The streaking Patriots

It’s easier to lose seven straight games in the NFL than it is to win seven straight. If you doubt this, click on these two links. You’ll see there have been 52 regular-season winning streaks of seven games or longer in the 2000s — and 69 losing streaks of the same length.

Indeed, the Bucs, now in their 39th year, have never reeled off seven victories in a row, not even the season they won the Super Bowl. The Browns, meanwhile, haven’t had a seven-gamer since ’68, and the Bengals (‘73) and Cardinals (’74) haven’t put one together in nearly as long.

I point this out because the Patriots are on their annual seven-game roll. Well, maybe not annual, but they’ve certainly been Frequent Streakers in the Belichick-Brady Era. This is their seventh run of seven games or more; a couple of times, they didn’t stop until they reached 21 and 18.

The only other team in the 2000s that’s had more than four such streaks is Peyton Manning’s team. Manning had five with the Colts, and has added a sixth — a 17-gamer — with the Broncos.

A look at the Patriots’ streaks (which become even more impressive when you realize that no other club in the AFC East has had even one in the 2000s):

PATRIOTS’ REGULAR-SEASON WINNING STREAKS OF 7 OR MORE SINCE 2000

Games	Years	Result	Broken By, Score
21	2006-08	Lost Super Bowl in ’07	Dolphins, 38-13
18	2003-04	Won Super Bowl in ’03 & ’04	Steelers, 34-20
10	2010-11	Lost first playoff game in ’10	Bills, 34-31
9	2011-12	Lost Super Bowl in ’11	Cardinals, 20-18
9	2001-02	Won Super Bowl in ’01	Chargers, 21-14
7	2012	Lost AFC title game	49ers, 41-34
7	2014	TBD	TBD

The rest of the league: Colts (5 streaks of seven or better), Packers (4), Chargers (3), Seahawks (3), Vikings (3), Bears (2), Chiefs (2), Eagles (2), Falcons (2), 49ers (2), Panthers (2), Rams (2), Saints (2), Steelers (2), Titans (2), Broncos (1), Cowboys (1), Giants (1), Lions (1), Ravens (1), Redskins (1), Texans (1).

Teams that haven’t had a seven-game streak in the 2000s: Bengals, Bills, Browns, Bucs, Cardinals, Dolphins, Jaguars, Jets, Raiders.

How do the Patriots stack up against other teams over the decades led by Hall of Fame quarterbacks? Pretty favorably — keeping in mind, of course, that Brady is in his 13^th full season as a starter (Roger Staubach was the Cowboys’ QB of record for just nine) and that schedules are now 16 games (Sid Luckman never played more than 12).

MOST WINNING STREAKS OF 7 GAMES OR MORE, REGULAR SEASON

Years	Quarterback, Team	7+ Streaks
2001-14	Tom Brady’s Patriots	7
1999-10	Peyton Manning’s Colts	6
1980-90	Joe Montana’s 49ers	6
1946-55	Otto Graham’s Browns	6*
1992-07	Brett Favre’s Packers	4
1991-99	Steve Young’s 49ers	4
1983-98	John Elway’s Broncos	4
1970-82	Terry Bradshaw’s Steelers	4
1971-79	Roger Staubach’s Cowboys	4
1967-80	Bob Griese’s Dolphins	4
1956-72	Johnny Unitas’ Colts	4
1939-50	Sid Luckman’s Bears	4

*Includes years in the All-America Conference (1946-49).

Note: “Years” denotes the span of seasons the quarterback was the team’s starter. Obviously, a QB didn’t get credit for a streak unless he started all or virtually all of the games. (Backup Earl Morrall, for instance, filled in for the injured Unitas when the Colts won eight straight in ’68 – and did likewise for Griese when the Dolphins went undefeated in ’72.)

In case you were wondering, Bart Starr’s Packers had a mere two runs of seven games or longer during the Lombardi years (1959-67) — which just shows how much more competitive the NFL was back then. We’re talking, after all, about arguably the greatest dynasty in pro football history.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Joe Morgan: Bang for the touch

If you’re a frequenter of this site, you know I’m always on the lookout for the oddball game — the “snowflake.” Saints wide receiver Joe Morgan had one of the all timers Monday night against the Ravens.

