Browns-Rams: Pretending To Pretend

This is all fiction; that’s the only disclaimer you’re gonna get.

And because it’s fiction, and because I’m the bloke making it up, I can do what I darn well please – especially because this is a blog that at last count is being read actively by .000001 percent of the planet. So if your team doesn’t come out on top in this particular match, please don’t come crying to me. Realize this is nothing but falsehoods from invented start to faked-over finish, with players who will never elsewhere play together playing together on a pretend field, running plays cobbled together out of whole cloth, scoring points that are even more apropos of nothing than the points that are usually scored in games, and delivering a wholly made-up outcome essentially to you and no one else. Really. It couldn’t be more personal if you just sat down and thought it. So relax and let it happen. It’ll be over in about another 850 words, and you can go back to more tangible pursuits, like playing Angry Birds.

I screed because I’m looking at this particular matchup, the all-time Cleveland Browns versus the all-time Los Angeles Rams. (And they are the Los Angeles Rams, darn it, no matter what anyone in St. Louis says or thinks. In fact, I think L.A. should just claim them under eminent domain, stick them back in the Coliseum, and change the colors back to blue and white. There still may be a clown car full of wackos running for the White House, but at least one thing will be back in balance.) It’s virtually impossible to pick a winner because the talent levels are so close. Up until now there was a disparity in talent somewhere that could be exploited, on a purely academic level, solely for the entertainment of the reading audience, but not between the Rams and the Browns. They could be the same team, if the Browns’ uniforms weren’t so historically ugly. The only time they looked even remotely appropriate for a football team was when Marion Motley’s helmet matched the color of the ball – white. And that was when the AAFC played night games and no one could see anything. So the only time the Browns have dressed like a football team was when they played in the dark, whereas the Rams have always looked somewhat like a football team, even when they were fighting off Georgia Frontiere's urge to dress them like cheerleaders.

The all-time records are close. The Browns have been in existence 11 fewer years and have won 25 fewer games, so they’ve been better more often, not that that means anything. The Dolphins have been betterer oftener and they’re on the sidelines because they lack talent. It may be harder to lose with talent than to win without it, but not here.

The starting lineups similarly approximate each other. The lines are strong, the linebackers less so, the offensive backfields more so, and the defensive backfields – well, both teams hope it never comes to Erich Barnes or Ed Meador saving the day.

Let’s look at those lineups in detail.

Cleveland	Position	L.A.
Willis	DL	Olsen
Ford	DL	Jones
W. Johnson	DL	Jack Youngblood
Sherk	DL	Brooks
Houston	LB	Baughan
Matthews Jr.	LB	Richter
Michaels	LB	Greene
Minnifield	DB	Meador
Scott	DB	Lane
Paul	DB	Irvin
Barnes	DB	Cromwell

Cleveland	Position	L.A.
Graham	QB	Waterfield
Brown	RB	Dickerson
Kelly	RB	Faulk
Lavelli	WR	Hirsch
Speedie	WR	Fears
Newsome	TE	Bruce/Holt
Groza	OL	Mack
McCormack	OL	Harrah
Hickerson	OL	Matheson
Schafrath	OL	Slater
Thomas	OL	Saul

You look at that and think, "Oooh, the Rams' D-line is going to roll like an M-1 tank over the Browns' line" – until you look at the Browns' line, comprised as it is of three HOFers (rightly or wrongly, not my decision to make – particularly because of the fact that they are HOFers is just that, and all my stuff is just neurons acting up), an oughta-be and a will-be. And then you look at the Rams' O-line and think, "Well, that's not going to get 'er done" (I suppose you really do talk like that), and then you look across and see that they're blocking Jerry Sherk, and you realize there's more than enough there. And every "Whoa – Jim Brown!" is met with a "Man – Marshall Faulk!", until you throw up your hands at the futility of the pregame and decide to play the damn game.

(By the way, this is one huge advantage a made-up-in-the-head game has over a non-made-up game. If Howie Long runs out of things to say about a Bengals-Chiefs game five minutes into a 20-minute segment he has to keep talking – not a huge sacrifice for Howie I know, but oh, the humanity.)

