Tucked between Veterans Day and Thanksgiving on my football calendar (which would be available in our gift shop if this website had a gift shop) is another notable occasion: Chuck Bednarik Day. It was on this date in 1960 that Bednarik, uh, waylaid Frank Gifford at Yankee Stadium — a Hall of Famer vs. Hall of Famer collision that put The Giffer out of the game for more than a year.
If it isn’t the biggest hit in pro football history, it’s certainly one of the two or three finalists. When Frank returned to the Giants in ’62, it was as a wide receiver, not a running back.
Let’s relive that moment, shall we?
It’s amazing, after watching the clip, that Bednarik was accused by some — though not the Giants — of cheap-shotting Gifford. It was a clean, if high, tackle. The reason Frank was so vulnerable, running so upright, was that he never saw Chuck coming from behind.
Bednarik also got grief for his celebratory jig — with the concussed Gifford lying lifelessly at his feet — but he always claimed it was a victory dance. The Eagles, after all, recovered Frank’s fumble and were on the verge of a 17-10 win. It was a huge play in their (last) championship season.
Here’s some other footage of the hit that gives us a little more of the aftermath. You’ll notice, at the 1:33 mark, that Bednarik spends a fraction of a second exulting — if you want to call it that — then goes to the scene of the recovery. At the end of the clip he looks back at Gifford, who still hasn’t moved.
I side with Bednarik on this one. Why? Well, check out his very similar victory dance after the clock ran out in the title game against the Packers five weeks later:
Seems Bednarik, unlike most players in his era, was a demonstrative guy. Ahead of his time, you might say. So he was both a throwback (going both ways in ’60) and a Man of the Future. Interesting contradiction.
[Linebacker] was where Bednarik was always at his best. He could intercept a pass with a single meat hook and tackle with the cold-blooded efficiency of a sniper. ”Dick Butkus was the one who manhandled people,” says Tom Brookshier, the loquacious former Eagle cornerback. ”Chuck just snapped them down like rag dolls.”
It was a style that left Frank Gifford for dead, and New York seething, in 1960, and it made people everywhere forget that Concrete Charlie, for all his love of collisions, played the game in a way that went beyond the purely physical. ”He was probably the most instinctive football player I’ve ever seen,” says Maxie Baughan, a rookie linebacker with the Eagles in Bednarik’s whole-schmear season. Bednarik could see a guard inching one foot backward in preparation for a sweep or a tight end setting up just a little farther from the tackle than normal for a pass play. Most important, he could think along with the best coaches in the business.
And the coaches didn’t appreciate that, which may explain the rude goodbye that the Dallas Cowboys’ Tom Landry tried to give Bednarik in ’62. First the Cowboys ran a trap, pulling a guard and running a back through the hole. ”Chuck was standing right there,” Brookshier says. ”Almost killed the guy.” Next the Cowboys ran a sweep behind that same pulling guard, only to have Bednarik catch the ballcarrier from behind. ”Almost beheaded the guy,” Brookshier says. Finally the Cowboys pulled the guard, faked the sweep and threw a screen pass. Bednarik turned it into a two-yard loss. ”He had such a sense for the game,” Brookshier says. ”You could do all that shifting and put all those men in motion, and Chuck still went right where the ball was.”
From the Eagles media guide in 1960, the season Bednarik and Gifford intersected.
Spent the better part of the morning trying to put together sets of Triplets — quarterback, running back, receiver — who share the same last name (even if they didn’t play on the same club or in the same era). There was no fudging allowed, either. For instance, you couldn’t try to team Kerry Collins with Cris Collinsworth or Trent Green with BenJarvus Green-Ellis or, heaven forbid, Rob Gronkowski with Bruce Gradkowski. The receiver could, however, be a wideout or a tight end. The rules weren’t totally inflexible.
Anyway, it was harder than I thought it would be. There just aren’t many surnames that are very common in NFL/AFL history. I almost hurled my laptop, Frisbee style, when I was two-thirds of the way to paydirt with Jim and Leroy Kelly — Hall of Famers both — but couldn’t come up with a receiver any better than Reggie, the underwhelming tight end for the Bengals and Falcons.
Smith is another one. You’d think that would be a gimmie — Emmitt at running back, Jerry (or Jimmy or Steve or Rod or Jerry) at receiver and . . . good luck finding a quarterback worth a darn.
If you work at it, though, you can dig up some nice threesomes. Here are my nominees for:
Only a few of these guys didn’t make at least one Pro Bowl or — in the case of pre-Pro Bowl players — all-pro team. Flipper Anderson didn’t, for example, but, hey, he holds the record for receiving yards in a game (336). In fact, he’s held it for 25 years, which is pretty remarkable considering how long receiving marks tend to last. And granted, Scott Mitchell was nothing special as a quarterback, but he did throw 32 touchdown passes one year for the Lions.
