Tag Archives: Cowboys

A decade between championships

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

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

LONGEST GAP BETWEEN TITLES FOR AN NFL QUARTERBACK

[table width=”500px”]

Quarterback\, Team,Won in,Next Title,Gap

Johnny Unitas\, Colts,1959,     1970,11 Years

Tom Brady\, Patriots,2004,     2014,10 Years

Norm Van Brocklin\, Rams/Eagles,1951,     1960,9 Years

Roger Staubach\, Cowboys,1971,     1977,6 Years

Tobin Rote\, Lions/Chargers,1957,     1963,6 Years

Bob Waterfield\, Rams,1945,     1951,6 Years

Sammy Baugh\, Redskins,1937,     1942,5 Years

[/table]

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

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

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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

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

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Six title games in 14 seasons

What does it mean, historically, to do what the Patriots have done in the 2000s: go to six Super Bowls in 14 seasons? How rare is a run like that?

In the free agency era (1993-), of course, no other team has come close to it. You’d have to go back to the ’70s and earlier to find clubs that had better stretches than New England’s. See for yourself:

SIX NFL TITLE GAMES IN THE SHORTEST SPAN OF YEARS

[table]

Team,Coach(es),Title Years,Total (W-L)

1950-55 Browns,Paul Brown,1950-51-52-53-5455,6 in 6 years (3-3)

1960-67 Packers,Vince Lombardi,1960-6162656667,6 in 8 years (5-1)

1956-63 Giants,Jim Lee Howell\, Allie Sherman,1956-58-59-61-62-63,6 in 8 years (1-5)

1933-41 Giants,Steve Owen,1933-34-35-38-39-41,6 in 9 years (2-4)

1936-45 Redskins,Ray Flaherty\, 2 others,1936-37-40-42-43-45,6 in 10 years (2-4)

1937-46 Bears,George Halas\, 2 others,1937-4041-42-4346,6 in 10 years (4-2)

1932-41 Bears,Ralph Jones\, George Halas,193233-34-37-4041,6 in 10 years (4-2)

1929-39 Packers,Curly Lambeau,1929303136-38-39,6 in 11 years (5-1)

1966-77 Cowboys,Tom Landry,1966-67-70-71-75-77,6 in 12 years (2-4)

2001-14 Patriots,Bill Belichick,20010304-07-11-14,6 in 14 years (3-2)

[/table]

(Note: Championship seasons are boldfaced. Also, the Packers’ 1929, ’30 and ’31 titles were based on their regular-season record. The first championship game wasn’t played until ’32.)

As you can see, the two Bears entries from the ’30s and ’40s overlap. If you combine them, Chicago went to nine title games in 15 years (1932-46). It’s the same with the two Giants entries from that period. Combine them, and the Giants played in eight championship games in 14 years.

As for the Cowboys, they didn’t go to the Super Bowl in 1966 and ’67, but they did reach the NFL championship game both seasons. That’s why I included them – because they the second-best team in pro football (with all due respect to the ’66 Chiefs and ’67 Raiders, champions of the AFL).*

At any rate, the Patriots’ accomplishment is quite a feat given the limitations of the salary cap and the comings and goings of players. Their closest competitors in recent decades are the 1986-98 Broncos (five Super Bowls in 13 years) and the 1981-94 49ers (five in 14 years).

*The 1967-78 Cowboys also went to six title games in 12 seasons.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Bears coach George Halas after winning the 1940 title over the Redskins by the slim margin of 73-0.

Bears coach George Halas after winning the 1940 title game over the Redskins by the slim margin of 73-0.

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The youngest QBs to win two rings

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

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

YOUNGEST QUARTERBACKS TO WIN TWO NFL CHAMPIONSHIPS

[table]

Years,Quarterback\, Team,Title No. 1 Age,Title No. 2 Age

1940/41,Sid Luckman\, Bears,24-017,25-023

2013/14,Russell Wilson\, Seahawks,25-065,26-064 (?)

2001/03,Tom Brady\, Patriots,24-184,26-182,

1958/59,Johnny Unitas\, Colts,25-235,26-234

2005/08,Ben Roethlisberger\, Steelers,23-340,26-336

1952/53,Bobby Layne\, Lions,26-009,27-008

1992/93,Troy Aikman\, Cowboys,26-071,27-070

1934/38,Ed Danowski\, Giants,23-070,27-072

1974/75,Terry Bradshaw\, Steelers,26-132,27-138

1981/84,Joe Montana\, 49ers,25-227,28-223

[/table]

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

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

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

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

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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When SI’s Super Bowl prediction was only off by 52 points

Predicting the final score of the Super Bowl is an invitation to make a fool of yourself. Every year, though, media folk — and even more non-media folk — give it a shot, just for “fun.”

