Tag Archives: Giants

The Packers’ daunting odds

The defending NFL champions host the conference title game Sunday with a chance to go back to the Super Bowl. Which makes you wonder: Have the champs ever lost in this situation?

Answer: Once in 48 years.

It’s something for Wisconsinites to think about as the Packers head to Seattle for the NFC championship game. Yes, the Seahawks won it all last year, and yes, they have the home-field advantage. But a Green Bay victory wouldn’t be unprecedented — just almost.

Here are the nine previous times we’ve had this kind of matchup. Obviously, it isn’t easy to get the stars to align properly; that’s why it’s happened so seldom. You have to win the Super Bowl, of course, which is hard enough, but then you have to come back the next year and post the best record in your conference (except in one instance). In other words: no Super Bowl Hangover.

That’s why the teams on the following list are so recognizable. They were pretty special.

DEFENDING CHAMPIONS WHO HOSTED THE CONFERENCE TITLE GAME

Year Team (W-L) Conference Title Game Super Bowl
1998 Broncos (14-2) Beat Jets, 23-10 Beat Falcons, 34-19
1993 Cowboys (12-4) Beat 49ers, 38-21 Beat Bills, 30-13
1990 49ers (14-2) Lost to Giants, 15-13 DNA
1989 49ers (14-2) Beat Rams, 30-3 Beat Broncos, 55-10
1982 Redskins (14-2) Beat 49ers, 24-21 Lost to Raiders, 38-9
1978 Steelers (14-2) Beat Oilers, 34-5 Beat Cowboys, 35-31
1975 Steelers (12-2) Beat Raiders, 16-10 Beat Cowboys, 21-17
1973 Dolphins (12-2) Beat Raiders, 27-10 Beat Vikings, 24-7
1967 Packers (9-4-1) Beat Cowboys, 21-17 Beat Raiders, 33-14

(The 1967 Packers-Cowboys game — the celebrated Ice Bowl — was actually the NFL title game, the winner of which advanced to the Super Bowl against the AFL champ.)

As you can see, only the 1990 49ers failed to win — and they were going for a three-peat, so maybe we can cut them a little slack. In fact, seven of the other eight went on to take the Super Bowl, which bodes well for the Seahawks as they try to go back-to-back.

But again, you can’t rule out the Packers, historically speaking, because of this:

Here’s the longer version if you want to get the full flavor of the moment:

The moral: Difficult, but not impossible.

Postscript: Did you catch, by the way, that Lawrence Taylor was on the Giants’ field goal protection unit? Gotta love it.

LT FG protection unit

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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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Birth of The Frozen Tundra

Before there was The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field, there was “the frozen tundra” of Yankee Stadium . . . and “the frozen tundra at Wrigley Field.” Surprised? So was I.

When I started my research, I was merely trying to determine when people began referring to Lambeau as The Frozen Tundra. After all, the Cowboys are in Green Bay to reprise their Ice Bowl of 47 years ago, and I’d always heard the term had come from that famous frigid day.

Sure enough, a 2010 story in the Los Angeles Times reported: “It was coined by Steve Sabol, now president of NFL Films, and he used it in his script for the [highlight film of the] ‘Ice Bowl,’ the 1967 NFL championship game between the Packers and Dallas Cowboys.”

Sounds plausible enough. Steve was a much-underrated wordsmith (and as an added bonus, played football at the same school – Colorado College – as Lions great Dutch Clark).

There’s only one problem. In his column about the game, Arthur Daley of The New York Times typed these words:

Thus did the Packers win, 21-17, and whisk themselves from the frozen tundra of Green Bay to their destined date with the Oakland Raiders in the Super Bowl at more salubrious Miami a fortnight hence.

So maybe Sabol got the idea from reading Daley’s nationally syndicated column.

Except. After doing some more digging, I discovered the term was already in circulation. A few days before the game, Chuck Ward of the Wellsville Daily Reporter in New York wrote:

Somehow the game loses meaning when you talk about it being worth $30,000 or so to each and every player. But that’s about the amount of booty the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys will be butting heads for Sunday afternoon on the frozen tundra of Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.