And the game turns out to be a laugher.

The deal is this: Speed kills. The Rams' wideouts are some of the fastest of their respective eras. That goes double for Marshall Faulk and third-down types like Ollie Matson. Outside of Lavelli, the same cannot be said  of the Browns. Their running backs are run-you-over types, and the linemen are road-graders – and the Rams go around them like they're orange-crowned brown pylons.

It's like watching the Packers in their first game this year, against the Saints. The Packers were running an American Basketball Association fast-break offense, and the Saints, no slouches in the speed game themselves, simply couldn't keep up.

The game starts with Ollie Matson running the kickoff deep into Cleveland territory. Three plays later Bob Waterfield bombs one to Elroy Hirsch and it's 7-0.

The Browns move the ball to midfield but are forced to punt. Don Cockcroft pins the Rams down at their five ...  and this time it takes four plays for the Rams to score. A short Dickerson run is followed by a bomb to Fears, who takes it inside the Cleveland 10. A fade pattern to Isaac Bruce goes for six, and the Browns are down by 14 with scarcely six minutes gone in the first quarter.

Cleveland gamely sticks to the running game and pushes it down the field enough for Cockcroft to bang through a 36-yard field goal, but then Matson cracks off another long return, Waterfield hits Torry Holt in stride, and caps it by connecting with Marshall Faulk on a 29-yard screen pass that's good for a third TD.

It's 21-3, and you don't need to know any more other than Norm van Brocklin plays most of the second half and drills Turkey Joe Jones in the solar plexus with a two-yard bullet, just because.

Oh, and the final. 38-17 Rams.

The numbers are staggering. L.A. rolls up 483 yards of offense to Cleveland's 297. Waterfield and van Brocklin combine for 370 yards passing and four scores, two to Hirsch. The running game generates 113 from a combination of Dickerson, Steven Jackson and Lawrence McCutcheon. The Browns run for 161, 113 of it from Jim Brown, but it's largely meaningless. The Rams are faster, and every bit as good. What looks equal is actually quite unequal.

Could the outcome have been different? Of course not. Sorry; I meant to say, "What a foolish question." There are only a billion ways it could have been different, and about 425 million of them have the Browns winning.

If you feel differently, let me suggest that you get the remaining 6.775 billion people on the planet to read this and weigh in with their opinions – and even then I'm not changing anything.

After all, it's just pretend.

Returning With The Rest Of Round Two

I realized I haven't followed through with the Battle of the All-Time-Great Teams, so with no further ado, here are recaps of the remaining round-two games.

Dolphins-Rams: Call it art imitating life or what you will, but no-name defenses don’t win all-time-greats matchups. When the playing field is 8-1/2 by 11, talent carries the day. This is a bad thing for the Dolphins, who have almost always been greater than the sum of their parts. Blame it on the coaches; the great ‘Fins coaches, Don Shula and Bill Parcells, have been so ungodly good at wringing every last drop of play from their charges that the personnel guys (sometimes the coaches themselves) feel bulletproof enough to say, “I don’t care; give me that guy with the elevator cleat.” Go figure: the Dolphins have an all-time winning percentage of .576 and trot out Manny Fernandez, Jason Taylor, Bill Stanfill, and Bob Baumhower in their all-time best-ever defensive line – and the whole defense is like that. The linebackers are Bob Brudzinski, Bryan Cox, and the prototypical Dolphins defender, Zach Thomas, who turned short, unathletic, and quintessentially overachieving into a multiyear All-Something career. The secondary includes Patrick Surtain, Sam Madison, Jake Scott, and Dick Anderson – solid guys, but gird your loins with them and step into the ring with Steve Young, and let’s see how you do.

Compare this with the Rams, which have always been about squandering great talent the way a Hummer squanders liquefied dinosaurs. They flash Bob Waterfield and Tom Fears and Elroy Hirsch and Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce and Norm van Brocklin and Jack Youngblood and Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones, Inventor of the Sack. The Dolphins fire back impotently with Dan Marino, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Larry Czonka, and a handful of linemen. Larry Little, indeed.

