Tag Archives: quarterbacks

A few pointers on playing quarterback

One of the best things about this commercial is that, right up to the end, it looks like an instructional video on How To Take The Center Snap. Our demonstrator is Roman Gabriel, the Pro Bowl quarterback for the Rams and Eagles in the ’60s and ’70s.

That same year (1969), Gabriel appeared in John Wayne movie, The Undefeated, set in the period just after the Civil War. He played a Native American named Blue Boy. (Was he a Native American? Well, no. But his father was Filipino, which accounted for Roman’s dark complexion. That’s show biz, folks.) You also get a glimpse here of Merlin Olsen, the Rams’ Hall of Fame defensive tackle, who went on to a much more substantial acting career (Father Murphy, Little House on the Prairie).

How great is it that an NFL quarterback got to be in a film in which The Duke delivered this line?

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The jump pass

Does anybody — anywhere — throw a jump pass anymore?

Joe Namath did.

In college at Alabama:

And in the pros with the Jets, as this classic New York Times photo shows.

Another reason to love Joe Willie.

He was hardly the first to throw a jump pass, though. Here’s Hall of Famer Arnie Herber (4) letting one fly in the 1937 short feature Pigskin Champions, filmed in Hollywood after he and the Packers beat the Boston Redskins in the ’36 title game. His receiver is none other than Don Hutson (2).

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Joe Theismann beating Jim Taylor in “The Superstars” tennis finals, 1979

Tennis doesn’t get any better than this, folks. I’m talking about tennis, of course, between a 29-year-old active NFL quarterback and a 43-year-old retired NFL fullback. Kudos to Packers Hall of Famer Jim Taylor for upsetting high-jumper Dwight Stones in the semis and reaching the finals of the 1979 “Superstars” against the Redskins’ Joe Theismann, who junked his way to . . . well, you’ll find out.

Speaking of junk, sports programming didn’t get much trashier in those days than “The Superstars,” an ABC production in which (mostly) athletes from a wide variety of sports competed in 10 events for money and vanity. (I say “(mostly) athletes” because actor Robert Duvall placed sixth in 1976 — and first in bowling. Who knew Tom Hagen was the Dick Weber of the Corleone household?)

Frank Gifford provides the tennis play-by-play in this clip and, being Frank, tries to breathe life into a match that, as anyone can see, was dead on arrival. What a pro. FYI: Theismann finished third in the standings that year and fourth the next before “retiring” from the “Superstars” grind to devote his full attention to winning the Super Bowl (though he did take part, victoriously, in a “Superteams” competition in 1983 with some other Redskins).

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Joe Namath gets a massage from Flip Wilson

Only Joe Namath would go on “The Flip Wilson Show” and allow himself to be massaged by a man dressed as a woman. This is from the early ’70s, with Flip doing his Geraldine thing and the Jets quarterback trying unsuccessfully not to laugh:

Later in the segment, Geraldine speaks for all of us when she’s asked about Joe’s acting ability:

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Cecil Isbell’s unique fashion accessory

The Packers’ Cecil Isbell was one of pro football’s best passers in the prewar years. He set several short-lived NFL records in his career (1938-42) — for passing yards in a game (333) and touchdown passes (24) and passing yards (2,021) in a season, among others — and might be in the Hall of Fame if he hadn’t retired at 27 to go into coaching.

And he did all this despite wearing a chain — secured by a harness — that ran from his waist to his upper left (non-throwing) arm, limiting the range of motion and keeping the shoulder from popping out of the socket. He’d suffered a bad separation in college and was worried it might happen again.

A cartoonist’s rendering of Isbell’s unusual piece of equipment:

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Meyer Luckman’s file card at Sing Sing prison

Sid Luckman, the Bears’ Hall of Fame quarterback, was a senior at Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High when his father Meyer was arrested for murder in 1934. His dad wound up spending the last eight years of his life in Sing Sing prison, and never saw Sid play at Columbia or in the NFL. It was one of the great unwritten sports stories of the ’40s.

Somebody at the New York Department of Corrections was good enough to send me a copy of Meyer’s Sing Sing file card. As you can see, he was serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for Murder 2, and was eligible for parole March 6, 1949 — Sid’s next-to-last season. His heart gave out, though, in January 1944.

One last thing: His “S.S.#” — 91674 — obviously isn’t his Social Security number; there aren’t enough digits. It must be his Sing Sing number. Lucky Luciano, who was at the prison at the same time, was number 92163.

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The Patriots’ run

We all know how good the Patriots have been since Bill Belichick turned the quarterbacking over to Tom Brady in 2001: three championships, five Super Bowls, eight AFC title games. Enough for ya? And this is in an era, mind you, when such sustained excellence is supposed to be more difficult because of free-agent flight. It’s one of the best runs the NFL has seen.

