title — making it the last Super Bowl winner with a tie on its resumé.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, National Football League Fact and Record Book, The Sporting News American Football League Guide, The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.

The Browns try to pull a fast one

Browns offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan couldn’t possibly have known this, but he ran an illegal Hideout Play against the Ravens on practically the 60^th anniversary of the last legal Hideout Play. Even better, the victim both times was a Baltimore team — the Colts in 1954 and the Ravens on Sunday.

The last legal Hideout Play (a.k.a. Sleeper Play) was run Sept. 26, 1954 — by the sneaky Los Angeles Rams on the first play of the season. The Colts defense didn’t notice wide receiver Skeet Quinlan hanging out near the sideline when the ball was snapped, and no one was near him when he caught an 80-yard touchdown pass from Norm Van Brocklin. After the Rams won 48-0, Commissioner Bert Bell said, in essence, “Enough of this crap. We’re not a Sunday morning touch-football league. Anybody who tries to run a Hideout Play again will be penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.”

(His actual quote was: “This thing never should have happened in the first place. No matter how many good rules we have, somebody also comes up with something that we have to correct.”)

Here’s the brief game summary that appeared in newspapers across the country:

And here’s Bell declaring the play illegal the next day:

Sure enough, the following was added to the rulebook in 1955 (under Rule 10 — Section 2): “If an offensive player lines up less than five yards from the sideline on [the] same side as his team’s players bench, and his teammates (even though they are outside of [the] field of play) are in close proximity to where he is lined up when the ball is snapped, it is Unsportsmanlike Conduct.”

If he were “in close proximity” to his teammates, of course, his uniform would blend in with theirs and he’d be harder to notice. That’s one of the reasons the play was so effective in the early days. (That and the fact that clubs would usually save it for late in the game, when darkness was closing in. Many stadiums back then didn’t have lights — or had inadequate lighting — making the sidelines less visible in the fourth quarter.)

Actually, quarterback Johnny Manziel, the focal point of Sunday’s shenanigans, was in closer proximity to coaches than players as he stood along the sideline in the second quarter, pretending to have a conversation with his offensive coordinator. He had just come out of the game after being sent in for one play – a run by Isaiah Crowell that lost a yard.

As you can see from the clip, Manziel and Shanahan did a great selling job — had any of the Ravens bothered to notice. Johnny had his back turned to the game, waiting for Kyle to tell him to “Go!” (which he clearly did), and wide receivers coach Mike McDaniel gesticulated in the background for good measure. Then Johnny took off, free as can be, down the sideline, and Brian Hoyer hit him for a 39-yard gain to the Baltimore 23.

Alas, the play was called back — not because it was illegal (the referee didn’t mention anything about that), but because running back Terrance West wasn’t set before the snap. The Browns ended up punting and went on to lose 23-21; but think about it: How “great” would it have been, after the two weeks the NFL has had, for one of its teams to win a game by running a bogus play? After all, had West not messed up, Cleveland easily could have gotten three and possibly even seven points out of that possession.

Beyond that, though, there’s always been something a little cheesy about the play. It just doesn’t seem like something pro football players should be doing. That, certainly, was the point Bell was trying to make. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for coaches reviving long-lost offensive and defensive stratagems. But to pull a stunt like this . . . . Come on, Kyle. With all the rules favoring the offense nowadays, you’re running a Hideout Play? What’s next, having Manziel stick the ball under his jersey?

Some other things about the last Hideout/Sleeper Play that might interest you:

● Hall of Famer Weeb Ewbank made his NFL head-coaching debut with the Colts that day. The Hideout Play, in other words, was the housewarming gift he received from the Rams (the rats).

● The Baltimore cornerback who got caught sleeping was Don Shula. Years afterward, he said, “I remember thinking: Where in hell is [Van Brocklin] throwing the ball?”

● When the teams met again late in the season, the Colts gained a measure of revenge by upsetting the Rams 22-21. How sweet must that victory have been?

If Pete Rozelle, one-time cub reporter, covered the NFL today

The question I’ve been wondering about all weekend is: What would Pete Rozelle, cub reporter, have written about Roger Goodell’s news conference Friday? Depending on who you’ve been reading lately, Rozelle either (a.) parted the Red Sea or (b.) landed a spaceship on the moon during his nearly 30 years as NFL commissioner.

But long before that he was an aspiring journalist at Compton Junior College whose dream job was to be sports editor of the Los Angeles Times. He even did some stringing for the Long Beach Press-Telegram while serving as the student-sports information director at Compton. Why don’t we flip through Rozelle’s clip file to get a feel for his prose style? All these stories are from 1947 and ’48, which would make him 21 or 22 years young.