The greatest of all NFL title game predictions is the one John Steadman made in the Baltimore News-Post before the sudden-death classic between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants in 1958. Steadman thought long and hard about it, may even have availed himself of a palm reader, and somehow came up with 23-17 — right on the money.

(What’s overlooked about this story is that 23-17 was, at the time, a very unusual score. There had been only four 23-17 games in NFL history before the Sudden Death Game — the first, interestingly enough, being the Packers-Giants championship game in 1938.)

At the opposite end from Steadman’s is the pick Sports Illustrated’s Tex Maule made a decade later when the Colts met the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. This, too turned out to be a historic game, because the Jets, 17-point underdogs, upset the Colts, 16-7, to give the AFL its first win over the established NFL. Anyway, Maule, SI’s pro football writer, miscalculated by just a shade. He had the Colts winning, 43-0.

But, hey, don’t take my word for it. Here’s a story that ran in the Oakland Tribune the week of the game:

MIAMI — Among Super Bowl writers, it’s Baltimore Colts, 49-6, with a lot of coward’s abstentions.

There are a record 367 credentialed working pressmen here covering the [Super Bowl], but a poll finds only 49 picking the Colts and a slim six writers going for the New York Jets. . . . Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated showed his NFL affection with a 43-0 Baltimore pick.

The results of the unscientific poll were no great surprise. The Colts had suffered only one loss all season, to the Browns, and had avenged it in the NFL title game with a blowout 34-0 victory at Cleveland. The Jets, meanwhile, had gone 11-3 in a supposedly inferior league and had barely gotten past the Raiders in the championship game.

But 43-0? The scores of the first two Super Bowls had been 35-10 (Packers over Chiefs) and 33-14 (Packers over Raiders). How on earth did Maule come up with 43-0?

Well, to be blunt about it, Tex was an NFL loyalist whose attachment to the league sometimes clouded his vision. A writer like that would have a hard time functioning today. He’d be crucified on sports talk shows, burned at the stake on Twitter and have his face ripped off on Facebook. But the world was a much different place in January 1969.

Before Maule went to work for SI, you see, he’d been a publicist for not one but two NFL teams. He was an assistant with the Rams from 1949 to ’51 . . .

1951 Rams co-Texes . . . and he was the head guy for the Dallas Texans in 1952 (after which they folded and the franchise moved to Baltimore).

Maule '52 TexansBy the way, did you notice the name above Maule’s in the Rams directory? None other than Tex Schramm, who helped turn the Cowboys into “America’s Team” in the ’60s and ’70s. Frank Finch of the Los Angeles Times thought the Schramm-Maule duo was so hysterical that he’d go around telling people the Rams were the only club in the league with co-Texes.

(It was all so cozy back then. Consider: When Schramm left his sportswriting job at the Austin American in the late ’40s to work for the Rams, it was Maule who replaced him. A couple of years later, Schramm needed help in the PR department and, you guessed it, brought Maule out to L.A. Then Maule returned to Texas to take the job with the Texans, and who did Schramm fill the position with? University of San Francisco SID — and future NFL commissioner — Pete Rozelle.)

But returning to Maule . . . his love for the NFL knew few bounds. And loving the NFL meant looking down on the scrappy, rival league that had sprung up to challenge it in the ’60s. In the issue of SI that was published before the Super Bowl, Tex laid out his worldview:

In evaluations of the two teams, most experts, for unfathomable reasons, have conceded the Jets an edge at quarterback. Both [the Jets’ Joe] Namath and [the Colts’ Earl] Morrall were selected Most Valuable in their leagues, but Namath certainly can claim no clear-cut superiority over Morrall. . . .

As usual, the AFL players base part of their hopes for victory on the rather tenuous claim that since football is a game of emotion, they will outemotion the NFL. But Las Vegas bookmakers, a group not known for emotional display, figure the Colts to be 17 points better than the Jets, which is probably conservative. . . .

Because the AFL had to compete with the NFL for the best of the college seniors during the first five years of its existence a kind of natural selection worked against the new league’s acquisition of players with the self-confidence and desire to excel against the best. . . . The rest of the AFL players in those formative years came over from the NFL. They were mostly athletes who preferred to switch rather than fight for their positions in the NFL.

This situation, of course, no longer applies. With the common draft of the last two years, the AFL is getting its share of the truly competitive, gung-ho athletes and it will soon achieve parity with the NFL. But that parity has not yet been reached, and the Colts should demonstrate this with an authority that may shock Jets fans.