But Ward wasn’t the first, either. In 1965, in his follow-up to the Western Conference playoff between the Packers and Colts, Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger described the winning drive thusly:

So here was Green Bay, driving through the gloom of the frozen tundra toward the Baltimore goal. With second and 10 on the Baltimore 25, Elijah Pitts, replacing the wounded [Paul] Hornung, clawed forward for four yards, putting the ball squarely in front of the goal posts.

That’s the earliest instance I’ve found of Lambeau Field being called The Frozen Tundra — late December 1965, two years before the Ice Bowl. But there are iced-over fields, obviously, in places other than Green Bay. Which raised the question: Had any of them ever been referred to as “the frozen tundra”?

As it turns out, yeah. Here’s Jack Hand of The Associated Press advancing the 1963 title game (Giants vs. Bears):

It is reasonable to assume that there will be a little violence on the frozen tundra at Wrigley Field, just as there was last December when the Green Bay Packers and the Giants met in the Yankee Stadium ice box.

Finally — speaking, as Hand was, of that “Yankee Stadium ice box” — here’s Cameron Snyder of the Baltimore Sun covering the Giants-Packers championship game a year earlier:

It wasn’t a day fittin’ for offenses and both the Packers and Giants failed to demonstrate any consistency in their attacks. The wind gusts played havoc with the passes and the frozen tundra spilled ball carriers and tacklers indiscriminately.

I’m not suggesting my research in any way settles the issue. I’m just saying that, in a few short hours, I turned up Frozen Tundras going back to 1962, five years before Sabol supposedly “coined” it.

I even came across a “frozen tundras” in a 1931 story about an upcoming Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium. This is from the Brooklyn Eagle:

When Army and Notre Dame have weather, they have nothing else but. Remember the zero gale that swept the field two years ago when Jack Elder intercepted the pass to win for Notre Dame on a run of 98 yards, with two teams slipping and slithering over frozen tundras of the big Bronx ball park?

The Frozen Tundra of Wrigley Field. The Frozen Tundra of Yankee Stadium. I still like The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field the best. Especially when John Facenda, NFL Films’ Voice of God, says it.

Arthur Daley in the Jan. 2, 1968, New York Times

Arthur Daley in the Jan. 2, 1968, New York Times

From the Dec. 27, 1967, Wellsville (N.Y.) Daily Reporter

From the Dec. 27, 1967, Wellsville (N.Y.) Daily Reporter

Jerry Izenberg in the Dec. 29, 1965, Syracuse Post-Standard

Jerry Izenberg in the Dec. 29, 1965, Syracuse Post-Standard

Jack Hand of The Associated Press, Dec. 24, 1963.

Jack Hand of The Associated Press, Dec. 24, 1963

Cameron Snyder in the Dec. 31, 1962, Baltimore Sun

Cameron Snyder in the Dec. 31, 1962, Baltimore Sun

11-28-31 Brooklyn Eagle 1 (George Currie)

George Currie in the Nov. 28, 1931, Brooklyn Eagle

George Currie in the Nov. 28, 1931, Brooklyn Eagle

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Marvin Lewis and the perils of January

The Bengals have made the playoffs in six of Marvin Lewis 12 seasons. You’d think congratulations would be in order — first for surviving a dozen years in any coaching job, and second for steering his team to the postseason so often. But Lewis’ 0-6 record in the playoffs has folks wondering, rightfully, whether he’ll be working in Cincinnati much longer. This is, after all, the Not For Long League. It’s not enough to just win, baby. You have to keep on winning, baby, into January and beyond.

Not that he’ll take any comfort in this, but Lewis is hardly the first coach to trip over that final hurdle. Heck, there are guys in the Hall of Fame who tripped over that final hurdle — and several others who rank high on the all-time victories list. Indeed, if there were a Misery Index for coaches, it might look something like this:

100-WIN COACHES WHO HAD A LOSING RECORD IN THE PLAYOFFS

Span Coach (Titles) Teams Regular Season Playoffs
1986-01 Jim Mora Saints, Colts 125-106-0, .541 0-6, .000
2003-14 Marvin Lewis Bengals 100-90-2, .526 0-6, .000
1955-74 Sid Gillman (1) Rams, Chargers, Oilers 122-99-7, .550 1-5, .167
1931-53 Steve Owen (2) Giants 151-100-17, .595 2-8, .200
1966-77 George Allen Rams, Redskins 116-47-5, .705 2-7, .222
1984-06 Marty Schottenheimer Browns, Chiefs, 2 others 200-116-1, .613 5-13, .278
1973-86 Don Coryell Cardinals, Chargers 111-83-1, .572 3-6, .333
1992-06 Dennis Green Vikings, Cardinals 113-94-0, .546 4-8, .333
1973-94 Chuck Knox Rams, Bills, Seahawks 186-147-1, 558 7-11, .389
1967-85 Bud Grant Vikings 158-96-5, .620 10-12, .455
1994-14 Jeff Fisher Oilers/Titans, Rams 162-147-1, 524 5-6, .455
1996-08 Tony Dungy (1) Bucs, Colts 139-69-0, .688 10-12, .455

(Note: If you want to be technical about it, Grant won the NFL championship in 1969, then lost the Super Bowl to the AFL’s Chiefs. Also: Schottenheimer’s other teams were the Redskins and Chargers.)

That’s 12 coaches with 100 regular-season victories who have lost more playoff games than they’ve won. Four are in Canton (Gillman, Owen, Allen and Grant) and another has been a finalist (Coryell) and may eventually get elected. Clearly, then, a poor postseason record doesn’t have to be a reputation-killer for a coach. (And yes, Gillman’s and Owen’s situations are much different from the others’. All but one of their playoff games was a title game — back when that was the extent of pro football’s postseason.)

The biggest problem for Lewis, obviously, is the goose egg. Aside from Mora, everybody else in the group had at least one notable postseason. Owen, Gillman (AFL) and Dungy won titles; Grant, Allen and Fisher reached the Super Bowl; and Schottenheimer (three times), Coryell (twice), Green (twice) and Knox (four) all made multiple trips to the conference championship game.

As for Lewis and Mora, well, Jim probably said it best:

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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Unanimous AP all-pro

The words wash by you as you wade into the story about this year’s selections: “Watt, Gronk unanimous AP all-pros.” What exactly does it mean, this Unanimous Thing? How often has it been achieved — and by whom?

Answer: For starters, it’s pretty rare, which makes sense when you stop and think about it. After all, how often can you get 50 media folk to agree on anything? In 2007, for instance, the Patriots’ Tom Brady had one of the greatest quarterbacking seasons ever: 50 touchdown passes, 8 interceptions, a 117.2 passer rating and, oh yeah, a 16-0 record. But some yo-yo still felt obliged to split his vote between Brady and the Packers’ Brett Favre, who threw about half as many TD passes (28), about twice as many picks (15) and had a 95.7 rating. (He/she must have had Favre on his/her fantasy team or something.)

By my count, 15 players have been unanimous AP all-pros in the 2000s, three of them twice (Watt, Peyton Manning and LaDainian Tomlinson). So it’s happened 18 times in 15 years — roughly once a year. As you scan down the list, you’ll realize that just about every one of these guys is either in the Hall of Fame, a lock for the Hall of Fame or beginning to move strongly in that direction.

UNANIMOUS AP ALL-PROS IN THE 2000S

● 2014 (2) — Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski, Texans DE/DT J.J. Watt. Gronkowski, now fully recovered from a blown-out knee, had a typical Gronk year: 82 catches for 1,124 yards and 12 TDs in 15 games. (Bill Belichick held him out of the last one.) Watt had an even better season: 20.5 sacks, two defensive TDs, a safety and three TD catches on offense.

● 2013 (1) — Broncos QB Peyton Manning. At 37, Manning had a career year, breaking NFL season passing records with 55 TDs and 5,477 yards as Denver went 13-3, best in the AFC.

J.J. Watt makes another impression on a QB.

J.J. Watt makes another impression on a quarterback.

● 2012 (2) — Vikings RB Adrian Peterson, Watt. Peterson: 2,097 rushing yards (8 off Eric Dickerson’s mark of 2,105, which has stood since 1984). Watt: 20.5 sacks, 16 passes defended (more than many starting DBs).

● 2011 — Nobody.

● 2010 (1) — Patriots QB Tom Brady. There are all kinds of numbers I could throw at you, but the best one is: Brady didn’t throw an interception in the Patriots’ last 11 games (a record streak of 319 attempts that was stretched to 335 the next season).

● 2009 (1) — Titans RB Chris Johnson. Rushed for 2,006 yards, topped 100 rushing yards in the final 11 games and set a mark – which may not be broken anytime soon – with 2,509 yards from scrimmage.