Here’s Pete covering a pivotal JC football game in 1947:

And here’s Pete following up Michigan’s 49-0 wipeout of Southern Cal in the 1948 Rose Bowl:

And here’s Pete rhapsodizing about Compton, California’s own Duke Snider, who in 1948 was in the second year of his Hall of Fame career with the Brooklyn Dodgers:

And here’s Pete sitting down with Phog Allen, the legendary Kansas basketball coach:

And here’s Pete at the scene of a dramatic JC basketball game:

And finally, here’s ubiquitous Pete reporting on high school football — reporting, in fact, on his alma mater:

Two things are cool about this story. First, the Don Klosterman who played quarterback for Compton High is the same Don Klosterman who was later general manager of the Los Angeles Rams — the job Rozelle had when he became commissioner.

Second, Compton’s athletic teams were/are called the Tarbabes — short for Tartar Babies. Is this a great country or what?

So if we took in all this information and tried to come up with a Typical Pete Rozelle Lead Paragraph coming out of Goodell’s news conference, it might read something like this:

NEW YORK — Embattled Roger Goodell, his boyish red hair giving evidence to barely 40 of his 55 years, addressed Friday the scandal that threatens to sound a death knell to his commissionership and take a wrecking ball to the NFL’s image. Grilled by some of the nation’s top sports writers about his botched disciplining of “Rapid Ray” Rice, the Ravens’ will-o’-the-wisp Negro halfback, and “All the Way Adrian” Peterson, the Vikings’ jet-propelled, two-time rushing champ, Goodell admitted mistakes and promised to make things right during a tension-soaked session.

Rozelle took an amazing elevator ride after his byline stopped appearing in the Press-Telegram. Within a dozen years — at the age of 33 — he was NFL commissioner. The path he took:

May 11, 1948:

Feb. 22, 1952:

April 9, 1957:

And lastly, Jan. 27, 1960:

Not bad for a former Compton High Tarbabe.

Darren Sproles and the NFL’s all-time Mighty Mites

Darren Sproles, hero of the Vertically Challenged and one of the best multi-purpose backs of his generation, was at it again Monday night in Indianapolis. The Eagles’ 5-foot-6, 181-pound dynamo had a career-high 178 yards from scrimmage as Philadelphia rallied to ruin the Colts’ evening, 30-27. (The breakdown: 152 receiving — also a career best — and 26 rushing.)

That means that in Sproles’ two outings since joining Philly as a free agent, he’s had momentum-turning 49-yard touchdown run against the Jaguars and a highlight-reel game against Indy, one that included catches of 57 and 51 and a 19-yard draw-play TD.

Nine years into his career, defensive coordinators are still trying to cover him out of the backfield with linebackers. (You almost felt sorry for Indy’s Josh McNary on the 57-yarder.) They’re still trying to pretend, when he comes into the game, that he doesn’t require special attention. Then again, maybe they don’t notice that he’s out there. He’s very adept at hiding behind his blockers.

Sproles’ running style might best be described as Duck and Dart — duck under the flailing arms of would-be tacklers and dart into (and through) hairline cracks in the defense. He doesn’t return kickoffs anymore, and he hasn’t run back a punt for a score since 2011, but he still has it in him. Even at 31, he’s got a nice burst.

He’s also been fortunate to play for coaches who maximized his abilities — first Norv Turner in San Diego, then Sean Payton in New Orleans and now Chip Kelly in Philadelphia. By the time he’s done, he’ll have, by my guesstimate, 7,500 of the quietest yards from scrimmage in NFL history. I say “quietest” because he’s never made the Pro Bowl . . . and probably never will.

Here’s all you really need to know about Sproles: In 10 playoff games, he’s scored seven TDs. (And in one of them, all he did was return kicks.) OK, here’s something else you could stand to know about him: In 2011 he just missed becoming the first running back in 53 years to carry 75-plus times in a season and average 7 yards an attempt. His numbers: 87 rushes, 603 yards, 6.93 average.

Which raises the question: Where does he rank among pro football’s all-time mighty mites? Answer: Well, he’s certainly a first-teamer. A look at some other notable players who measured 5-6 and under:

● Joey Sternaman, QB, 1922-25, ’27-30 Bears — 5-6, 152. Sternaman, a fine “field general” (as they were called in those days) and kicker, led the NFL in scoring in 1924 with 75 points (six touchdowns, nine field goals, 12 PATs), was third the next year with 62 and made all-pro both seasons. (He also was the younger brother of Dutch Sternaman, who shared ownership of the Bears with George Halas in the early days).