Here’s what Morgan did the first time he touched the ball:

And here’s what he did the second time he touched the ball: That’s it. There was no third time he touched the ball. He finished with one rush for 67 yards and one reception for 62. Do the math and you get 129 yards from scrimmage — again, on two touches. That’s insane. It’s also something no one else has done since at least 1960.

In fact, only eight other players in that period have had even a 20-yard gain both rushing and receiving, never mind a 60-yarder, in a two-touch game. It’s just really unusual. (Note: I’ve excluded anybody who might have returned a punt or kickoff in the same game. I’m being strict about this: two touches — period.)

ONE RUSH FOR 20+ YARDS, ONE RECEPTION FOR 20+ YARDS IN A GAME

Date	Player, Team	Opponent	Rush	Catch	Total
11-24-14	WR Joe Morgan,Saints	Ravens	67	62	129
12-12-71	WR Mel Gray, Cardinals	Eagles	38	80*	118
9-3-95	WR Leslie Shepherd, Redskins	Cardinals	26	73*	99
10-1-00	WR Eddie Kennison, Bears	Packers	52	21	73
12-17-60	RB Nyle McFarlane, Raiders	Broncos	23	49*	72
11-2-03	WR Donald Driver, Packers	Vikings	45	26	71
11-15-09	WR Robert Meachem, Saints	Rams	41	27*	68
11-10-96	WR Rocket Ismail, Panthers	Giants	35	30	65
11-2-80	WR Leonard Thompson, Lions	49ers	30	30	60

*touchdown

(In a 1981 game against the Saints, the Cardinals’ Roy Green had one rush for 44 yards, one reception for 28 and one interception for 29. A performance like that certainly deserves mention, even if the pick disqualifies him from this list.)

What makes Morgan’s night all the sweeter is that touches have been so rare for him in his two NFL seasons. He’s had just 14 — 12 catches, 2 rushes. But he’s gotten a lot of yardage out of those opportunities, including 10 gains of more than 25 yards. Average gain on receptions and rushes combined: 36.9 yards (14/516).

Nobody does that. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Joe Morgan.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The Saints’ Joe Morgan doing what he does best, making big plays.

36 points, 37 penalties

Rarely do two things of historical significance happen in the same game. But it’s great when they do — such as in the Browns’ 42-21 win over the Bears on Nov. 25, 1951.

For starters, Cleveland back Dub Jones scored six touchdowns, tying the record he now shares with Ernie Nevers (1929) and Gale Sayers (1965). Even more amazing: He scored the last five times he touched the ball. While Jones was running amok, though, the teams were racking up a combined 37 penalties for 374 yards, two more records. The normally disciplined Browns were hit with 209 yards (yet another mark that has since been broken), the typically rowdy Bears 165. Sounds like the guys might have gotten a little, uh, vindictive.

In his story for The Plain Dealer, Harold Sauerbrei wrote:

It is merely in strict adherence to good reporting, not the intention to question the officiating, to record that the Browns were assessed 299 [sic] yards for 21 “infractions.”

In one series of downs with the Bears on the offensive, the Browns three times were charged with 15 yards for a personal foul. Two of them nullified intercepted passes, the second of which was returned 94 yards to an apparent touchdown by Don Shula.

Wait, that’s a third thing of historical significance that happened in the game. Shula had a 94-yard TD wiped out that, had it stood, would have been the only score of his NFL career.

No wonder his Colts and Dolphins clubs were so penalty-averse.

Sideline extracurriculars

From the look of the things, 49ers wideout Anquan Boldin and Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett exchanged some Hard Consonants on the Washington sideline Sunday. They may even have uttered a few vowels.

Late in the game, as you can see in this clip, Boldin was driven out of bounds by cornerback Greg Ducre and free safety Trenton Robinson after a 10-yard catch. When he “pushed,” as he put it, one of the defenders off him, lips started flapping. Line judge Byron Boston actually stepped between principals to make sure the situation didn’t escalate.

The 49ers’ Anquan Boldin and Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett debate the proper way to baste a turkey.

Afterward, Boldin claimed to be unaware of what set Haslett off. “A guy tried to hit me late on the sideline,” he said, “and I pushed him off. [Haslett] had some words for whatever reason. I don’t even give that a second thought. He don’t . . . he’s irrelevant.”