To summarize: In the pre-Super Bowl years, the AFL was essentially populated by gutless losers who either signed with the league out of college because they “lacked the self-confidence and desire to excel against the best” or fled the NFL because the competition was too tough. Maule couldn’t even look at the two quarterbacks — Namath, a future Hall of Famer with a cannon arm, and Morrall, a 34-year-old journeyman who was 30-32-2 as a starter going into that season — and admit, yeah, the Jets might have the advantage there.

And SI actually printed this propaganda. Amazing, huh?

SI SB3 coverYou already know how it turned out. Morrall did the “unfathomable,” throwing three interceptions and getting badly outplayed by Namath. Indeed, the Colts might have been shut out if aging, ailing Johnny Unitas hadn’t came off the bench to drive them to a fourth-quarter touchdown.

Maule’s post-game piece was more complimentary of Namath and the Jets, but you could picture him typing the words with clenched teeth. “Broadway Joe is the folk hero of the new generation,” he began. “He is long hair, a Fu Manchu mustache worth $10,000 to shave off, swinging nights in the live spots of the big city, the dream lover of the stewardi — all that spells insouciant youth in the Jet Age.”

Toward the end there was this: “So the era of John Unitas ended and the day of Broadway Joe and the mod quarterback began. John is crew cut and quiet and Joe has long hair and a big mouth, but haircuts and gab obviously have nothing to do with the efficiency of quarterbacks.”

It was as if, in Tex’s eyes, the final scoreboard read: Hippies 43, Establishment 0.

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On the brink of going back-to-back

The Seahawks are back in the Super Bowl looking to repeat. Which raises the question: How often has a team in that situation finished the job?

Answer: Of the 11 previous defending champs that returned to the Super Bowl, eight won the game — 72.7 percent. That’s pretty good odds for Seattle (even if it does have to beat the Patriots, the Team of the 2000s). The details:

DEFENDING CHAMPS THAT RETURNED TO THE SUPER BOWL THE NEXT YEAR

[table]

Team,First Super Bowl,Second Super Bowl

1966-67 Packers,Beat Chiefs\, 35-10,Beat Raiders\, 33-14

1972-73 Dolphins,Beat Redskins\, 14-7,Beat Vikings\, 24-7

1974-75 Steelers,Beat Vikings\, 16-6,Beat Cowboys\, 21-17

1977-78 Cowboys,Beat Broncos\, 27-10,Lost to Steelers\, 35-31

1978-79 Steelers,Beat Cowboys\, 35-31,Beat Rams\, 31-19

1982-83 Redskins,Beat Dolphins\, 27-17,Lost to Raiders\, 38-9

1988-89 49ers,Beat Bengals\, 20-16,Beat Broncos\, 55-10

1992-93 Cowboys,Beat Bills\, 52-17,Beat Bills\, 30-13

1996-97 Packers,Beat Patriots\, 35-21,Lost to Broncos\, 31-24

1997-98 Broncos,Beat Packers\, 31-24,Beat Falcons\, 34-19

2003-04 Patriots,Beat Panthers\, 32-29,Beat Eagles\, 24-21

2013-14 Seahawks,Beat Broncos\, 43-8,Vs. Patriots\, SB 49

[/table]

The last time a defending champ lost the Super Bowl, in other words, the winning score came on a conceded touchdown. (The Packers offered no resistance on Terrell Davis’ 1-yard TD run so they could get the ball back with 1:45 left.)

The Packers defensive line opens wide in Super Bowl 32 to let Denver's Terrell Davis score.

The Packers defensive line opens wide in Super Bowl 32 to let Denver’s Terrell Davis score in the final two minutes.

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Cheating: an NFL tradition for 95 years

One of the many questions I was dying to ask Lions great Glenn Presnell when I interviewed him decades ago was this: How was your 1936 Detroit team able to run the ball better than anybody else in pro football history?

This is no exaggeration. The Lions that year had three of the top six rushers in the league: Ace Gutowsky, Dutch Clark and Ernie Caddel. (Presnell, in his final season at 31, was more of a role player.) Working out of the single wing, without much of a passing threat, they rushed for 2,885 yards in 12 games. No club before or since has topped their average of 240.4 yards a game, not even the handful of clubs with two 1,000-yard rushers. (Next best: the O.J. Simpson-fueled 1973 Bills at 220.6.)

Lions team photoThis was no grind-it-out, three-yards-and-a-glob-of-mud attack, either. The Lions averaged 4.9 yards per attempt, far above the league average of 3.5. So, I asked Presnell, “How did you do it? How did you set a record in 1936 that still stands today?” I shouldn’t have been surprised by his answer, I suppose — being a Veteran Scribe and all — but I was.