● 2008 (1) — Ravens FS Ed Reed. League-leading nine interceptions and three defensive TDs, including a 107-yard INT return, the longest in NFL history.

● 2007 (2) — Chargers RB LaDainian Tomlinson, Patriots WR Randy Moss. LT wasn’t quite as sensational as he’d been the year before, but he still rushed for an NFL-high 1,474 yards, scored 18 TDs and threw for another TD. Moss, in his first season with Brady, caught a record 23 TD passes, one more than Jerry Rice totaled in 1987 (in 12 games).

● 2006 (3) — Tomlinson, Dolphins DE Jason Taylor, Broncos CB Champ Bailey. This was LT’s ridiculous 31-TD year. Enough said. Taylor: 13.5 sacks, two interception returns for scores. Bailey: 10 INTs (nobody has had more since 1981), 21 passes defended.

Antonio Gates in the open field.

Antonio Gates in the open field.

● 2005 (1) — Chargers TE Antonio Gates. The first 1,000-yard season of Gates’ great career (89 catches, 1,101 yards, 10 TDs).

● 2004 (1) — Manning, Colts. Even though he blew off the last game except for a few snaps, Peyton set season passing marks with 49 TDs and a 121.1 rating (both of which have since been broken).

● 2003 — Nobody.

● 2002 (1) — Colts WR Marvin Harrison. His 143 catches (for a league-leading 1,722 yards) is still the NFL record . . . by 14.

● 2001 (2) – Rams RB Marshall Faulk, Giants DE Michael Strahan. Faulk: 1,382 rushing yards, 2,147 yards from scrimmage, 21 TDs. Strahan: A record (with the help of Favre) 22.5 sacks.

● 2000 – Nobody.

To recap, Faulk and Strahan are already in the Hall, and the rest — with the exception, probably, of Johnson — could well be headed there. (Peterson, of course, will be an interesting case, depending on where his career goes from here.)

Conclusion: Being a unanimous AP all-pro says a lot about a player, a lot more than just: he had a really, really good year. We’re talking about the best of the best here.

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A world without Gatorade

Gatorade, Stokely-Van Camp’s answer to salt pills, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Indeed, the company jumped the gun in late December with an ad we’re sure to get sick of before it runs its course, just as we’ve tired of Gatorade dunks like this one:

That, by the way, is supposedly the first Gatorade dunk in sports history — the Giants’ Jim Burt showering coach Bill Parcells near the end of a 37-13 wipeout of the Redskins on Oct. 28, 1984. (It just dawned on me. I covered that game.) But, really, who can say for sure? Maybe it’s just the first televised Gatorade dunk in sports history.

Gatorade has become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to remember the world without it. So I thought I’d amuse you with this ad, which ran in newspapers in 1928, for the Super Sports Drink of the Red Grange Era. Postum, it was called (for reasons that have been lost to the ages).

Postum ad in 11-21-28 Post-Crescent

Chick Meehan, the football coach at NYU, supplied this testimonial: “For 15 years Postum has held an important place in the training diet of my teams. And not merely because it is my favorite mealtime drink. Steady nerves are a first requirement in football, and Postum is one hot drink that does not irritate the nerves. It never interferes with sound sleep, either.”

Take that, Gatorade. (I mean, when has Gatorade ever claimed it “does not irritate the nerves”)?

Dartmouth coach Jess Hawley, meanwhile, said, “Any man who wants to keep in trim will have a better chance if he sticks to Postum.” And Tom Thorp, who officiated NFL games, called Postum “the ideal training drink.” Sounds like a winner to me.

At some point, Postum — which was “made of roasted whole wheat and bran” — fell out of fashion. Somebody probably came up with something that was more effective at helping “Safeguard your nerve power as football stars do theirs!” Just as well, I suppose. It doesn’t seem like a Postum dunk would be too pleasant.

In the late ’60s, before Gatorade became Gatorade, a competitor called Quick Kick surfaced. Wish I could find an ad for it, but the best I could do was a couple of newspaper stories. In 1969, San Antonio Express columnist Karl O’Quinn wrote that Houston Oilers founder Bud Adams “owns a sizable portion of the company that makes the stuff and it is available in sporting goods stores now. It will be marketed in a major grocery chain soon.”