All the good coaching in the world can’t save the Dolphins in this one. The Rams outrun and outpass the outflanked Dolphins, who set the tempo for exactly three minutes in the first quarter. A 10-3 game at the end of one balloons to 24-6 at halftime and 37-13 by the final gun. Waterfield throws for 419 and three scores, Hirsch catches six for 125, and Faulk and Dickerson rush for a combined 156.

While the Rams move on, the Dolphins can console themselves with this: No NFL team has historically done more with less. The unfortunate thing is that less is ultimately less.


Titans-Lions: Believe it or not, but the Titans have the better all-time record and home field for this matchup, but like we’ve mentioned before, a team only needs about three four-year periods of goodness to supply enough players for a decent all-time-greats team. The Lions make it up to two and a half, and that’s enough to take down the Toilers.

Houstennessee makes it really close, though. Warren Moon plus Earl Campbell just about equals Barry Sanders, and the Oilans throw in Chris Johnson, Elvin Bethea, Ken Houston, and a really good offensive line to counteract Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, Roger Brown, and a cast of a thousand tough D-backs.

However, this game pivots on a matchup: Moon versus the Lions’ defensive backfield. The Lions’ historical secondary is the best in NFL history, and it’s deep. Moon, a short, impatient quarterback, is perfect cannon-fodder for Jack Christensen, Lem Barney, Night Train Lane, Yale Lary, Dick LeBeau, and Don Doll. The result: four interceptions, one pick-six, and two short fields that the Lions turn into 10 points.

Moon’s plenty productive when he’s not throwing to the other team – 328 and a TD – and Campbell and Johnson are a dynamite Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside duo, but it doesn’t matter. Despite Barry Sanders outgaining Bobby Layne (Sanders 146 rushing yards, Layne 139 passing yards), the Lions prevail 20-17.


Packers-Chargers: A replay in spirit of Super Bowl I. Despite some gaudy numbers coming in, the AFL quarterback can’t throw, the AFL running backs can’t run, and the Packers jump on early and never let up. Green Bay 27-7.


Browns-Seahawks: In the current milieu it’s hard to believe this game is even being played. In the all-time-great milieu it’s a stretch, too. The game starts out fairly evenly, as the Seahawks’ skill players and defensive stars hold their own, but it fades fast thanks to an overdose of Jim Brown and a stiff shot of Otto Graham. A surprisingly stout Browns’ defense delivers, too. In the end Brown rushes for 117 and a TD, Marion Motley adds 83 and two scores, Graham waltzes in on a naked bootleg and the Browns advance 31-10.


Recap: The final eight teams in the all-time-great-team showdown have been determined. The matchups are:

• Bears-Lions in Chicago. Four quarters of ouch, guaranteed.

• Browns-Rams in Cleveland. The Rams go back to their roots, assuming the ground’s not too frozen.

• Packers-49ers in Green Bay. The latest installment of a classic playoff matchup.

• Cowboys-Colts in Dallas. A rivalry that ought to be but has never been takes center stage.

Stay tuned for the game stories and results.

Consistency Rules, Or No Cialis In The Shotgun

Forget Emerson; this is football.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, as every good 85-year-old grammar-school graduate knows, wrote that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of young minds" ... so go forth and be inconsistent, I guess.

Consistency in football is a curious quality, not altogether foolish but in the same area code. Teams strive to be unpredictable from play to play yet consistent in the amount of yards gained by those plays, because they can coach to that. Imagine the plight of a coach whose team rolls up 500 yards in offense and 85 plays in one game, and 200 yards and 55 plays in another. Is he really better off than the coach of a team that's good for 275 every game?

Probably not. The coach of the 275-yards-a-game team takes the hand that's dealt him and maximizes it through ball control, special teams and defense. The coach of the up-and-down team spends more time trying to maximize an offense that can't be maximized, only made less maddening.