(For the record, Haslett was the 51^st pick in the ’79 draft, a linebacker out of Indiana (Pa.) taken by the Bills. Mr. Irrelevant, who went 279 picks later to the Steelers, was wide receiver Mike Almond from Northwest Louisiana.)

I bring all this up for a couple of reasons: 1. Who doesn’t love a little sideline flare-up, be it inter-team or intra-team? 2. These episodes can involve so much more than just foul language.

In fact, long before Haslett joined the Bills, a Buffalo coach was accused of punching an opposing quarterback after he’d run out of bounds. It allegedly happened in a 1961 game against the New York Titans — whose descendants, the Jets, meet the Bills tonight in Detroit (thanks to the avalanche of snow that fell on Orchard Park last week).

The coach was Buster Ramsey, a crusty former all-pro guard with the Chicago Cardinals. The quarterback was Al Dorow, one of the better scramblers in that period. And the owner who leveled the charge against Ramsey was Harry Wismer, the famous sportscaster who owned the Titans (back in the days when franchises could be bought out of petty cash). Here’s The New York Times’ description of the incident:

Sounds like a nasty game, doesn’t it? And AFL Commissioner Joe Foss — this was before the league had merged with the NFL — had a ringside seat.

Anyway, the Times said Ramsey “shoved” Dorow — which was bad enough, I suppose. But Wismer upped the ante, claiming Ramsey “slugged” his QB “and cost us the game,” which the Bills wound up winning 41-31.

Dorow seconded the motion, saying, “Ramsey was the first one on me and knocked me down with a punch. A player cannot lay his hands on an official and certainly a coach should not be permitted to punch a rival player.”

(I’m not sure what the word “rival” is doing there. Is Al suggesting it was OK in that era for a coach to punch his own player?)

It only got worse. When the Bills sent the Titans a copy of the game film, Wismer accused them of splicing out the fight. He fired off a wire to Buffalo general manager Dick Gallagher — that Gallagher released to the media – that read: “Received doctored up film of Titan[s]-Buffalo game. Amazed you would cut out episode of Ramsey slugging our quarterback Dorow.”

Gallagher’s reply: “Film shipped intact. Nothing cut out. Shocked at your accusation.”

Wismer was having none of that. “The film they sent us shows Ramsey going for Dorow,” he told The Associated Press. “Just about the time he gets to him, the scene shifts. They say they didn’t cut it. I say the fight isn’t in the film. Dorow got hit on the side of the jaw by Ramsey, and he will testify so.”

But beyond that, he went on, “Coaches are supposed to stop trouble, not start it. Ramsey’s actions in Buffalo could have incited a riot.”

The Titans owner went as far as to demand a lifetime ban for Ramsey — or at the very least a suspension. The Bills coach, meanwhile, continued to maintain his innocence. “I did not swing at Al Dorow or any other New York player,” he said. “Harry Wismer’s statement that I did substantiates a belief I have long held . . . that he is full of hot air.”

How great was pro football in the ’60s?

Dorow got such a going over in the Buffalo bench area, the Times reported later in the week, that the team physician, Dr. James Nicholas, “said it was extremely doubtful that [he] would be able to play against Denver.” The most severe of the quarterback’s injuries, Nicholas said, was a “lumbar-sacral strain, which left him with a weakness in one leg.”

Lumbar-sacral strain or not, Dorow did indeed play the next Sunday against the Broncos, throwing three touchdown passes in a 35-28 New York win. As for Ramsey, he wasn’t suspended and probably wasn’t even fined. The AP put the matter to bed this way:

That wasn’t quite the end of it, though. The teams still had to play each other again on Thanksgiving at the Polo Grounds. In the days leading up to the game, Wismer asked the New York police commissioner to put a detail behind the Buffalo bench to maintain the peace. “We still remember the terrific beating Dorow took at the hands of Ramsey and the Buffalo players in the game at Buffalo Sept. 17,” he said.

The Titans took the rematch 21-14, with Dorow tossing for one TD and running for another. Best of all, everybody lived to tell about it – though, if you examine the box score, you’ll see Dorow was sacked six times for 66 yards. That can’t be good for the lumbar-sacral area.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Snow in Buffalo

The NFL has moved the Bills-Jets game to Detroit this week because the show, of course, must go on. Even when the president of the United States gets assassinated, the show must go on in pro football. In the current case, it’s due to an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Mother Nature, who dumped six feet of snow on Orchard Park and forced the Bills to find another venue. So the game will be played Monday night, not Sunday afternoon, and the site will be Ford Field, not Ralph Wilson Stadium.