According to O’Quinn, Quick Kick “tastes like Gatorade but isn’t as sweet because of the use of saccharine instead sugar. . . . Quick Kick is spotting Gatorade a big head start in sales and advertising, but it has one advantage over the Florida product. It will come in four flavors — grape, orange, strawberry and lemon-lime [the only flavor Gatorade came in for years].”

Here’s my favorite passage, though: “I tried a big cup of the lemon-lime flavor. It won’t make much of a dent in the cola market, but it’s not bad, and they say if you mix it with alcohol you get what the name implies — a quick kick.”

Adams had the Oilers gulping down the stuff in training camp that year. “A man named Blackie Howell in Baton Rouge” concocted Quick Kick, O’Quinn reported. “The LSU Tigers used it for quite a while before Adams got wind of it and bought into the company. Then it was called Bengal Punch.”

So there you have it: a brief, far-from-complete review of early sports drinks.

What might have been.

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Rodgers, Romo and the shadow of Montana

As the NFL cranks up for the playoffs, it’s hard not to notice that Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo are playing quarterback about as well as it can be played. Romo’s 113.2 passer rating for the Cowboys this season is the sixth highest in history; Rodgers’ 112.2 for the Packers is ninth. They’ve had their way with almost every defense they’ve gone up against (even, in Tony’s case, the Seahawks).

The question now becomes: Can they keep playing at this ridiculous level in the postseason? Or more to the point: Can they — or anybody else, for that matter — ever do what Joe Montana did 25 years ago?

When you talk about a quarterback “playing the position about as well as it can be played,” you have to start with Joe Montana in 1989. During the regular season, he compiled a 112.4 rating, which was the record at the time. Then he actually turned it up a notch in the playoffs and posted a rating of 146.4, which is still the record in the Super Bowl era (and only 11.9 points shy of a perfect score, 158.3).

Among Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks, Montana’s 1989 playoff performance is the gold standard by a sizable margin, as you can see:

TOP POSTSEASON RATINGS BY SUPER BOWL-WINNING QBS

Year Quarterback, Team G Att Comp Pct Yds TD Int Rating
1989 Joe Montana, 49ers 3 83 65 78.3 800 11 0 146.4
1986 Phil Simms, Giants 3 58 38 65.5 494 8 0 131.8
1992 Troy Aikman, Cowboys 3 89 61 68.5 795 8 0 126.4
2012 Joe Flacco, Ravens 4 126 73 57.9 1,140 11 0 117.2
1994 Steve Young, 49ers 3 87 53 60.9 623 9 0 117.2
2009 Drew Brees, Saints 3 102 72 70.6 732 8 0 117.0
1988 Joe Montana, 49ers 3 90 56 62.2 823 8 1 117.0
1982 Joe Theismann, Redskins 4 85 58 68.2 716 8 3 110.7
2010 Aaron Rodgers, Packers 4 132 90 68.2 1,094 9 2 109.8
2004 Tom Brady, Patriots 3 81 55 67.9 587 5 0 109.4
1996 Brett Favre, Packers 3 71 44 62.0 617 5 1 107.5

In the regular season and postseason combined, Montana had a rating of 119.4. That’s the record by a healthy margin, too. Here’s how the other quarterbacks in the above chart compare to him:

REGULAR SEASON AND POSTSEASON COMBINED

Year Quarterback, Team G Att Comp Pct Yds TD Int Rating
1989 Joe Montana, 49ers 16 469 336 71.6 4,321 37 8 119.4
1994 Steve Young, 49ers 19 548 377 68.8 4,592 44 10 113.5
2009 Drew Brees, Saints 18 616 435 70.6 5,120 42 11 110.8
2010 Aaron Rodgers, Packers 19 607 402 66.2 5,016 37 13 103.1
1996 Brett Favre, Packers 19 614 369 60.1 4,516 44 14 97.2
1982 Joe Theismann, Redskins 13 337 219 65.0 2,749 21 12 96.2
1992 Troy Aikman, Cowboys 19 562 363 64.6 4,240 31 14 95.4
2004 Tom Brady, Patriots 19 555 343 61.8 4,279 33 14 95.0
2012 Joe Flacco, Ravens 20 657 390 59.4 4,957 33 10 93.4
1988 Joe Montana, 49ers 17 487 294 60.4 3,804 26 11 93.3
1986 Phil Simms, Giants 19 526 297 56.5 3,981 29 22 81.6

Montana’s victory lap, if you want to call it that, really began in the ’88 playoffs. That’s when he started a streak of eight postseason games in which he had a rating of 100 or higher (three in ’88, three in ’89 and two in ’90). Check out his numbers for the 19-game stretch beginning in the ’88 postseason and running through the end of ’89. (Note: He missed three games in ’89.)