But where exactly does it rank? Right near the top if you go by this chart. I looked at the best 13-year stretches in league history, based on won-loss record — figuring the championships would take care of themselves (which they mostly did). The Pats’ .752 winning percentage, playoffs included, is second only to the .772 compiled by the 1932-44 Bears, George Halas’ famed Monsters of the Midway.

Only one team on the list didn’t win multiple titles: the forever-falling-short 1967-79 Rams. Other than that, there should be few surprises.

Be advised: In some cases, a club was dominant for an even longer period and had more than one great 13-year run. The Cowboys, for example, were a machine from 1966 to ’85, with eight different 13-year stretches in which they won more than 70 percent of their games. In these overlapping instances, I took the best 13 years, reasoning that we were talking about many of the same players (and wanting to avoid duplication). Or to put it another way: only one to a customer.

Also, I’ve listed the most significant coaches and quarterbacks for each team, not every last one. (So, apologies to Tommy Prothro and Matt Cassel, among others.)

Some will say the championships are all that matter, and certainly they’re what matter most. But every week we hear a coach say “how hard it is to win a game” in the NFL. These clubs did that historically well.

THE COMPANY THE 2001-13 PATRIOTS KEEP

[table]

Seasons,Team (Titles),Coaches,Quarterbacks,W-L-T,Pct

1932-44,Bears (5),Jones/Halas,Sid Luckman,116-30-12,.772

2001-13,Patriots (3),Bill Belichick,Tom Brady,176-58-0,.752

1984-96,49ers (4),Walsh/Seifert,Montana/Young,172-58-1,.747

1965-77,Raiders (1+1),Rauch/Madden,Lamonica/Stabler,146-47-9,.745

1968-80,Cowboys (2),Tom Landry,Roger Staubach,156-57-1,.731

1929-41,Packers (5),Curly Lambeau,Herber/Isbell,116-42-6,.726

1958-70,Colts (3 + 1),Ewbank/Shula,Unitas/Morrall,128-53-5,.702

1950-62,Browns (3),Paul Brown,Otto Graham,115-49-5,.695

1967-79,Rams (0),Allen/Knox,Roman Gabriel,136-58-7,.694

1972-84,Steelers (4),Chuck Noll,Terry Bradshaw,145-65-1,.690

[/table]

Note: the ’67 Raiders and ’68 Colts won the league championship but lost the Super Bowl. Thus the “+1.”)

Now . . . if you threw in the Browns’ four seasons in the All-America Conference, before they joined the NFL, you’d have to move them up to No. 1. From 1946 to ’58 they were 137-34-5, a .793 winning percentage. But that’s a judgment call. The AAC didn’t offer them much competition, as their 52-4-3 record in the league attests.

Finally, the Vince Lombardi Packers just missed making the list, topping out at .673 for their best 13 years (1960-72). Of course, during the nine seasons Vince coached them (1959-67) they were even better, posting a 98-30-4 record and a .758 winning percentage.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, The Official NFL Record and Fact Book

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Receivers who’ve done it the hard way

Some receivers have it better than others. Indeed, some receivers have it so much better it’s almost unfair.

Wes Welker, for instance. He got to play with Tom Brady for six years in New England (well, five years and one game), and now he’s running routes for Peyton Manning in Denver. How sweet is that? Answer: five 100-catch seasons sweet.

Jerry Rice had Joe Montana and Steve Young (not to mention Rich Gannon). Michael Irvin had Troy Aikman. Andre Reed had Jim Kelly. Talk about blessed.

Then there are those who aren’t as blessed. I started thinking about this the other day when it occurred to me that in his 13 seasons, most of them quite productive, the Redskins’ Santana Moss has had only one year in which his quarterback made the Pro Bowl. That would be 2012, when Robert Griffin III was voted in as a rookie (but couldn’t play because of a blown-out knee). Other than that, Moss has chased passes thrown by the likes of Vinny Testaverde, Chad Pennington, Mark Brunell, Jason Campbell and Donovan McNabb — some of whom had been Pro Bowlers in their prime, but not when they were teamed with Santana.