It wasn’t always thus. In the days before TV mega-contracts, postponements and even cancellations were hardly unheard of. Sometimes all it took was slow sales ticket sales or the threat of bad weather to get owners to reschedule — or to bag the game entirely. Why don’t we revisit some of these episodes so you can get a better feel for The Way Things Were?

We begin with a couple of games in New York that were snowed out Dec. 5, 1926 — one between the Giants and Bears at the Polo Grounds, the other between the Brooklyn Horsemen and Duluth Eskimos at Ebbets Field. (And yes, I’m as surprised as anybody that a game involving the Eskimos could be snowed out.) Here’s how The New York Times reported it:

What’s interesting about the first game is that it was the second of back-to-backers for the Bears. They’d lost the day before to the Frankford Yellow Jackets in Philadelphia — their only loss of the season, it would turn out, and one that would leave them second behind the Yellow Jackets in the final standings. (This was before the league staged a title game to determine its champion.)

I’m kind of amazed George Halas, their owner/coach/end, didn’t insist that the game be played at a later date — for the New York payday as much as for the potential W. But as you can see from the Bears’ 1926 results, it was just canceled (though they did play twice more before calling it a season).

Then there was the time in 1936 the Eagles and Pirates (as the Steelers were called then) got the brilliant idea to move one of their games to Johnstown, Pa. Naturally, there was a flood that caused a postponement. Well, almost a flood. The Pittsburgh Press put it this way:

Two years later, Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney caused a stir by putting off a game against the Cleveland Rams because — brace yourself — he had too many players banged up. The Rams were none to pleased about it, as you can see in this Press story:

What’s interesting about this tempest in a leather helmet is that the teams wound up playing the game in December in New Orleans. It was the first NFL game ever played in the Big Easy. (Why New Orleans, you ask? Answer: During the Depression, clubs that didn’t draw well at home would play anywhere they could get a decent guarantee. The next year, the Rams played their season finale against the Eagles in Colorado Springs.

Moving along, in 1954 the Browns pushed their Oct. 3 home game against the Lions back to Dec. 19 because they weren’t sure if the Indians would need Cleveland Stadium for a World Series game against the New York Giants. (The Indians didn’t. The Giants completed their shocking sweep the day before.)

This created a bizarre situation. When the Browns and Lions finally did meet, all the other teams had completed their schedules — and Browns and Lions had already wrapped up their conference titles. So they played on consecutive Sundays in Cleveland . . . with the whole pro football world watching. The Lions won the first game 14-10, and the Browns won the one that really mattered 56-10. What’s that, a 50-point swing in the space of a week?

I could go on, but I’ll finish with the infamous Bills-Patriots postponement in 1961. The game was supposed to be played on a Friday night in Boston but, with Hurricane Gerda looming, was held over to Sunday. Almost predictably, Gerda ended up being the Brian Bosworth of storms — dozens of area high school contests went on as planned that night — and Buffalo coach Buster Ramsay was convinced the delay was “a deliberate attempt to upset my team. . . . A bush-league trick.”

The Patriots actually had to get the city council approval to reschedule to Sunday. They were using Boston University’s Field, you see, and BU didn’t have a permit for games on the Sabbath, according to The Boston Globe.

When the Bills and Pats finally did play, the weather — 35 degrees with 25-to-30 mph winds — was far worse than it had been Friday night. A mere 9,398 showed up to shiver, and Ramsey’s worst fears were realized: His club came out flat and fell behind 45-0 in a 52-21 loss.

At least we know Buffalo’s postponement this weekend wasn’t “a deliberate attempt to upset” the Jets. There’s real snow on the ground — alps of it. And it’s nice nobody had to go to the Detroit city council to get them to OK a Sunday game. Now Rex Ryan’s bunch just has to keep the Bills from running off to a 45-0 lead.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Sept. 28, 1942 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Jonas Gray Chart of the Day

First off, I’d like to thank NFL statisticians for making this post possible. On Monday morning it wasn’t — because, at that point, the Patriots’ Jonas Gray was credited with 38 carries for 199 yards in the 42-20 whupping of the Colts. On further review, however, Gray’s numbers were revised to 37 carries for 201 yards. This raises the question (since it happened with Jonas): How many times has a back’s first 100-yard rushing game been a 200-yard game?