● Gus Sonnenberg, T-FB, 1923, ’25-28, ’30 Columbus/Detroit/Providence — 5-6, 196. A wild man on and off the field, Sonnenberg, like Sternaman, did some of his best work with his right foot, booting nine field goals, including a 52-yarder, in 1926. He was voted all-NFL three times and started on the Steam Roller’s 1928 title team. He then turned to professional wrestling and became the heavyweight “champion” of the world (I use quotation marks because, hey, this is wrestling we’re talking about.)

Henry “Two Bits” Homan

● Henry “Two Bits” Homan, B, 1925-30 Frankford — 5-5, 145. Helped the Yellow Jackets win their only championship in 1926 by catching a last-second touchdown pass in the big December game against the Bears. (The thrower of the pass? Houston Stockton, grandfather of basketball great John Stockton.) Got his nickname, one of his teammates told me, from Guy Chamberlin, Frankford’s Hall of Fame player-coach. It was the same name Chamberlin had given his bulldog.

● Butch Meeker, B, 1930-31 Providence — 5-3, 143. Butch’s career was short and relatively nondescript, but he did have one shining moment. In a 7-7 tie against Frankford in 1930, he returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a TD and then — brace yourself — kicked the extra point. Has any other 5-3 player ever done that?

● Gil “Frenchy” LeFebvre, B, 1933-35 Cincinnati/Detroit — 5-6, 155. LeFebvre took a different route to the NFL: He developed his football talents in the Navy rather than in college. As a rookie, though, he set a record that stood for 61 years: He returned a punt 98 yards for a touchdown to nail down a 10-0 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fielding the kick was a risky maneuver that surprised the Cincinnati crowd, the Associated Press reported, but “gasps turned to cheers as the runner . . . started down the field.” It was LeFebvre’s only TD in the NFL.

● Willis “Wee Willie” Smith, B, 1934 Giants — 5-6, 148. Let’s spend a little time with Smith, because I came across a story about him, written by Henry McLemore of the United Press, that actually quoted him (a rarity in the ’30s). Smith wasn’t just undersized, you see, he was also — unbeknownst to most — blind in one eye.

The first time Giants coach Steve Owen saw him on the practice field, he said, “Son, you’re too damn little. You wouldn’t last a first down in this business. You may have been a son of a gun out there with [the University of] Idaho, but these pro guys would bust you in two.”

Smith was undaunted. “Maybe they will,” he replied. “But what about letting me hang around until they do? My family will send for the body, so it won’t cost you anything.”

Willis “Wee Willie” Smith

In his only year in the league, Wee Willie rushed 80 times for a 4-yard average, scored two touchdowns on the ground and threw for another as the Giants won the title. He explained his running technique to McLemore this way: “I just sorta roll with those big guys’ tackles like a fighter does with a punch on the jaw. I make it a point never to meet one of those guys head on. I duck ’em, like you would a train.”

Except for one time, when his competitiveness got the best of him and he sank his helmet into the stomach of Bronko Nagurski, the Bears’ block of granite. Nagurski’s alleged reply: “Mickey Mouse, you better watch where you’re going, else you’re going to hurt somebody.”

FYI: Smith’s listed weight of 148 might have been a bit on the high side. Dr. Harry March, the Giants’ first general manager, insisted Wee Willie was “about 140 stripped,” and McLemore joked: “Feed Willis Smith a dozen alligator pears, drape him in a double-breasted coat, give him the Dionne quintuplets to hold, and he might weigh all of 145 pounds.”

● Buddy Young, B, 1947-55 New York Yankees/Dallas Texans/Baltimore Colts — 5-4, 175. Young needs less of an introduction than the rest. After all, he’s in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Few backs in his era were more dangerous running, receiving and returning. Not only did he have world-class speed (10.5 for 100 meters), he had — there’s no denying this — a weird-shaped body to try to tackle. What a nightmare in the open field.

● Billy Cross, RB, 1951-53 Cardinals — 5-6, 151. In The Sporting News, Ed Prell described him as “almost as small as the midget Bill Veeck of the St. Louis Browns smuggled into baseball.”

“Little Billy” Cross

Whenever a sportswriter brought up Cross’ weight, Billy would be sure to say, smiling, “And that’s before a game.”

The kid was a terrific athlete, though, who at West Texas A&M high jumped 6-1 — seven inches above his height — and earned Little All-America honors as the quintessential scatback. In his second NFL game, he scored on an 18-yard run and a 39-yard pass against the Bears, and in his three seasons he averaged about 50 yards from scrimmage per Sunday. Pretty productive.

