Tag Archives: Patriots

Sammy Baugh threw deflated footballs

Just dug out the transcript of an interview I did with Redskins Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh back in the ’90s. I remembered him talking at some point about manipulating the air pressure in footballs — which happens, of course, to be one of the topics du jour after Sunday’s AFC title game in New England.

We got off on this tangent when I asked Baugh about an old tale: That when the Steelers were playing at home, they’d use the fat, 1920s footballs instead of the slimmer, modern ones to make it harder for opponents to throw against them. (Those early Pittsburgh teams, you see, never placed much emphasis on the pass — indeed, they stuck with the single wing through the ’51 season — so the size of the ball didn’t really matter to them.)

“The home team supplied the balls back then,” Baugh told me, “and if they didn’t have a good passer you wouldn’t get that slim ball, you’d get the big fat one. The Steelers would do that. I think Goldsmith used to make a ball with 10 laces instead of eight, and it was just fatter than everything. I don’t blame ’em. If I didn’t have a good passer on the team, I’d put that damn fat ball out there, too. You could throw it, but it was a different kind of ball.”

Sammy also volunteered this information, which fits in nicely with Deflate-gate:

“Kelly [Harry “Kelly” Miller], our clubhouse guy, would put the air in the balls we were going to use in the game. One day I asked him, ‘Kelly, how much air do you put in those damn balls?’ He said, ‘Thirteen pounds.’ I said, ‘Put in 11 today.’ So he did. And from then on, every time we played at home, we played with an 11-pound ball instead of 13. I liked the feel of it better. I knew what 13 felt like, and I had played with an 11-pound ball some in college, and it felt better to me.”

This would be fine except that the ball, according to the rules then and now, is supposed to be inflated with between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds of air. Here are the relevant paragraphs from the 1942 Record and Roster Manual:

(I included the supplemental notes for your amusement, specifically the one about the white ball for night games.)

So, by his own admission, Sammy Baugh, one of the greatest passers in pro football history, played with an illegal ball whenever the Redskins were home, a ball he “liked the feel of” better and presumably made him more effective. I’m guessing this more than made up for his annual trips to Pittsburgh, where he’d have to throw that dang Goldsmith ball.

Just thought I’d mention this while the NFL is deciding what, if anything, to do about the Patriots’ situation. Maybe the Pats did deflate the balls, but they certainly aren’t the first to come up with the idea.

Redskins great Sammy Baugh looks to pass -- presumably with a deflated 11-pound ball (since this game was at Griffith Stadium).

Redskins great Sammy Baugh looks to pass — presumably with a deflated 11-pound ball. (This was a home game.)

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

*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

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 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 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.

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.

● 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.

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:

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

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?

Quality starts for quarterbacks, 2014

At the start of the season, I suggested the NFL needed a new stat: quality starts for quarterbacks. The bar shouldn’t be set terribly high, I’ve decided, just as it isn’t in baseball for pitchers (at least six innings, three or fewer earned runs). My recommendation is: Any start in which a QB posts a passer rating above the NFL average for that season constitutes a quality start. The league average this year was 87.1 — an all-time record — so we’re looking at how many times a guy had a rating of 87.2 or above (minimum: 10 passes).

As it turns out, 16 of the 32 teams had a quarterback who racked up eight or more quality starts. In other words, half the clubs had a QB who played above average, rating-wise, in at least half the games. Here’s a chart that lays it all out. Take a look, and then we’ll discuss it.

MOST QUALITY STARTS (RATING OF 87.2 OR BETTER), 2014

QS	QB, Team (Season Rating)	High	Low	100+
14	Aaron Rodgers, Packers (112.2)	154.5 vs. Panthers	34.3 vs. Bills	11
13	Tony Romo, Cowboys (113.2)	151.7 vs. Colts	53.7 vs Eagles (1)*	10
11	Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers (103.3)	150.6 vs. Colts	64.4 vs. Browns (2)	10
11	Drew Brees, Saints (97.0)	140.0 vs. Steelers	69.7 vs. Panthers (2)	7
11	Andrew Luck, Colts (96.5)	140.4 vs. Jaguars	41.7 vs. Cowboys	7
11	Joe Flacco, Ravens (90.9)	146.0 vs. Bucs	41.7 vs. Texans	7
11	Tom Brady, Patriots (97.4)	148.4 vs. Bears	59.9 vs. Chiefs	6
10	Russell Wilson, Seahawks (95.0)	127.3 vs. Redskins	47.6 vs. Cowboys	7
10	Matt Ryan, Falcons (93.9)	155.9 vs. Bucs	48.6 vs. Bengals	7
10	Alex Smith, Chiefs (93.4)	144.4 vs. Patriots	45.2 vs. Titans	5
9	Peyton Manning, Broncos (101.5)	157.2 vs. 49ers	56.9 vs. Bills	9
9	Philip Rivers, Chargers (93.8)	131.4 vs. Bills	31.0 vs. Dolphins	6
9	Colin Kaepernick, 49ers (86.4)	125.5 vs. Cowboys	36.7 vs. Seahawks (1)	4
8	Eli Manning, Giants (92.1)	148.8 vs. Rams	36.6 vs. 49ers	8
8	Ryan Tannehill, Dolphins (92.8)	125.6 vs. Chargers	70.4 vs. Chiefs	6
8	Andy Dalton, Bengals (83.3)	143.9 vs. Saints	2.0 vs Browns (1)	4

*Figures in parentheses = first or second meeting.