I would have guessed a couple. To my shock, I came across eight other instances, including one in the Super Bowl.

BACKS WHOSE FIRST 100-YARD RUSHING GAME WAS A 200-YARD GAME

Date	Running Back, Team	Opponent	Att	Yds	Avg	TD	Prev. High
11-16-14	Jonas Gray, Patriots	Colts	37	201	5.4	4	86
10-23-11	DeMarco Murray, Cowboys	Rams	25	253	10.1	1	34
9-22-96	LeShon Johnson, Cardinals	Saints	21	214	10.2	2	42
10-14-90	Barry Word, Chiefs	Lions	18	200	11.1	2	31
1-31-88	Timmy Smith, Redskins	Broncos	22	204	9.3	2	72
11-30-87	Bo Jackson, Raiders	Seahawks	18	221	12.3	2	98
9-2-84	Gerald Riggs, Falcons	Saints	35	202	5.8	2	72
11-26-78	Terry Miller, Bills	Giants	21	208	9.9	2	97
12-16-56	Tommy Wilson, Rams	Packers	23	223	9.7	0	NA

Smith’s 200-yard game, of course, came in the Redskins’ 42-10 blowout of the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII — a day better remembered for Doug Williams’ four touchdown passes in Washington’s 35-point second quarter. He’d carried the ball in only four regular-season games before coach Joe Gibbs turned to him in the playoffs because of an injury to George Rogers.

Not all of these backs were rookies, by the way. Word was in his second year and Johnson and Riggs in their third. (Word’s big game came after he’d served prison time for cocaine distribution, which caused him to miss the previous season.)

I turned up several near misses, too — guys who rushed for 200-plus yards the second time they hit triple figures. That group includes such household names as Jim Brown, Tony Dorsett, James Wilder, Priest Holmes and Arian Foster.

In fact, Brown’s 237 yards set a single -game NFL rushing record. The same goes for Wilson, whose 223-yard day came in the ’56 season finale. “Touchdown Tommy,” as he was called, was such an obscure rookie — and reporters paid so much less attention to these things — that the Los Angeles Times didn’t even mention his feat until the fifth paragraph of its game story.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram, meanwhile, touched on it at the end of the fourth graph, but didn’t provide any details until the 11th. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

A running back breaks the single-game rushing mark, and we’re 300 words into the story before the reporter tells us how many yards he gained. That should be in the record book, too.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The Redskins’ Timmy Smith keeps the Broncos’ Tony Lilly at arm’s length in Super Bowl 22.

The dead guy J.J. Watt just tied

Last week we had the Bears bringing the 1923 Rochester Jeffersons back from the dead. This week we have J.J. Watt, the Texans’ all-world defensive end, dredging up a player from 1938: Jay Arnold, a wingback for Bert Bell’s Eagles. To quote Flounder in Animal House . . .

As ESPN.com’s Tania Ganguli was good enough to note:

On Sunday in Cleveland, in a 23-7 win over the Browns, Watt became the first player since Arnold to catch two touchdown passes, return an interception for a touchdown and return a fumbled football for a touchdown all in the same season.

Watt, of course, did it as a defensive end. That’s probably more impressive than a two-way back in the ’30s doing it. After all, you wouldn’t expect a D-end to grab TD passes. In Arnold’s day, on

Eagles wingback Jay Arnold strikes a pose.

the other hand, a back could be expected to do just about anything, even kick. (And Jay did a little of that, too. In fact, he booted three extra points that season. So he still has a leg up — literally — on J.J.)

What’s cool about this cross-generational connection is that there’s virtually nothing else to remember Arnold for. Watt is a two-time Pro Bowler and pass-rushing maniac who’s building a case for Canton, but Jay had a mostly invisible career in which he scored all of six touchdowns and gained a grand total of 616 yards. He just happened, in 1938, to score TDs on both sides of the ball — and in three different ways. (Within a decade it became much harder to do this because, after the war, pro football evolved into a more specialized, two-platoon game. Fewer and fewer guys played both ways.)