Furthermore, the idea that teams are unpredictable from play to play is a conceit, as we’ve established many columns ago. There are only so many plays in a game, and only so many yards that can be gained on those plays. The successful offensive teams do what they do best more often in order to maximize the number of yards gained per play and the number of plays run in a game -- cf., the Indianapolis Colts. If the Colts wanted to be unpredictable they’d run Joseph Addai 40 times a game, and that just plain ain’t happenin’.

The springboard for this discussion is fantasy football. One of the neglected realities of fantasy football is that most of what’s done in real football works against fantasy football. The Eagles are a better team with Ronnie Brown, but his presence makes LeSean McCoy a worse fantasy running back. A healthy Jermichael Finley takes fantasy points away from James Jones, Greg Jennings, Ryan Grant, and James Starks.

However, one thing is true in fantasy football and real football: Production vs. consistency is a conundrum. In fantasy football, do you want a player who's good for 15 points one week and 45 the next, or do you want a player who averages 25 points a game? A combination of the two isn't bad, but given the lady-vs.-tiger conundrum, which do you choose?

There's a definite case to be made for consistency, a predictability that can be managed to, and for that we return to real football. Looking at the standard deviations of NFL teams in all offensive categories over the last five years, the most consistent teams have been three of the league's most successful teams … and two mediocre teams.

As I was putting my research together, I asked many of my football-loving friends to name the successful teams. To a man they guessed the Patriots as one of the most consistent teams. And to a man they were wrong.

While the Pats are the epitome of a successful NFL team, they have not been one of football's most consistent offensive teams over the last five years for some very simple reasons. Reason No. 1: The running game. Reason No. 2: Randy Moss. Randy Moss is a walking inconsistency. Let me rephrase that: Randy Moss is a jogging-at-half-speed inconsistency.

Rather, the successful teams have been the Eagles, the Giants, and the Colts.

The Colts’ offense has been operating at near-peak efficiency for the last five years. Last year was a bit of a down year because of injuries, but basically there is no more up for the Colts’ offense. They run more plays than any other team year after year, they gain more yards than just about anyone, and they are the league’s most consistent team in the number of yards gained per play. Any individual gains are going to be mere internal reallocation. Can Pierre Garcon catch more balls this year? Sure – but so could Austin Collie or even – gasp! – Anthony Gonzalez, and it’s going to come at the expense of the other receivers. There is no more production to be wrung from this offense.

Philadelphia, the league’s most consistent team in terms of yards gained and first downs, also has a system-based story. Ever since Andy Reid has been the coach, the Eagles have built their offense around an athletic quarterback, a versatile running back, and playmaking wide receivers. The differences between the Vick version and the McNabb version are in the details. McNabb favored the tight end. Vick favors the wideouts.

The Eagles' dedication to the system extends to the role players. When Kevin Kolb (who was never a good fit for the system) was traded to Arizona and the Eagles needed a backup quarterback, they looked at their system, looked at the available talent, and signed the second-best QB for their system – Vince Young. Similarly when the Eagles looked for a backup running back they found a fit for their scheme in Ronnie Brown.

The Giants have a system too, albeit one that's less exciting and more dysfunctional than the Eagles' system. It relies on runs and lots of them, coupled with mid-range passes to wide receivers and particularly the tight end.

The biggest loss of the offseason may have been Kevin Boss. The Giants lost a huge component of their offense and came up with nothing to replace it.

It should also be noted that two other system-heavy teams, the Packers and Steelers, are extremely consistent in certain aspects of the offensive game. Green Bay completes roughly the same number of passes game after game and season after season, while the Steelers are the league’s most consistent team in points scored. You bet the games in Vegas? The Steelers are your team to play.

A lot of this research really points up the value of special teams to bottom-line offensive production. If you average 62 and a half plays a game, which is what the league averages, and you gain slightly more than five yards a play, if you start your drives from your own 40 and have an eight-play drive you’re going to score significantly more points than if you start those drives on your 20. And the Eagles, as long as DeSean Jackson returns kicks, are in a good position to score on more of its drives than other teams.