The Lions cheated. That is, their lineman fired out a split second before the ball was snapped.

“When we practiced our signals — hut one, hut two, hut three — the linemen charged on ‘hut’ and the center snapped the ball on ‘two,’ “ he said. “We always hit the defense first. [Coach] Potsy [Clark] expected those guys to explode off their marks on ‘hut.’ And of course, the center would be hanging on to the ball a split-second longer, but not enough for you to be called offside. I always attributed our good blocking to that. In fact, I coached that myself.”

With only four officials monitoring things, you could get away with plenty in the 1930s. With seven sets of eyeballs now — and TV cameras also helping to root out illegal activity — there are fewer dark corners of the field. Still, on most plays, if not all, you could probably find some act that didn’t conform to the letter of the law . . . and didn’t get penalized. A motion man ever so slightly angling himself toward the line of scrimmage. A defensive back bumping his man more than 5 yards downfield. A receiver pushing off or setting a pick. A D-lineman inching into the neutral zone. A blocker grabbing a pass rusher’s jersey. A center subtly moving the ball forward before the snap.

There are so many players milling about, so much mayhem and general mob behavior, that enforcement can seem almost arbitrary — like speeding tickets on the interstate. What we’re talking about here is a Culture of Cheating, a whatever-you-can-get-away-with mentality that’s as much a part of the game as the huddle and the touchdown celebration.

That’s why it’s hard to get worked up over what The Hysterics have dubbed Deflategate: the discovery that some of the footballs the Patriots’ Tom Brady threw in the AFC title game weren’t inflated to specifications. Sorry, but given all the stuff that goes on in every game, a pound of air pressure — or whatever it was — doesn’t seem like that big a deal. Certainly not as big as, say, the ’36 Lions’ offensive line beating the snap on every single offensive play. (I forgot to mention: They won the ’35 title playing that way, too.)

Maybe I’ve just seen and heard too much. Maybe if I were younger — and more naïve — I’d feel differently. But to me, all this huffing and puffing about Deflategate is just a bunch of hot air, something to fill the void during Pro Bowl week. Or to put it another way: If you really think this air-pressure story is stop-the-presses material, then you and I can’t possibly be watching the same game.

Here’s a column I wrote about cheating in 2007, not long after the Patriots were caught taping the signals of opponents (for which they and coach Bill Belichick were fined and stripped of a first-round draft pick).

You’ll find some interesting names in it — famous names. You might even come away feeling differently about this latest “crisis,” the one involving footballs, air pressure and Big Bad Patriots.


When George Allen was coaching the Redskins in the ’70s, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to win — trade the same draft pick twice, have his defense jam the opposing quarterback’s signals (also a no-no), grease his offensive linemen’s jerseys so they’d be harder to grab. (Or was that Al Davis?) The Cowboys’ Tom Landry was always accusing him of some kind of subterfuge or other. It’s doubtful George ever felt a twinge of regret.


Whenever the Cleveland Browns visited Wrigley Field in the old days, Paul Brown would give his team pre-game instructions in virtual pantomime. The legendary coach was utterly convinced that George Halas was bugging the visitors’ locker room. If an outsider had walked in on this scene, Cleveland Hall of Famer Mike McCormack said years later, he would have thought Brown “was coaching the State School for the Deaf.”

Not that PB was any angel. One of his favorite methods of gathering enemy intelligence was to send an underling to an opponent’s practice field posing as a newspaper reporter. No telling what useful scraps of information he might be able to pick up — particularly if the media were allowed to watch workouts. Maybe a club was working on a new formation. Maybe a star player was hurt more seriously than the coach was letting on.

There’s also the story, perhaps apocryphal, of a Cleveland scout being put through a course in climbing telephone poles — after which, equipped with spiked shoes, binoculars and a notebook, he headed off on a series of surveillance missions. The Browns won an awful lot of games back then, so presumably their spy did his job well.

Such espionage has been going on in football since Alonzo Stagg was in knickers. It’s the gridiron version of the Cold War. As Kathleen Turner told William Hurt in Body Heat, “Knowledge is power.” (Actually, the entire line was: “My mother told me knowledge is power” — leaving open the possibility her mother was a Halas.)

George Allen usually did play it "his way."

George Allen usually did play it “his way.”

So there’s a dog-bites-man quality to the breathless news that the Patriots got caught videotaping the signals of the Jets’ defensive coaches Sunday. Indeed, it’s the brazenness of the act more than the act itself that astounds. Especially because, according to reports, it wasn’t the first time the Pats had done it.

It’s also, let’s face it, an incredibly tacky thing to do — kind of like a billionaire cheating on his taxes. A team that’s won three championships in this decade — and may win a couple more before it’s done — pulling a stunt like this? To think New England had an image as a classy organization.