But enough of that. Let’s take a closer look at Arnold’s ’38 season. Here’s something that might interest you: He scored three of those four TDs — on a reception, fumble return and interception return — in a single half, the first half of a 27-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. (They weren’t the Steelers yet.) They were the first three scores of the game and staked Philly to a 20-0 lead.

Nobody else in NFL history has had a game like that. Indeed, only four other players — Watt being the latest — have even had a TD catch, interception TD and fumble TD in the same season. (You’ve gotta love George Halas being one of them.) And again: Arnold did it in two quarters. The United Press summarized his heroics this way:

Did you notice how The Jay Arnold Story just got better? The “Whizzer” who coughed up the ball for the Pirates was their hotshot rookie running back, Byron “Whizzer” White. So Arnold not only had a once-in-95-NFL-seasons game, one of his scores was the result of a fumble by a future Supreme Court justice.

Arnold’s other touchdown that year also had some significance. It came in Detroit on the last day of the season against a Lions team that, had it beaten the Eagles, would have forced a playoff with the Packers for the Western Division title. To their horror, Philadelphia jumped out to a 14-0 first quarter lead and upset them 21-7, with Arnold scoring the second TD on a 7-yard pass from fullback Dave Smukler. This is from The Associated Press:

The Texans still have six games to play, so Watt may yet outdo Arnold. As he said afterward, “There’s a lot of season left, so hopefully that’s not the end of it.” But let’s not forget, Jay has those three PATs as his hole cards. Wherever he is.

Source: pro-football-reference.com, Spalding’s 1939 National Football League Official Guide.

Happy Chuck Bednarik Day

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.

Since this is Chuck Bednarik Day, by the way, do yourself a favor and read — or reread — John Schulian’s definitive take on him for Sports Illustrated. Sportswriting doesn’t get any better. It’s included in the terrific new anthology he edited, Football: Great Writing About the National Sport. A sample:

[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.

The offensive fireworks on Nov. 19, 1950

The yards have never come easier in the NFL. They’re up to 705.4 a game this season, which would be an all-time high if it holds. And yet the record for most yards by both teams in one contest, 1,133, was set in 1950 — on this very day, in fact — and has somehow survived all the rule changes favoring the offense and even the institution of overtime. Go figure.

Of course, the clubs involved, the Los Angeles Rams and New York Yanks, had the two most explosive attacks in the league. Indeed, that Rams team, with its two Hall of Fame quarterbacks (Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin) and two Hall of Fame receivers (Crazylegs Hirsch and Tom Fears) has never been given its proper due. Just last year a major website told its readers that Waterfield made it to Canton “possibly because he had the good sense to wife up to Jane Russell, the Megan Fox of her day.”

It would be a great line if it were true, but it doesn’t even come close. Waterfield, you see, wasn’t just a QB, he was one of the most multi-talented players in NFL history. Check out his 1946 season:

● Threw 17 touchdown passes (tying him for the league lead).

● Made 6 of 9 field-goal tries (giving him the highest success rate — 66.7 percent — and tying him for second in field goals).

● Averaged 44.7 yards a punt (third in the league).

● As a defensive back, intercepted 5 passes (tying him for fourth in the league).

That’s why Waterfield was in just the third class to be inducted into the Hall. The fact that his wife was a screen siren had nothing to do with it (though it made for great photo ops). So it

Jane Russell at her sultry best.

goes, alas, for players of that vintage. Their feats are often dismissed by the young Plutarchs of today, even though the competition in the 12-team era was probably fiercer than it is now.

The ’50 Rams scored 466 points in a 12-game season, an average of 38.8. That’s more than the Broncos averaged last year (37.9) when they totaled a record 606 in 16 games. The Rams racked up 70 against the Baltimore Colts, 65 against the Lions, 51 against the Packers — they were a veritable force of nature. They also came within a last-minute field goal of winning the title (which they won the next season).

The ’50 Yanks didn’t have nearly the star power — save for Buddy Young, their Hall of Fame running back. QB George Ratterman did top the league with 22 TD passes, though, and end Dan Edwards was fifth with 775 receiving yards.

Anyway, when the teams met at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 19, 1950, they put on a show — 1,133 yards’ worth (Rams 636, Yanks 497) — as the Rams won 43-35. The Brooklyn Eagle’s headline read thusly:

Both teams scored five TDs, which made the three field goals booted by the versatile Waterfield the difference. Individually, nobody went too wild, though two receivers (L.A.’s Hirsch and New York’s Art Weiner) and one running back (the Rams’ Dick Hoerner) went over 100 yards.