MONTANA’S STATS FROM 1988 PLAYOFFS THROUGH 1989 PLAYOFFS

G (RS/PS) Att Comp Pct Yds TD INT Rating
19 (13/6) 559 392 70.1 5,144 45 9 119.0

His ratings in those six postseason games, by the way, were 100.5, 136, 115.2, 142.5, 125.3 and 146.7 — against the best competition the NFL had to offer. How’s that for quarterbacking? And let’s not forget, the rules weren’t nearly as QB-friendly then. The league-wide passer rating in ’88 (70.6) and ’89 (73.3) was much lower than it was this year (87.1).

Montana has set the bar very high, perhaps impossibly high. Anyway, that’s what Rodgers and Romo are up against as they try to “play the position about as well as it can be played.”

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Will anybody ever play quarterback better than Joe Montana did 25 years ago?

Will anybody ever play quarterback better than the 49ers’ Joe Montana did 25 years ago?

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The Fifth Down in the 1961 title game

The Packers host the Lions today with the division title — and possibly more — at stake. To kill time until the kickoff, why don’t we talk about something else that happened at Lambeau Field on this date . . . in 1961. With the wind chill a shivering 6 degrees, Green Bay won the first of its five NFL titles under Vince Lombardi, swallowing up the Giants, 37-0.

What’s totally forgotten about this game is that, thanks to a gaffe by the officiating crew in the third quarter, the Packers offense was given a fifth down. It didn’t have any effect on the outcome, thank goodness, but it’s still fun to revisit.

In fact, here’s the video of the game, courtesy of YouTube. If you jump ahead to the 1:10:08 mark (and let it run to 1:16:48), you can watch the whole nightmare unfold.

It happened right after the second-half kickoff. On first down from his 36, the Packers’ Paul Hornung gained a yard up the middle . . . and then the zebras collectively lost their minds. (That’s Lindsey Nelson, by the way, doing the play-by-play for NBC.)

As you saw, on second and 9 Packers quarterback Bart Starr scrambled 21 yards to the New York 42, where he fumbled and Giants safety Jimmy Patton recovered. At this point, referee George Rennix started doing some very strange things.

First he signaled that an illegal procedure penalty against the Packers had been declined (which presumably meant the play stood).

Then he picked up the ball and stepped off a five-yard penalty against Green Bay, moving the line of scrimmage to the 47.

Then he decided to confer with the other officials.

And then he concluded that the procedure penalty, which came before the snap, had wiped out the play and thus, the Packers retained possession.

But Rennix wasn’t through. In the confusion, the chains had been moved, and nobody remembered where the original line of scrimmage was. So when he marked off the five-yard penalty against Green Bay, he began from the 40, not the 37 — which made it just a two-yard penalty.

Worse, the chain gang, thinking the ball had changed hands, had flipped the down marker from 2 to 1 — and none of the officials caught it. Check out this screen shot of Rennix talking to head linesman John Highberger (48) — and notice the 1 on the marker to Highberger’s right.

Screen Shot of Down Marker with 1 instead of 2

Anyway, it was pretty embarrassing. And it would have been a lot more than that, of course, had the the Packers gone down the field and scored again. But they wound up punting, so no major damage was done. To recap, the five downs went like this:

1. First and 10 from the Green Bay 36 — Hornung, 1-yard run to the 37.

2. First and 15 from the Green Bay 35 (after Rennix’s Follies) — Hornung, 10-yard run to the 45.

3. Second and 5 from the Green Bay 45 — Jim Taylor, 1-yard run to the 46.

4. Third and 4 from the Green Bay 46 — Starr, incomplete pass to Bowd Dowler.

5. Fourth and 4 from the Green Bay 46 – Dowler punts.

“Not until after the game could the officials be reached for an explanation that answered only a part of the question,” The New York Times reported. “The officials said that a Green Bay lineman had been in motion illegally before the Packers had started their play. That voided everything that happened thereafter.