Still, as crimes and misdemeanors go, I don’t consider “illegal videotaping” as reprehensible as, say, circumventing the salary cap, which several clubs (but not the Patriots) have been penalized for. Inasmuch as the Pats’ camera was confiscated in the first quarter, their skullduggery certainly didn’t have anything to do with their whomping of the Jets. But it might have been a factor, I suppose, in their next whomping of the Jets.

Two things should be pointed out here. First, the Jets hijacked the Patriots’ top defensive assistant last year, Eric Mangini, who no doubt brought a lot of inside knowledge about New England’s operation. This isn’t against the rules, but it’s hardly the norm for a club to fill its head coaching vacancy by raiding the staff of its division archrival.

Then there’s Bill Belichick’s background — or rather, his military mentality. Belichick grew up in Annapolis, and his father Steve was a longtime scout for the Naval Academy. So much of Bill’s secretive, often quirky behavior, I’m convinced, can be traced to that. Probably the only reason he had somebody videotaping the Jets’ coaches was because he figured an observation balloon wouldn’t have had a good enough angle.

Belichick is one of those by-all-means-necessary types — like George Allen and Genghis Khan. He’ll try to beat you any way he can, rules or no rules. It’s one of the reasons his players appreciate him; he never pulls a punch. (And if he wants to rub it in a little by summoning 99-year-old Vinny Testaverde from the bench to throw a touchdown pass for the 20th consecutive season, he’ll do that, too.)

Getting back to Allen . . . . When he was coaching the Redskins in the ’70s, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to win — trade the same draft pick twice, have his defense jam the opposing quarterback’s signals (also a no-no), grease his offensive linemen’s jerseys so they’d be harder to grab. (Or was that Al Davis?) The Cowboys’ Tom Landry was always accusing him of some kind of subterfuge or other.

It’s doubtful George ever felt a twinge of regret. He just wasn’t wired that way. And it’s doubtful Belichick will lose much sleep over whatever sentence Roger Goodell metes out. Besides, it’s easy to rationalize such behavior in the kill-or-be-killed culture of the NFL. Allen might have had some Richard Nixon in him, but don’t forget, he would remind sportswriters, “The Cowboys had a dog run into our huddle one day in the Cotton Bowl when we were driving for the winning points.”

From The Washington Times, Sept. 13, 2007

Before a road game at Wrigley Field, Browns coach George Halas would deliver his pregame talk "in pantomine," fearful the locker room was bugged.

At Wrigley Field, Browns coach Paul Brown would pantomime his pregame talk, fearful the room was bugged.

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Tom Brady’s staying power

It’s not just that Tom Brady is getting ready to start in his sixth NFL title game, tying the record for quarterbacks shared by Otto Graham and Bart Starr. It’s that those Super Bowls have spanned 14 seasons, from 2001 to ’14 — the longest stretch for any QB. Pretty remarkable.

After all, if injuries don’t get you in the demolition derby of pro football, age usually will. Or maybe, later in your career, you won’t be surrounded by the same kind of talent you were earlier. But here Brady is, all these years later, still putting the Patriots in position to win championships. And at 37, he might not be done. I mean, it’s not like the Pats’ roster is a seniors community.

Here’s the list Brady now heads:

LONGEST SPAN OF SEASONS AS A STARTING QB IN THE NFL TITLE GAME

[table]

Quarterback\, Team(s),First Title Game,Last Title Game,Span

Tom Brady\, Patriots,2001 vs. Rams (W),2014 vs. Seahawks,   14

Johnny Unitas\, Colts,1958 vs. Giants (W),1970 vs. Cowboys (W),   13

John Elway\, Broncos,1986 vs. Giants (L),1998 vs. Falcons (W),   13

Norm Van Brocklin\, Rams/Eagles,1950 vs. Browns (L),1960 vs. Packers (W),   11

Arnie Herber\, Packers/Giants,1936 vs. Redskins (W),1944 vs. Packers (L),     9

Sammy Baugh\, Redskins,1937 vs. Bears (W),1945 vs. Rams (L),     9

Joe Montana\, 49ers,1981 vs. Bengals (W),1989 vs. Broncos (W),     9

Bart Starr\, Packers,1960 vs. Eagles (L),1967 vs. Raiders (W),     8

Roger Staubach\, Cowboys,1971 vs. Dolphins (W),1978 vs. Steelers (L),     8

Sid Luckman\, Bears,1940 vs. Redskins (W),1946 vs. Giants (W),     7

Bob Waterfield\, Rams,1945 vs. Redskins (W),1951 vs. Browns (W),     7

[/table]

Note: Van Brocklin and Waterfield split the quarterbacking for the Rams in 1950 and ’51. So if you want to kick them off the list, go ahead. I included them because, well, they’re both Hall of Famers.