“The crowd of 43,673 had difficulty keeping track of the pigskins the Rams tossed in the air in the first half — 32 in all, “ the Eagle reported. “But after the intermission they varied their attack, dusting off the old Statue of Liberty play successfully twice.”

Yanks coach Red Strader, meanwhile, called the Rams “a tough team to play against. Speed on the gridiron is always hard to beat — one mistake and they’re away.”

In the 64 years since, only 13 NFL games have come within 50 yards of that 1,133-yard figure. The most serious challenge to the record came in the 2011 season finale between the Packers and Lions, who combined for 1,125. Logic tells you that, the way things are going, the mark is bound to fall at some point. But amazingly, it has endured for more than six decades — and could well last a few more.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

A touchdown a quarter

Everybody’s in love with the Jonas Gray story this week, and who can blame them? Few things are more fun than seeing a guy who’s worked his way up from the practice squad — in his case, multiple practice squads — have a breakout game on a national stage. And Gray’s 201-yard, four-touchdown performance in the Patriots’ 42-20 erasure of the Colts was certainly a stunner. (It made you grateful for names on the backs of jerseys, just so you could keep reminding yourself who was doing all this damage.)

A performance like that tends to produce a bunch of cool stats. Here’s one: Gray scored a TD in every quarter, making him one of just a dozen players to do that since the 1970 merger. (Note: In the chart below, the numbers represent yards, R = run and P = pass reception.)

PLAYERS WHO SCORED A TD IN EVERY QUARTER OF A GAME SINCE 1970

Date	Player, Team	Opponent	1st Q	2nd Q	3rd Q	4th Q
11-16-14	RB Jonas Gray, Patriots	Colts	4R	2R	2R	1R
10-29-06	RB Larry Johnson, Chiefs	Seahawks	3R	9P	2R	3R
12-14-03	WR Joe Horn, Saints	Giants	50P	13P	7P	18P
12-7-03	RB Clinton Portis, Broncos	Chiefs	11R	1R	59R	28R, 53R
12-18-00	RB Marshall Faulk, Rams	Bucs	2R	16R	27P	9R
10-29-00	RB Marshall Faulk, Rams	49ers	1R	1R	19P	16P
9-4-95	RB Emmitt Smith, Cowboys	Giants	60R	1R	1R	1R
11-24-94	WR Sterling Sharpe, Packers	Cowboys	1P	36P	30P	5P
10-14-90	WR Jerry Rice, 49ers	Falcons	24P, 25P	19P	13P	15P
9-7-80	WR Earnest Gray, Giants	Cardinals	10P	37P	42P	20P
9-16-79	RB Clarence Williams, Chargers	Bills	5R	1R	55R	2R
10-23-77	RB Wayne Morris, Cardinals	Saints	2R	9R	1R	12R

Would you look at Marshall Faulk? He did it twice in six games. (He missed two after his first four-touchdown day.) And really, who can get enough Clarence Williams in these charts? I know I can’t. I just wish it was the same Clarence Williams who played Linc on Mod Squad.

By the way, you know who else accomplished the feat — before the merger? Cowboys running back Dan Reeves.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Jonas Gray, the Patriots’ off-the-practice-squad rookie, got to do this in every quarter Monday night.

PRO FOOTBALL DALY

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

The streaking Patriots

PATRIOTS’ REGULAR-SEASON WINNING STREAKS OF 7 OR MORE SINCE 2000

MOST WINNING STREAKS OF 7 GAMES OR MORE, REGULAR SEASON

Joe Morgan: Bang for the touch

ONE RUSH FOR 20+ YARDS, ONE RECEPTION FOR 20+ YARDS IN A GAME

36 points, 37 penalties

Sideline extracurriculars

Snow in Buffalo

The Jonas Gray Chart of the Day

BACKS WHOSE FIRST 100-YARD RUSHING GAME WAS A 200-YARD GAME

The dead guy J.J. Watt just tied

Happy Chuck Bednarik Day

The offensive fireworks on Nov. 19, 1950

A touchdown a quarter

PLAYERS WHO SCORED A TD IN EVERY QUARTER OF A GAME SINCE 1970