“Furthermore, they said that Starr already had hit the ground and the ball had been whistled dead when he fumbled, so in any case possession would not have been awarded to the Giants. [Note: This is totally at odds with the actions of Rennix, who signaled it was New York’s ball.]

“They never did say . . . why the down marker was reset at 1 instead of remaining at 2.”

Which left the NFL with this wonderful Times headline when it was all over:

NYT headline

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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More Redskins fisticuffs

A practice-field fight between Redskins Bashaud Breeland and Andre Roberts a couple of weeks ago caused quite a stir in the nation’s capital. What else is there to talk about when a team is 3-10?

I made light of it in a blog, saying it paled in comparison to some of the more action-packed battles in the NFL’s combative history. I’ve since discovered — as if I needed any more Paul Lipscomb cardammunition — that the Breeland-Roberts bout isn’t even the most notable between two Redskins. The brawl between middle guard Jim Ricca and defensive tackle Paul Lipscomb after a game in 1952 was much better, according to accounts.

Breeland (5-11, 195) and Roberts (5-11, 192), after all, are mere cruiserweights. Ricca (6-4, 270) and Lipscomb (6-5, 246), a four-time Pro Bowler, were super heavyweights. When they walked, the ground shook. (Or at least, it did in those days, when players weren’t nearly as big as they are now.)

The two behemoths came to blows in the locker room after the Redskins had blown a 10-0 lead in the second half and lost 14-10 to the Giants at Griffith Stadium. “Blaming each other for missed assignments that led to Washington’s final-period collapse, . . . they tangled in a brief, but bloody brawl,” the International News Service reported.

“Ricca suffered a deep gash under the chin that required seven stitches to close. Eyewitnesses said he apparently fell against a trunk as the two beefy linemen wrestled to the floor.”

The Associated Press added this detail: “They were separated, before much damage was done, by several players, including 226-pound Chuck Drazenovich, who used to be the intercollegiate boxing champion.”

Redskins coach Curly Lambeau, who had seen a tiff or two between teammates in his day, told Ricca and Lipscomb to shake hands. He then sent them to neutral corners. (OK, I made the second part up.)

“I’d rather see the boys worked up than take the loss lying down,” Lambeau said — football philosophy at its finest.

Here’s what’s eerie. Both fights — Breeland-Roberts and Ricca-Lipscomb — took place after the Redskins had dropped their fifth in a row. In both instances, there were three weeks left in the season. In both instances, the Redskins lost their next game, then won the one after that to end their string of defeats at six.

The moral, I guess: Beware late-season five-game losing streaks. (And for goodness sakes, keep your gloves up.)

Source: pro-football-reference.com

INS version of fight 11-24-52

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Oh-Oh-Odell Beckham

Here’s what’s really amazing about Odell Beckham, the Giants’ fantabulous rookie receiver: He became a phenomenon even though his team lost seven of his first eight NFL games. Now that’s hard to do — though it’s probably a little less hard if you happen to play in the media capital of the world.

With his one-handed grabs, big-play ability and week-in, week-out productivity, Beckham takes your breath away. His numbers don’t just speak for themselves, their shout: 79 catches for 1,120 yards and 11 touchdowns in just 11 games. If he hadn’t missed the first month with a hamstring injury, we’d be talking about one of the greatest receiving seasons in history, not just one of the greatest by a first-year guy.

But let’s discuss that for a moment – the best seasons, that is, by rookie receivers. Earlier this week in the New York Post, Brian Lewis wrote:

No rookie receiver has ever had the kind of a start to an NFL career that Odell Beckham Jr., has, no first-year wideout has dominated defenses and back pages and highlight shows like this since Randy Moss.

I agree with the second half of that statement, but I take issue with the absolute certainty of the first half. After all, this is the league’s 95th season. Almost everything has happened before, including a rookie receiver exploding the way Beckham has

Before I go any further, check out this chart. It’ll give you an idea of where Odell’s performance falls — with a game, of course, still to play.