Also, if you want to get technical about it, Starr’s 1967 win over the Raiders wasn’t in the NFL title game, it was in the AFL-NFL title game. (The leagues hadn’t merged yet.) He beat the Cowboys for the NFL championship — in the storied Ice Bowl.

Graham’s name, by the way, is missing because he played his first four seasons in the rival All-America Conference. If you include those years, his Championship Span was exactly a decade (1946-55), which would put him just behind Van Brocklin.

As you can see, Unitas won titles in 1958 and ’70 — a span of 13 seasons. That’s the record for a quarterback . . . and one Brady would break if the Patriots knock off the defending champion Seahawks.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Arnie Herber lets fly with a jump pass for the '36 Packers.

Arnie Herber lets fly with a jump pass for the ’36 Packers.

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A 6:40 kickoff in balmy Foxborough

One of these days, you figure, the NFL’s — and television’s — casual indifference to winter weather will catch up with them. By not giving themselves the flexibility to flip-flip the conference championship games — so that Sunday’s tilt in New England doesn’t kick off at 6:40 p.m. — they’ll get hit with the blizzard or ice storm they’ve been risking for years.

Or maybe that’s just a fantasy of mine. Maybe thermal wear is of such high quality now (read: NASA-level) that games can be played — and played well — in any conditions. If so, bully for pro football . . . and especially its TV ratings.

You wouldn’t want another situation, though, like you had after the Ice Bowl in 1967. So much nostalgia has grown up around that game between Vince Lombardi’s Packers and Tom Landry’s Cowboys that we tend to forget some of the comments that were made afterward. Those 60 frigid minutes might have been the definitive test of manhood, but they were far from the definitive test of football. And if you’re trying to determine your league champion, your Best Team, that’s a problem.

“It seems like I might be making excuses,” Dallas quarterback Don Meredith said, “but I just don’t think you can say this is a fair test of football or a football team in weather like this. It takes away all your diversification. We had a couple of things go wrong on us because we couldn’t use that quickness that we have.”

Cowboys president Tex Schramm could only shake his head. “When I saw the four bowl games [the next day],” he said, “which were truly beautiful and great tests of the relative strengths of the teams involved, it was sickening to me that the greatest game of all couldn’t have been played under the same circumstances.”

Later that week, Red Smith, following up on his original Ice Bowl column, wrote, “The Great North is no place to play outdoor games at this season and no place to watch ’em. . . . When the footing is treacherous and hands numb, the wide game is virtually eliminated, speed is neutralized, the passing attack is handicapped and every punt is fraught with suspense. . . . Except for the heroics at the end, it was a stinker.”

(Note: Red Smith, Green Bay born and bred, just called the Ice Bowl “a stinker”!)

More Red: “Human suffering aside, championships should be decided under championship conditions. Not even [commissioner] Pete Rozelle can command the seasons to turn backward, but he can insist that title contests be played where chances are best for playable conditions.”

Sure enough, Rozelle talked about that in the days that followed, told the Dallas Times Herald he’d been in favor of neutral-site championship games in warm climates “for several years.” He just hadn’t been able to gather the necessary 13 votes (out of 16 franchises). Too many owners were wedded to the old way of doing things, with one team having the home-field advantage and the game being accessible to the home team’s fans.

“I’ll work to get it moved,” Rozelle told the Times Herald. “Under the conditions it was played last Sunday, the game is unfair to both teams.”

Browns owner Art Modell, meanwhile, assured the newspaper the matter would “be discussed in no uncertain terms at our February meeting. I personally believe it should be moved to a neutral, warm-weather spot. It was zero today in Cleveland. I wouldn’t like to have the game [in] Cleveland at 5 degrees or 5 below.”

Modell said he planned to push for the next two NFL championship games to played in one of the league’s southern cities as “a two-year test.” But not enough owners could be swayed. The 1968 title game wound up in Cleveland (wind chill: 13 degrees) and the ’69 game in Bloomington, Minn. (wind chill: minus 6).

All this has been lost in the historical glow of the Ice Bowl. And here we are, decades later, awaiting a Jan. 18 game, with a 6:40 p.m. kickoff, in Foxborough, Mass. (Date of the Ice Bowl: Dec. 31.) You just hope the weather cooperates — there’s a chance of snow — and the Colts and Patriots can give us a reasonable facsimile of pro football. But if they can’t, and the conditions turn out to be better earlier in the day, well, you’ll know who to blame.