Maybe the biggest surprise is that Peyton Manning, who led all quarterbacks in 2013 with 15 quality starts, dropped to nine this year (one more than Andy Dalton). Is it just a blip, or has the decline begun? He is, after all, almost 39. Philip Rivers, meanwhile, fell from 13 to nine in an up-and-down season, and the Lions’ Matt Stafford went from 10 to five – and as a result, doesn’t even appear in the chart. (No matter. The Lions improved from 7-9 to 11-5 and made the playoffs, thanks a defense that gave up 94 fewer points.)

At the top of the list are most of the usual suspects — Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger and Russell Wilson. The only one who jumps out at you is Joe Flacco, who had 11 quality starts even though his overall rating of 90.9 isn’t that far above average. Good Joe had seven ratings of 100-plus; Not So Good Joe had two ratings in the 40s.

Football already has tons of stats, of course, but it seems like there’s a void here. If anybody has a better idea for evaluating quarterback performance, week in and week out — besides just wins and losses, I mean — I’d love to hear it.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

The Packers’ Aaron Rodgers was No. 1 in the NFL this season in quality starts. But that’s not what he means here.

Beantown embraces pro football

The Patriots are in the midst of a historic run — 13 playoff berths in 14 seasons, eight conference championship games, five Super Bowls, three titles, a .752 winning percentage (188-62, playoffs included). I wrote about it back in August, about how only George Halas’ Bears dynasty in the ’30s and ’40s ranks above Bill Belichick’s bunch. Nothing that happened in 2014 has changed that. The Pats earned the home-field advantage in the AFC could very well win it all again.

Looking at New Englanders now, decked out in their red, white and blue Patriots regalia, it’s hard to believe that 50 years ago, folks were still wondering whether pro football had a future in Boston. It had, after all, always been a baseball town, and three NFL teams had come and gone, leaving barely a trace — I’m talking about the Bulldogs (1929), Braves/Redskins (1932-36) and Yanks (1944-48) — before the AFL’s Patriots took another crack at the market in the ’60s.

It’s an amazing transformation, it truly is. In 1936 the Redskins drew so poorly — despite winning the Eastern Division — that owner George Preston Marshall moved the championship game against the Packers from Fenway Park to New York’s Polo Grounds (then home of the Giants).

The Yanks’ last home game in 1948 attracted a crowd of just 9,652. Late in the season, owner

The Boston Yanks’ all-time passing leader.

Ted Collins told The Associated Press he’d lost “exactly $720,000” in his four years in Boston. That was a lot of money back then. Heck, franchises went for a fraction of that.

“Boston has two good baseball clubs [the Braves, remember, were still in town], a major-league hockey team, horse- and dog-racing tracks and tomorrow three major college football games are scheduled there — Iowa and Boston University, Yale and Harvard and St. Mary’s [of California] and Boston College,” Collins said. “I believe most of our problems would disappear if we came up with a winning team. Somehow, we always seem to play our worst games at home.”

By the time the Patriots came along, of course, the Celtics had been added to the mix. Indeed, they were the best team in basketball, in the process of winning an unfathomable 11 titles in 13 seasons.

Fifty years ago, Boston Globe columnist Harold Kaese wrote a piece for the Sunday Magazine chronicling Beantown’s sorry pro football history. You won’t believe the headline:

(Alas? What’s with the Alas?)

Kaese begins this way:

By finishing the [1964] season, the Patriots will tie the endurance record for a Boston professional football team.

Five seasons!

Holders are George Marshall’s Redskins (1932-36) and Ted Collins’ Yanks (1944-48). The Patriots undoubtedly will set a new record next season, for pro football at last has found a home in our city.

It was not easy. Baseball, hockey, horse racing, dog racing and basketball made it first. Since 1926, seven attempts have been made to put over pro football here [counting non-NFL clubs]. The first six failed.

The Patriots, too, might have failed, except for a financial windfall from television. . . . Starting in 1965, for five years the Patriots and their seven American Football League associates will each average between $900,000 and $1,000,000 from their new TV contact with NBC.

If television is here to stay, so are the Patriots.

Before the $36 million [AFL] deal was clinched, Patriots stock for which the public paid $5 per share had dropped to a bid price of $1.75. . . . They have yet to have a profitable season. . . . The covered stadium they hope to play in eventually is still only a gleam in [owner Billy] Sullivan’s eye.

That was 1964. And here we are, half a century later, and the Patriots are one of the NFL’s flagships, a model franchise. But only after they overtook dog racing.

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 95^th 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. Other 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.”

Jim 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

PRO FOOTBALL DALY

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

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Howton 1952 Hill 1954 Beckham 2014