Why do you think the Packers drafted a return guy in the second round and signed the nation’s leading punt returner as a free agent? Because if your average drive is eight plays and thirty-some yards, you need to be starting more of those drives on your own 40 or better if you want to score points.

Moving on to the consistently mediocre teams, we find Jacksonville and Buffalo. Well, of course we do. Why are Jacksonville and Buffalo two of the league’s most consistent offensive teams over the last five years?

Jacksonville’s case is easy. Jacksonville has been consistent because they’ve had the same mediocre quarterback throwing to a bunch of sub-mediocre wide receivers for the last five years, and they’ve had a great running game to enable that. In the words of that famous fantasy-football guru Ke$ha, they are who they are. And they’re not very good. However, they are very consistent at not being very good. And this year they have what they had last year: David Garrard for three or four games, Blaine Gabbert the rest of the way, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marcedes Lewis, and a mess of terrible wide receivers led – led, mind you – by Mike Thomas. I would rather have Rick Perry DJ my going-away party than be the offensive coordinator in J’ville.

You hear Jack Del Rio whinny a lot about how next season is going to be better, but why would it be? What has really changed? I say move the team to L.A., sign Kobe Bryant, and see what happens.

Buffalo’s story is not quite the same. The Bills throw approximately the same number of interceptions each year and gain the same number of rushing yards. This happens when your quarterback position is a revolving door and Dick Jauron is your head coach. Six starting QBs in five years is a recipe for a baseline passing game, especially when three of the six are Trent Edwards, Brian Brohm, and J.P. Losman.

What would need to happen for the Bills to improve offensively, and break out of their offensive rut? Four things: Stability at quarterback, improved production at running back, more talent at wide receiver, and a significant upgrade in the offensive line. Which do you do first? Actually, Buffalo has decided it would rather work on the defense, and to that end traded lone legitimate deep threat Lee Evans, let Donte Whitner walk, and cut Aaron Maybin. And for this they want Ralph Wilson in the Hall of Fame.

I say move the team to Toronto, sign Andrea Bargnani, and see what happens.

Another fallacy this research points up is the fallacy of taking it to the next level. Over the last five years, only one team has really taken it to the next level: Houston, and that’s because their previous level came up to Michelle Bachmann’s kneecaps. Also, David Carr is in New York. Along the way two teams switched emphasis from rushing to passing, or vice versa – Oakland and the Jets – and Arizona regressed down to Tim Pawlenty’s kneecaps. But that’s it. One team in five years moves to a higher level. Everyone else essentially swaps numbers.

In the greater Green Bay area we hear a lot about how Aaron Rodgers is going to take it to the next level, but I have news for all the dudes in their hand-painted green-and-gold pickup trucks: This is the next level. Over the course of this season the Packers offense, if it is absolutely cooking on all cylinders, will run one two more plays a game than it did last season. That’s roughly 11 more yards a game. If a team is lucky, that will mean one more TD. If a team is really lucky, that means two more TDs. If Aaron Rodgers throws for 50 TDs, he takes those two TDs and six or seven from the running game, and maybe one or two from the defense or the return game. (Oops. This is the Packers. They have no return game.)

But that one or two more plays a game really gets diluted when you try to spread it among Aaron Rodgers’ weapons. Their numbers change fractionally, if at all. Greg Jennings is still going to get his 85, Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson, and James Jones are going to split 175 receptions, the League of Exceptional Tight Ends (Green Bay has six of them that are going to make a roster somewhere south of Saskatchewan) are going to get 60 or 70, and James Starks and Ryan Grant are going to divvy up about 1,400 rushing yards. There are not really a lot more numbers to be had in Green Bay. What you have is what you have.

People as a rule don’t like to be told about the limits to offensive production because it puts their game in a can, and tells them that if their team suffers from OD (Offensive Dysfunction) there is no Cialis-in-the-shotgun for them. They also are suckers for double-reverses and option passes and anything short of wide receivers tumbling out of clown cars that they classify as unpredictability.