There's a chance of snow Sunday in New England, just like there was in the Tuck Rule Game in the 2001 playoffs.

There’s a chance of snow Sunday in New England, just like there was in the Tuck Rule Game in the 2001 playoffs.

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Final Four quarterbacks

The NFL didn’t even have a Final Four until 1967, when it split the conferences into two divisions and added an extra playoff round. Before that, there was only a Final Two — the championship game. So when we talk about Final Four quarterbacks, we’re talking only about the Super Bowl era (which began in ’66).

In those 49 seasons, no QB has been to the Final Four more often than the Patriots’ Tom Brady, who’ll play in his ninth AFC title game Sunday against the Colts. In fact, Brady has gotten to the

Tom Brady

Tom Brady

Final Four as many times as Hall of Famers Dan Marino, Bob Griese and Fran Tarkenton (3 each) combined.

It’s been an incredible run for him and the Patriots, especially since there’s free agency now, which is supposed to make it harder to sustain success. Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach and Ken Stabler never had to worry about losing a key offensive player to another team. Brady, on the other hand, has seen receivers Deion Branch (Seahawks) and Wes Welker (Broncos) and linemen Damien Woody (Lions) and Logan Mankins (Bucs) either take the money and run or get traded for salary cap reasons. Yet here he is again, going for another AFC championship.

Granted, it’s easier to make the Final Four these days with so many more playoff spots available (12 instead of the original eight). If you can just sneak in as a sixth seed, you’ve got a shot. But that doesn’t really apply to Brady and the Pats. Every time they’ve qualified for the postseason, they’ve done it as the division champs.

Anyway, here’s the company Brady keeps:

QUARTERBACKS WHO REACHED THE MOST FINAL FOURS, 1966-2014

[table]

Quarterback\, Team(s),Seasons,W-L,Total

Tom Brady\, Patriots,2001*\, ’03*\, ’04*\, ’06\, ’07\, ’11\, ’12\, ’13\, ’14,5-3,      9

Joe Montana\, 49ers (6)/Chiefs (1),1981*\, ’83\, ’84*\, ’88*\, ’89*\, ’90\, ’93,4-3,      7

John Elway\, Broncos,1986\, ’87\, ’89\, ’91\, ’97*\, ’98*,5-1,      6

Terry Bradshaw\, Steelers,1972\, ’74*\, ’75*\, ’76\, ’78*\, ’79*,4-2,      6

Roger Staubach\, Cowboys,1971*\, ’72\, ’73\, ’75\, ’77*\, ’78,4-2,      6

Brett Favre\, Packers (4)/Vikings (1),1995\, ’96*\, ’97\, ’07\, ’09,2-3,      5

Donovan McNabb\, Eagles,2001\, ’02\, ’03\, ’04\, ’08,1-4,      5

Jim Kelly\, Bills,1988\, ’90\, ’91\, ’92\, ’93,4-1,      5

Ken Stabler\, Raiders,1973\, ’74\, ’75\, ’76*\, ’77,1-4,      5

Peyton Manning\, Colts (3)/Broncos (1),2003\, ’06*\, ’09\, ’13,3-1,      4

Ben Roethlisberger\, Steelers,2004\, ’05*\, ’08*\, ’10,3-1,      4

Steve Young\, 49ers,1992\, ’93\, ’94*\, ’97,1-3,      4

Troy Aikman\, Cowboys,1992*\, ’93*\, ’94\, ’95*,3-1,      4

Daryle Lamonica\, Raiders,1967\, ’68\, ’69\, ’70,1-3,      4

[/table]

*Won Super Bowl.

Some other fun facts:

● Stabler played in the most consecutive Final Fours — five. This will be Brady’s fourth in a row, tying him with McNabb, Aikman, Kelly and Lamonica. Kelly played in five in six seasons;

Ken Stabler

Ken Stabler

Bradshaw and Staubach played in six in eight seasons.

● Brady’s nine Final Fours have come in a 14-year span (2001-14). That puts him second only to Favre, who played in five in a 15-year stretch (1995-2009).

● Griese (Dolphins) and Kurt Warner (Rams/Cardinals) were 3-0 in conference title games. Jim Plunkett (Raiders) and Len Dawson (Chiefs) were 2-0. (Dawson’s games, like most of Lamonica’s, were AFL championship games.) Elway was 5-1, Kelly 4-1.

● Aikman and Young faced each other in three straight Final Fours in the ’90s (1992-94). Troy won the first two games, Steve the last. Bradshaw and Stabler did the same in the ’70s (1974-76) — with the same result. Terry won the first two, Snake the finale. Finally, Elway and Bernie Kosar (Browns) squared off three times in four seasons in the ’80s (1986-87, ’89), with John taking all three games.