MOST RECEIVING YARDS PER GAME BY A ROOKIE IN NFL/AFL HISTORY

Year Receiver, Team G Yards Avg TD
1960 Bill Groman, Oilers (AFL) 14 1,473 105.2 12
1952 Billy Howton, Packers 12 1,231 102.6 13
2014 Odell Beckham, Giants 11 1,120 101.8 11
1954 Harlon Hill, Bears 12 1,124 93.7 12
2003 Anquan Boldin, Cardinals 16 1,377 86.1 8
1998 Randy Moss, Vikings 16 1,313 82.1 17
1965 Bob Hayes, Cowboys 13 1,003 77.2 12
1961 Mike Ditka (TE), Bears 14 1,056 76.9 12
1982 Charlie Brown, Redskins 9* 690 76.7 8
1958 Jimmy Orr, Steelers 12 910 75.8 7
1996 Terry Glenn, Patriots 15 1,132 75.5 6

*9-game strike season

(I tacked on the touchdowns at the end in case you were curious.)

One of the things I love about this chart is that just about every decade is represented. There are three receivers from the ’50s, three from the ’60s, two from the ’90s and one each from the ’80s, ’00s and ’10s. Only the ’70s, when defense had the upper hand, are missing.

Another thing I love about this chart is that it’s fair. It looks at per-game average rather than gross yardage, which would skew things toward receivers who had the benefit of longer seasons. Beckham will play in “only” 12 games this year, which is how many Billy Howton, Harlon Hill and Jimmy Orr played in in the ’50s. So you can put his stats next to theirs and decide for yourself who was better. (I’m excluding Bill Groman from this discussion because the AFL in 1960 wasn’t close to being on the NFL’s level.)

Howton had six 100-yard games that season and Hill seven. Let’s compare them to Beckham’s six (so far):

        Howton 1952                          Hill 1954                         Beckham 2014

Opponent Rec-Yds-TD Opponent Rec-Yds-TD Opponent Rec-Yds-TD
Redskins 3-128-1 Lions 4-140-1 Colts 8-156-0
Rams 5-156-1 Colts 3-144-1 Seahawks 7-108-0
Lions 7-151-1 49ers 4-116-1 Cowboys 10-146-2
Lions 7-123-2 49ers 7-224-4 Titans 11-130-1
Rams 6-200-0 Browns 3-117-1 Redskins 12-143-3
49ers 8-162-2 Rams 6-109-1 Rams 8-148-2
Totals 36-920-8 Cardinals 6-117-1 Totals 56-831-8
Totals 33-967-10

You can debate until you’re blue in the face the differences between eras and what all this means. But as you can see, what Beckham is doing as a rookie isn’t exactly unprecedented. Howton cardOther receivers have “had the kind of a start to an NFL career that Odell Beckham Jr., has.” They just played so long ago that hardly anybody remembers.

Howton and Hill, too, were phenomenons. Billy, for instance, had six touchdown catches of 50 yards or longer (90, 89, 78, 69, 54, 50) plus a non-scoring grab of 76. Harlon had TDs of 76, 66, 65 and 64. They were downfield threats, just like Beckham is. The NFL just didn’t get the attention then that it does now. (Never mind an NFL Channel; there was barely an NBC.)

When Howton retired after the 1963 season, he was the all-time leader in receptions (503) and receiving yards (8,459) and ranked third receiving touchdowns (61). He simply had the misfortune of playing in Green Bay when it truly was pro football’s Siberia. (Read: Before Vince Lombardi arrived and thawed things out.)

I kid you not: The day Howton broke Don Hutson’s career receptions record (488), The Dallas Morning News mentioned it in the last paragraph of its game story. (Howton spent his last four seasons with the expansion Cowboys.) And the day the Colts’ Ray Berry broke Billy’s receptions mark, The Associated Press reported: “Berry caught five passes . . . to raise his career total [to] 506,” which was three more than “the career record held by Jim Howton.”

Harlon Hill cardJim Howton?

As for Hill, he could have wound up in Canton — why Howton isn’t there, I’ll never understand — if injuries hadn’t robbed him of his specialness. Consider: He scored 32 touchdowns in his first three seasons, a total of 36 games. Only four receivers have scored more in their first 36 games: Randy Moss (43), Jerry Rice (40), Rob Gronkowski (38) and John Jefferson (36). How’s that for company?

None of this is meant to knock Beckham down a few pegs. The kid has been an absolute revelation. It’s just meant to remind everybody that he’s not alone on that peg. As I said, the NFL has been around for a long time.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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