The first three listed are my gold, silver and bronze medalists. As for the others, you can order them however you like. I’m not sure it makes much difference. It’s kind of cool, by the way, that
Spec Sanders
Dub and Bert Jones are a father-son pairing. Dub, of course, is one of three NFL players to score six TDs in a game.
One last thing: I was fibbing about the no-fudging rule. Spec Sanders wasn’t technically a quarterback; he was a single-wing tailback for the New York Yankees of the All-America Conference in the ’40s. (He did play one season in the NFL, however, and intercepted 13 passes as a DB to lead the league.)
I included Spec because in 1947 he had one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time, throwing for 1,442 yards and 14 touchdowns and rushing for 1,432 yards and 18 TDs. (In his spare time, he ran a kickoff back 92 yards for another score.)
One day I spent a couple of hours on the phone with him, reminiscing about his playing days. He was utterly self-effacing, not the least bit impressed with his football feats. Just makes me want to keep his name alive.
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.
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.
Good thing Peyton Manning snapped out of it after throwing two early interceptions against the Raiders, otherwise the overreactive media would have started to paint pictures like this:
By the way, I think we should put a bow on Ryan Fitzpatrick’s career as a starting QB.
Record as a starter: 31-54-1
Number of NFL teams that started him: 5
Number of winning seasons: 0
Most wins in one season: 6
Career: 117 touchdown passes, 101 picks, 28 lost fumbles, 185 sacks, 78.4 rating
Here’s why I brought this up. . . . Has anyone started 85 NFL games and won less than Fitzpatrick? We know Joey Harrington finished 26-50 and David Carr finished 23-56 . . . but did anyone win a lower percentage of 85 or more games than Fitzpatrick’s minus-23?
Fortunately, Grantland has one of the best editorial assistants/competitive eaters in the world: the one and only Danny Chau. Here’s what Danny found out: Only one player in football since 1920 has won less than Fitzpatrick after starting at least 85 games, a 5-foot-9 quarterback named Eddie “The Little General” LeBaron, who had a 26-52-3 record from 1952 to 1963.
Actually, if you study the information provided by The Competitive Eater (courtesy of pro-football-reference.com), you’ll see this isn’t true. Two other quarterbacks besides LeBaron started “at least 85 games” and had “a lower winning percentage” than Fitzpatrick — and two more had percentages that were nearly as bad. The list should read like this:
Years
Quarterback
Teams
W
L
T
Pct
1971-84
Archie Manning
Saints, Oilers, Vikings
35
101
3
.263
1952-63
Eddie LeBaron
Redskins, Cowboys
26
52
3
.340
1961-76
Norm Snead
Redskins, Eagles, Vikings, Giants, 49ers
52
99
7
.351
2005-14
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Rams, Bengals, Bills, Titans, Texans
31
54
1
.366
1987-99
Chris Miller
Falcons, Rams, Broncos
34
58
0
.370
1990-2001
Jeff George
Colts, Falcons, Raiders, Vikings, Redskins
46
78
0
.371
Note: The data lists LeBaron as having 85 starts but credits him with only 81 decisions.
Another way of looking at it, of course, is:
George (1990) was the first pick in the draft.
Manning (1971) and Snead (1961) were the second.
Miller (1987) was the 13th.
And LeBaron (123rd, 1950) and Fitzpatrick (250th, 2005), the two outliers, have the least explaining to do.
And another way of looking at it is to say: For goodness sakes, whatever happened to context? Eddie “The Little General” LeBaron and Ryan Fitzpatrick have almost nothing in common except
Two Redskins lineman hoist Eddie LeBaron.
their position. LeBaron was one of the better quarterbacks of his era, a four-time Pro Bowler who was a magician as a ball-faker and even did some punting (averaging 40.9 yards on 171 kicks). He just had the misfortune of spending his first seven seasons with the Redskins (whose bigoted owner, George Preston Marshall, wouldn’t sign black players) and his last four with the expansion Cowboys.
Pro-football-reference.com lists LeBaron at 5-foot-9, but the Cowboys media guide in 1963, his final season, puts him at 5-7. When he retired, he was 13th in NFL/AFL history in both passing yards (13,399) and touchdown passes (104). Those totals may not seem like much today, but the ’50s and early ’60s were a much different time.