Footnote: As impressive as Bill Belichick’s Patriots have been in the 2000s, their nine conference title games in 14 seasons don’t quite measure up the 14 in 17 seasons by Tom Landry’s Cowboys (1966-82) or the nine in 11 seasons by Al Davis’ Raiders (1967-77). Of course, the Pats might not be through. Brady certainly doesn’t look like a quarterback who’s losing his edge, even if he is 37.

The last of Joe Montana's seven Final Fours was with the '93 Chiefs.

The last of Joe Montana’s seven Final Fours was with the ’93 Chiefs.

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The NFL’s all-time worst rules

Now it’s the Process Rule that has NFL fans in Mob Mode. Not so long ago it was the Tuck Rule, which was burned at the stake — before a cheering crowd — in 2013.

I won’t attempt to explain the Process Rule, or the league’s rationale for it, because, well, who can understand it? It’s what you’d get if Jibberish had a one-night stand with Claptrap. (I considered Mumbo Jumbo as the second partner, but I thought it would be funnier if “clap” were part of the equation.)

Naturally, the NFL says it correctly enforced this misbegotten rule on the pass to Dez Bryant late in the Packers-Cowboys game. I say: Whatever floats your boat, Roger. I also say — in a futile attempt to calm the masses — there have been far, far worse rules in pro football than the Process Rule (or even the Tuck Rule, which Mike Shanahan called “the worst rule in the history of the game”).

The NFL, after all, has had some real doozies over the decades, especially in the early years. Here, for your entertainment, are 5 Rules That Were Even More Ridiculous Than The Process Rule (for my money, at least):

● If a pass into the end zone — on any down — falls incomplete, it’s a touchback.

There would have been a lot more pressure on Santonio Holmes in the '20s.

If this pass had been incomplete in the ’20s . . .

In the ’20s, before pro football’s founding fathers opened up the game, there were a number of rules that discriminated against passing. This was probably the most egregious. Imagine if Santonio Holmes had dropped that second-and-6 throw in the back-right corner in the last minute of Super Bowl 43. Under the old rule, the Steelers would have lost possession and the Cardinals would have walked away with the Lombardi Trophy.

● The ball carrier can get up after being after being knocked to the ground and try to gain additional yardage as long as his forward progress hasn’t been stopped.

The he-man NFL was trying to distinguish itself from the colleges with this rule, and occasionally a ball carrier would pick himself up and scramble for more yards. But the rule also fostered late hitting, piling on and other forms of carnage. The league finally got rid of it after the Bears brutalized Hugh McElhenny, the 49ers’ Hall of Fame running back, in 1954 and caused him to miss the second half of the season.

● The defense can hit the quarterback until the play is over, even if he’s gotten rid of the ball.

It wasn’t until 1938 that there was a roughing-the-passer penalty. Sammy Baugh: “Coaches told their players, ‘When the passer throws the ball, you put his ass on the ground.’ If you have to

One of the 1939 rule changes.

One of the 1938 rule changes.

chase him for 20 yards, put him on the ground.’ Hell, they’d chase me back 25 yards or so. I’d complete a short pass, and the receiver would be running all the way downfield, 75 yards away from me, and I’d still be fighting [defenders] off. It looked so damn silly.”

● If the ball carrier runs out of bounds — or is deposited there by the defense — the ball will be spotted one yard from the sideline.

Before hashmarks were added in 1933, the ball was spotted where the previous play ended. Needless to say, this could put the offense in a real bind. It usually had to waste a down to move the ball back to the middle of the field so it would have more room to operate.

● A player who leaves the game can’t come back in until the next quarter.

Welcome to single-platoon football. During the war years, though, when manpower was scarce, the NFL began to experiment with unlimited substitution. The league permanently adopted it in 1949, paving the way for the highly specialized game we enjoy today.

● Dishonorable mention: A team taking an intentional safety retains possession of the ball.

Talk about a lousy rule. In 1925 the Giants were leading the Providence Steam Roller 13-10 with time running out when they decided to hand Providence two points rather than punt from their end zone. Who can blame them? According to the rule in those days, they didn’t have to free kick from the 20-yard line and sweat out the final seconds. Instead, they were given a new set of downs at their 30. They proceeded to run three more plays, kill the clock and lock up a 13-12 win.

I could go on, but you get the idea. As Jim Mora (the Elder) would put it: Process Rule? You kiddin’ me? Process Rule? There have been much more terrible rules than that.

This pass to the Cowboys' Dez Bryant was ruled incomplete because . . . oh, forget it.

This pass to the Cowboys’ Dez Bryant was ruled incomplete because . . . oh, forget it.

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