“When I’m going into a line and see a guy like [Hall of Famer] Arnie Weinmeister of the Giants,” Cross once said, “I know I’m not going through. He only outweighs me by 100 pounds. . . . But give me a little daylight, and the chase is on.”

● “Mini Mack” Herron, RB, 1973-75 Patriots/Falcons — 5-5, 170. Drugs derailed Herron’s career, but he’ll always have 1974. That was the season he set an NFL record for all-purpose yards (2,444), tied for third in the league in touchdowns (12) and also ranked high in yards from scrimmage (1,298, seventh), punt return yards (517, second), punt return average (14.8, fourth) and several other categories. He and fullback Sam “Bam” Cunningham were quite a combination in the New England backfield.

● Lionel “Little Train” James, RB-WR, 1984-88 Chargers — 5-6, 171. In 1985 James became the first NFL running back to rack up 1,000 receiving yards in a season — 1,027 to be exact. (Later the same afternoon, the 49ers’ Roger Craig became the second.) Just one back has gained more (Marshall Faulk, 1,048 with the Super Bowl-winning ’99 Rams).

And Sproles makes 11. My own personal Mount Rushmore: Young, Sonnenberg, Sproles and Herron (what might have been).

Sources for statistics: pro-football-reference.com, Total Football.

At least NFL players don’t do THIS anymore

When female football fans in the ’50s and ’60s said Frank Gifford was “smokin’,” they probably weren’t referring to this. Here’s Faultless Frank, as Howard Cosell loved to call him, extolling the virtues of Lucky Strike cigarettes — and bringing his Giants teammates along for the ride:

You never want to beat yourself, unless . . .

Had Peyton Manning not sat out the last game of the 2004 season — except for the first three snaps, that is — he might have done something last year that hadn’t been done in two decades: break his own NFL season record.

Manning, you may recall, had 49 touchdown passes going into the ’04 finale at Denver. He’d topped Dan Marino’s mark of 48 the week before, so there was no compelling reason for him to run up the score, so to speak — especially since the Colts had already clinched their division and had no shot at a first-round bye. So after the first series against the Broncos, coach Tony Dungy played it safe and replaced him with Jim Sorgi.

Three years later, the Patriots’ Tom Brady threw for 50 TDs to edge past Manning. And last season Manning threw for 55 to take the record back. But had Peyton gone the distance in the ’04 closer, he might well have thrown for several scores. Indeed, the following week in the playoffs, in a rematch with Denver, he threw for four in a 49-24 blowout. Could Brady have gotten to 52 or 53 – or more? I wouldn’t count on it.

Ah, what might have been. The last time a player broke his own NFL season record, according to my research, was in 1993, when the Packers’ Sterling Sharpe caught 112 passes, surpassing his own mark of 108 set in ’92. (The next year, the Vikings’ Cris Carter topped Sharpe by hauling in 122. So it goes in the receiving game.)

I’m not talking about any old records, by the way. I’m talking about records that fans care about (at least a little). We seem to be at the point in pro football history where this sort of thing – self-erasure – is getting incredibly hard to do.

It wasn’t always thus. In the ’30s and ’40s, another Packers receiver – the iconic Don Hutson – upped his own record nine times in various categories (receptions, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, points scored). Of course, the passing game was still in its infancy then, and Green Bay was one of the few teams that made effective use of it.

Nowadays, though, one record-breaking season appears to be all a player has in him. Take the Saints’ Drew Brees, for instance. Three years ago he threw for 5,476 yards to blow by Marino’s longstanding mark of 5,084. In 2012, however, despite a fabulous effort with a 7-9 team, he fell 299 yards short of his record. Now that he’s 35, he might never get that close again.

Maybe this is another way we can measure greatness: Was a guy good enough to break his own season mark? The list of players who’ve done it since — World War II — is fairly short:

● RB Steve Van Buren*, Eagles (rushing yards) — 1,008 in 1946 (old mark: 1,004), 1,146 in ’49.

● E Tom Fears*, Rams (receptions) — 77 in 1949 (old mark: 74), 84 in ’50.

● K Lou Groza*, Browns (field goals) — 13 in 1950 (old mark: 12 by drop-kicker Paddy Driscoll of the Bears in ’26), 19 in ’52, 23 in ’53. (Yes, he broke his own record twice.)

● RB Jim Brown*, Browns (rushing yards) — 1,527 in 1958 (old mark: 1,146), 1,863 in ’63.

● QB Y.A. Tittle*, Giants (touchdown passes) — 33 in ’62 (old mark: 32), 36 in ’63.