Some of LeBaron’s individual seasons were outstanding. In 1957 (86.1) and ’58 (83.3) he finished second to Colts Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas in passer rating. In ’62 he led the league (95.4). That was the year he might have played his most amazing game. In a 42-27 win over the Steelers in Pittsburgh, he threw for five touchdowns in a mere 15 attempts while rotating at QB with Don Meredith. Repeat: He threw for five TDs despite playing only about half the game. Here’s Pat Livingston writing about it in The Pittsburgh Press:
Can you imagine anybody calling Ryan Fitzpatrick “a brilliant old pro who happens to be one of the most underrated performers in pro football”? So again, a little context, please. Fitzpatrick and LeBaron in the same sentence? They’re not even in the same universe. Going into this season, Fitzpatrick had never had a year when his passer rating was higher than the league average.
Yup, The Little General could play. And Fitzpatrick, the Harvard grad, will appreciate this: While Eddie was with the Redskins, he got his law degree at George Washington and practiced law in Dallas — that is, when he wasn’t busy throwing five touchdown passes in half a game.
The Raiders’ talks with San Antonio officials are one of the great dog-bites-man stories of the season. This is the franchise, after all, that divorced Oakland in 1982, shacked up with Los Angeles for 13 years, Lost That Lovin’ Feeling and remarried Oakland. And now, of course, the Raiders want a nice, new stadium, just like the 49ers have, and are hoping for a Public Handout to accomplish this objective. The San Antonio flirtation is supposed to expedite things, but we’ll see how badly the city wants to keep this shipwreck of a football team.
Forgotten fact: In January 1961, after their very first season in the AFL, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Raiders had been sold to a group headed by White Sox owner Bill Veeck, who planned to have them play at Comiskey Park. The stadium had lost its football tenant when the Cardinals moved to St. Louis the year before, and Veeck and his partners were looking for another renter.
On Jan. 14, this headline topped the front page of the Chicago Tribune sports section:
Here’s the gist of the story:
The story made sense on many levels, not the least being that the Raiders had lost an estimated $270,000 in their inaugural season and had major stadium issues. They’d played their first four home games at Kezar Stadium, home of the NFL’s 49ers, and their last three at Candlestick Park, home of the baseball Giants.
A day later, everybody was denying everything. Raiders owner Wayne Valley said, “It’s the first I’ve heard of it, and it’s completely untrue. It’s a shot in the dark.” And Veeck said, “We would like to have a tenant for Comiskey Park in the offseason, but I wouldn’t go as far as buying Oakland to get one.”
The Oakland Tribune began its story thusly:
Making one of the quickest trips on record, the Oakland Raiders of the American Football League today moved to Chicago and within a couple of hours were back in Oakland.
How did the Chicago paper get it wrong? Well, the reporter either jumped the gun, had unreliable sources or . . . there was one other possible scenario, suggested by United Press International: When AFL owners, meeting in Houston, first heard the report, “a spokesman said they ‘appeared to be amused by it — especially its origin in Chicago on the same day the Chicago Bears lost one of their key players to the AFL,’” the wire service reported. (Translation: George Halas, or one of his operatives, planted the story to rile the rival league.)
The player was receiver Willard Dewveall, who had played out his option with the Bears and signed with the AFL’s Oilers. Dewveall wasn’t a superstar, but he’d totaled 804 receiving yards in 1960, seventh best in the league, and was the first recognizable NFL player to jump to the AFL.
It would have been fun to see what would have happened if Veeck had gotten hold of the franchise. This was the iconoclast, after all, who once sent a midget up to bat for the St. Louis Browns, the guy who gave us the exploding scoreboard. But the Raiders managed all right under Valley and Al Davis in Oakland, even if they have always had an eye out for greener pastures.
New York’s secret was no secret — just the long pass. They scored all their points from outside our 20 and all through the air. Powell, New York’s spread end, made his touchdowns on a sideline-and-up and on a post pattern.
From where I sat it looked like his post pattern was not called in the huddle, and he confirmed this to the writers later. As he was running some other pattern downfield, our deep backs switched off to what was supposed to be a zone or switch-off between safety man and corner man. But our backs got confused and Powell adjusted his pattern into a post, hoping that [quarterback Lee] Grosscup would have enough time to spot the change. Lee did . . . and hit Art with a beautiful throw which put New York out in front 28 to 10.
The accompanying diagram:
On Sept. 15, with the Raiders off that week, Flores weighed in on the 49ers. One thing he touched on was the halfback option play:
Now that Bill Kilmer has been moved to running back [from quarterback], a new weapon will be introduced: the run-or-pass option. This play, with the right person running it, can be one of the most dangerous in football. [Frank] Gifford of the Giants and [Paul] Hornung of the Packers are perfectionists of this play.