Which made me wonder: How unusual is it for a receiver to catch 700 balls — in Moss’ case 722 — essentially without the benefit of Pro Bowl quarterbacking? My research shows he’s not alone in this regard, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of company, either:

700 CAREER CATCHES, FEWEST SEASONS WITH A PRO BOWL QUARTERBACK

[table]

Catches,Receiver\, Team*,Pro Bowl Quarterback, Total Seasons

860,Muhsin Muhammad\, Panthers,Steve Beuerlein, 1 of 14 (1999)

857,Anquan Boldin\, 49ers,Kurt Warner,1 of 11 (2008)

846,Larry Fitzgerald\, Cardinals,Kurt Warner,1 of 10 (2008)

764,Eric Moulds\, Bills, Drew Bledsoe,1 of 12 (2002)

722,Santana Moss\, Redskins,Robert Griffin III,1 of 13 (2012)

712,Brandon Marshall\, Bears,Jay Cutler,1 of 8 (2008)

[/table]

OTHER HAVE-NOTS

[table]

Catches,Receiver\, Team*,Pro Bowl Quarterback(s), Total Seasons

943,Derrick Mason\, Titans,Steve McNair,2 of 15 (2000\, ’03)

927,Andre Johnson\, Texans,Matt Schaub,2 of 11 (2009\, ’12)

814,Henry Ellard\, Rams,Everett\, Frerotte,2 of 16 (1990\, ’96)

814,Keyshawn Johnson\, Jets/Bucs,Testaverde\, B. Johnson,2 of 11 (1998\, 2002)

[/table]

*Current team or the one he played for longest.

(Note: I excluded running backs, which is why Larry Centers isn’t listed.)

This raises any any number of questions, perhaps the biggest being:

How much does the quarterback make the receiver, and how much does the receiver make the QB? Would Moss and the others have put up even gaudier numbers if, like Donald Driver, they’d spent their entire careers huddling up with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay? And if you go along with this premise, might this make them a tad — or even more than a tad — underrated?

Food for thought, at the very least. Moulds, Moss and Marshall have one playoff win among them — one in 33 combined seasons. There’s something to be said for a receiver’s supporting cast, particularly at the quarterback spot.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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80 years ago: Marty Glickman vs. Sid Luckman

This doesn’t have anything to do with pro football, per se, but it’s kinda cool nonetheless. Here’s the headline that ran across Page 9 of the Brooklyn Eagle on Oct. 13, 1934:

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Yes, that’s Marty Glickman, the future sportscaster, who helped Madison High hand mighty Erasmus Hall a 25-0 loss, its first in the regular season in four years. But that’s not why I’m posting about it. I’m posting about it because in the second quarter, Glickman intercepted a pass and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown. The passer? Sid Luckman, Erasmus’ single-wing tailback, who would go on to quarterback the Bears to four NFL titles. For more details, read the story by the Eagle’s Harold Parrott.

Glickman reminisced about the game in the autobiography he wrote with Stan Isaacs, The Fastest Kid on the Block:

Two plays stand out from that game. I was the tailback and signal caller in the single wing, and early in the game I quick-kicked on third down. I kicked it over Luckman’s head — he was the safety — and the ball rolled dead at about the 8-yard line. It must have gone about 65 yards. It completely surprised them. We held, Luckman punted out, I caught the ball at midfield and ran it back to the 35-yard line. We scored a couple of plays later. . . .

Later, Luckman threw a pass diagonally downfield that I intercepted at our 25-yard line. Both Sid and I were off to the side, and he was the only one who had a shot at me. He tried to race over and tackle me, but there was no way he could catch me. Whoosh, I went 75 yards for the touchdown, and we won the game. We later beat Roosevelt, 12-0, for the city championship.

Luckman had another memory of his rival in his autobiography, Luckman at Quarterback:

We fought each other tooth and nail in every game we played, with the result that we became chums off the field, almost inseparable each summer, though all we had in common was a charley-horse I handed Marty on one play, and a bruised ear he gave me on a hard tackle. How did we become friends? I guess Ma Luckman was responsible for that. Ma never did like “feuds” of any sort, and especially failed to understand how the papers could dare write that Luckman and Glickman were ready to “tear into each other again next Saturday.” Her little boy, she sincerely felt, had no such malice in his heart.

So she called up Marty’s folks and invited them over for supper, figuring on patching up the “feud.” The next day Marty and I took in a pro game at the Polo Grounds and watched someone else fight it out for a change.

Actually, Glickman was more celebrated for his track exploits than his football prowess. (Note that Parrott refers to him as “the city’s 100-yard champion sprinter.”) Two years later, at Hitler’s Olympics in Berlin, he was in line to run in the 4-by-100-meter relay, but he and another Jewish member of the U.S. team, Sam Stoller, were replaced at the last minute. Guess why.

If you wanted to do an American version of Chariots of Fire, Glickman and Luckman would be the perfect athletes to build it around. Sid, of course, had his own burdens to bear. His father was convicted of murder in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in Sing Sing prison. One of these days, maybe I’ll get around to writing a screenplay.

Finally, in case you missed it: The Madison-Erasmus game was played at Ebbets Field, home of the baseball and football Dodgers, before a crowd of 20,000. That was more than the football Dodgers drew, on average, that season (less than 12,000, if Total Football‘s figures are accurate). Football in the ’30s: a different world.

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