Note: George Blanda tossed 36 TD passes for the Houston Oilers in 1961. But I’m excluding the pre-merger (1960-66) AFL from this discussion, even though the NFL includes the league’s statistics in its record book. It just wasn’t as good a league in the early years (much as I enjoyed it).

● QB Dan Fouts*, Chargers (passing yards) — 4,082 in 1979 (old mark: 4,007), 4,715 in ’80, 4,802 in ’81.

Note: The record Fouts broke in ’79 was set by the Jets’ Joe Namath in a 14-game season. So he didn’t really break it, not if you go by per-game average (255.1 for Dan vs. 286.2 for Broadway Joe). But his ’80 (294.7) and ’81 (300.1) averages were better than Namath’s.

● WR Sterling Sharpe, Packers (receptions) — 108 in 1992 (old mark: 106), 112 in ’93.

* Hall of Fame

As you can see, the only one of the Select Seven who isn’t in the Hall is Sharpe, whose career was cut short by injury. He may yet make it as a Veterans Candidate, though. After all, he did put up some impressive numbers in just seven seasons (595 catches, 8,134 yards, 65 TDs, 5 Pro Bowls).

Anyway, it’s something for the Lions’ Calvin Johnson to think about as he attempts to climb Mount 2,000.

Sources: The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia, pro-football-reference.com

When soccer invaded football

A fairly noteworthy 50^th anniversary is coming up — on Sept. 13, to be exact. It’ll be interesting to see how much attention is paid to it. On that date in 1964, in the Bills’ opener against the Chiefs, Pete Gogolak kicked the first soccer-style field goal in pro football history. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of too many developments in the game that have been more impactful than that.

Contrary to popular belief, Gogolak, who went to Cornell, wasn’t the original sidewinder, as they were called in those days. Others had preceded him in the college ranks, including Fred Bednarski at Texas, Evan Paoletti at tiny Huron (S.D.) College and Walt Doleschal at Lafayette. They all had a similar story: They’d spent their early years in Europe playing soccer, been displaced by World War II — or its turbulent aftermath — and sought sanctuary in the U.S. Not for a second did they ever think they’d revolutionize This Strange American Game.

“I couldn’t believe what these people were doing — fighting each other!” Bednarski once told me of his first football impressions. It’s a miracle, really, that Fred ever made it to America. He was 5 when the Nazis uprooted his family from Poland and dumped them in a labor camp in Salzburg, Austria. The living conditions there bordered on inhuman.

“In the wintertime, we had to melt snow just to have enough water to wash up,” Bednarski said. “There was only one toilet at the end of the barracks. In our room we had two families — ours and an older couple. We used a blanket to separate us. There were triple-decker beds, no mattresses. We slept on straw with a sheet over it.”

As for food, “It was really kind of a slow starvation. We were just lucky to be liberated by the Americans when we were. My mother weighed about 75, 80 pounds at the end of the war.”

In 1957 Bednarski booted what’s believed to be the first soccer-style field goal in college ball — a 38-yarder against Arkansas. But he, Paoletti and Doleschal are largely forgotten because, unlike Gogolak, they never made it to the pros. It’s a terrible injustice, because their innovation continues to have a profound effect on football.

Consider: In ’57, the year Bednarski made history, NFL kickers — all of them using their toes instead of the side of their foot — were successful on 52.2 percent of their field goal tries. Last season they made 86.5 percent (and were good on 67.1 from 50 yards and beyond).

The goal posts have been moved from the goal line to the back of the end zone . . . and it hasn’t mattered; the percentages keep going up. Indeed, most of the scoring rise in the league in recent years is due to kickers being more accurate, not offenses scoring more touchdowns.

Then, too, kickers are now specialists, among the most important members of any team. In the ’50s, when rosters were much smaller, they tended to be position players who were versatile enough to handle two jobs.

And it all began — in the pros, at least — 50 years ago with Pete Gogolak stepping back at Buffalo’s War Memorial Stadium and side-footing through a 13-yarder to give the Bills an early 3-0 lead in Week 1. Two seasons and 47 field goals later, Gogolak was in such demand that he jumped leagues and joined the Giants, a signing that intensified the AFL-NFL war and helped bring about the merger.

Yes, soccer-style kicking has made a huge mark on the game, though you don’t often hear someone express that opinion very loudly. This is, after all, American football, not the kind that’s so popular on the other side of the pond. It’s no coincidence that only one pure kicker, Jan Stenerud, has found his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Maybe we’ll bat that subject around someday.

Sources: pro-football-reference, The National Forgotten League, The Associated Press.

PRO FOOTBALL DALY

The whole 100 yards — and sometimes the end zones, too.