It starts out like an end sweep, except the flanker, instead of blocking, fakes in as if he were going to block and then runs a corner pattern. The halfback runs it like he would any normal end sweep, only he has his eye on his flanker and the deep defensive back on that sideline. If the defensive back reads “run” and shoots up . . ., the halfback slows up and throws a nice soft pass so the flanker can run under it as he cuts to the corner.
Should the deep back read “pass” and stay with the flanker, all the halfback has to do is yell “go” and his guards will turn upfield as they would on an end sweep.
Two days later, following the Niners’ 30-14 loss to the Bears, Flores wrote about Chicago’s pass rush, which registered seven sacks for 64 yards and was essentially the story of the game:
[The Bears] had linebackers running in and out of spots in the line all day long, and most of the time they ended their assignments in [QB] John Brodie’s lap. Bill George, the great middle linebacker, and Joe Fortunato, outside linebacker, kept the 49er[s] offense confused. From a regular pro-type defense with four big men up on the line of scrimmage, they would jitterbug back and forth from various spots along the line and on the snap of the ball go shooting through on either side of the defensive tackles or ends. . . . On 90 percent, or so it seemed, of their defensive plays they shot at least one backer but more often two or three.
They used several types of defensive setups. One in particular seemed to really give the 49ers a rough time. On this defense George would get into the line in a regular lineman’s stance, and the rest of the linemen on the split end side would move out a couple of feet.
This left giant end Doug Atkins (6-8) outside the offensive tackle, and man did he come hard. He and Brodie got to know each other pretty well on a not-so-friendly basis.
On Oct. 1, Flores analyzed a 91-yard pick-six by cornerback Fred Williamson that had given the Raiders a 14-7 lead over the Chargers (in a game they ultimately lost, 42-33):
Fred actually intercepted a pass thrown for another man’s receiver. It went like this. San Diego lined up in a slot-right formation with [Don] Norton spread far out and [Lance] Alworth flanked inside, between Norton and the tackle. As the ball was centered, the outside man, Norton, ran up the field and curled in toward the middle, ending up in a deep hook pattern, at about 15 yards. Williamson went with him and had him covered.
The flanker, meanwhile, ran downfield and cut toward the sideline behind Norton at about 10 yards. This was [safety Vern] Valdez’s man, and he was right behind him ready to go for the ball. On the release of the ball, Fred left his man and went for the interception, cutting in front of Alworth. Somehow, Fred made a leaping catch that almost sent him to the turf, maintained his balance while he struggled to stay inbounds and then turned on his fine speed and outran the remaining Chargers who were coming over to lend a helping hand.
I could go on, but I’ll wrap it up with Flores’ Dec. 10 column. The 49ers had played Vince Lombardi’s Packers tough in a 31-21 defeat — they were up 21-10 at the half — and Tom was impressed with an offensive wrinkle they came up with for Green Bay, one that enabled Brodie to complete 13 of 15 passes in the first half (against a defense, I’ll just remind you, with five Hall of Famers):
The Niners came out with a new type of spread formation that gave the Packers fits the entire first half. With both ends tight, the flanker would spread to either side. On that side the tight end would spread out just about five yards and the halfback would slot in between the end and the tackle. This left only the fullback in the backfield in his regular position behind the quarterback.
From this formation the 49ers did several things. They would send the fullback in motion away from the strength, quick-toss to the fullback to the strength, fake a reverse to the halfback and throw a pass or give to the halfback on the reverse.
Clearly, Flores’ talents went beyond quarterbacking and coaching. His analysis in his Monday Morning Quarterback column was far ahead of its time — good enough to pass muster today. Even the Tribune’s diagrams, though primitive, painted a decent picture of pro football in the early ’60s.
The record book says the last scoreless tie in the NFL was played Nov. 7, 1943 — 71 years ago today — when the Giants and Lions battled pointlessly in the rain and mud of Briggs Stadium. But I say it happened about two decades later, when the Giants’ Frank Gifford and the Eagles’ Timmy Brown competed against each another on “Password,” the popular TV game show, and posted zeroes in the second round:
You’ve gotta admit, that segment was every bit as exciting as, well, a 0-0 deadlock. By the way, how beautiful is it that Brown’s partner was Betty White? No one would have believed in the ’60s that fair Betty would go on to do a Snickers commercial in which she got flattened trying to catch a pass in a touch football game — a game played in conditions, you’ll notice, much like the “last” scoreless tie between the Giants and Lions in 1943.
If only Abe Vigoda had been teamed with Gifford on “Password.”