All things considered, I’d rather strive for the brand of predictability found in Indy and Philly: maximizing plays, maximizing yards, hitting the same number of first downs year after year, and keeping the point totals within a narrow range.

Heck, I’d bet even Jack Del Rio could win with that.

Main Game Of Mid-America

Why is it that any team that has the monicker “America’s Team” must be hated by at least half of the sport-following populace?


Think of the last couple of teams to wear that sobriquet: the Yankees and the Cowboys. The Yankees got there on the strength of a fan base consisting of two-thirds of the inhabitants of the greater NYC metro area and a national subculture of largely obnoxious frontrunners. I have yet to see a Yankee fan miss a chance to declare his genetic superiority to the people around him in as many one-syllable words as he can cram into 30 seconds. Of course, non-Yankee fans return the favor by treating the Yankees and their fans with a warmth not seen since the French turned on their German occupiers following the liberation of Paris.

(Pity the hapless Cub fans in all this. They’re so out of their league. Give them tickets to a UFC match and they’d bring a teddy bear.)

The Cowboys started calling themselves “America’s Team” apropos of nothing and it caught on. The only recent case of chutzpah that comes close was when Kanye West starting calling himself “a singer.”

Like a lot of teams, the Cowboys were the team of a subset of America, that pungent mixture of truck owners with functional gun racks and truck owners with ornamental gun racks, but if that subset actually equaled America you’d best reserve your tickets for Michelle Bachmann’s inauguration.

There’s no question that both teams’ claims as America’s favorite stemmed from their owners. Jerry Jones is H. Ross Perot reinvented as a total egomaniac after being awarded George W. Bush’s brain on waivers, and George Steinbrenner made Donald Trump look like Wavy Gravy. He was shaped like a packing crate and handled sensitive negotiations like a longshoreman.

I have a friend whose favorite teams are the Cowboys and Yankees (and, yes, he went to college at The U). He is insufferable, but not primarily because his favorite teams are the Cowboys and Yankees and he went to college at The U. He’s insufferable because his checks bounce. When he pays with hard money all is forgiven.

The reason I’m screeding like this is that I’ve been thinking about the matchup between the all-time Cowboys and Chiefs.

The Cowboys should win. There’s no question that the Cowboys should win. They have four real live wide receivers, and their running backs are superb. Neither Roger Staubach nor Troy Aikman are QBs that could throw the fear of God into anyone, much less a stalwart Kansas City defense, but they’re game managers with weapons and a line.

But every non-linear cell in my body is fighting that idea that the Cowboys should win because these are the Cowboys, The Team Known As America’s Team, and with all my heart I want the TTKAAT to go down in flames.

Not this time, unfortunately.

It’s a quality thing. There is no way you can look at the Cowboys’ starting offensive line – Rayfield Wright (a HOFer), Larry Allen (a HOFer-to-be), Flozell Adams (a strong maybe), and John Niland and Ralph Neely (HOF oughta-bes) – and figure that the Chiefs’ defensive front, good as it is, has much of a chance.

Or maybe they do. Buck Buchanan is a HOFer, Jerry Mays is just a tick behind, and Art Still and Neil Smith are in the discussion. Curley Culp, Dan Saleamua, and Bill Maas can play some, too. And having three HOF linebackers filling the gaps doesn’t hurt. Only the Giants and Bears have that luxury.

Things don’t change when the situation flip-flops. The Chiefs’ line lacks HOFers now, but Will Shields is a lock, Willie Roaf is a probable, and if Brian Waters keeps going like he’s gone he’ll get there. That leaves Ed Budde and Jim Tyrer, and they’re the Chiefs’ versions of Neely and Niland, really strong oughta-bes. They go up against top-tier HOFers in Bob Lilly and Too Tall Jones, a mid-level guy in Randy White, and a near-miss in Jethro Pugh. Harvey Martin, Jim Jeffcoat, George Andrie, and Larry Cole rotate in.

The ‘Boys’ D-line is stronger than the Chiefs’ but the linebackers aren’t quite as good. Call it a wash. Same with the secondary.

So if the lines, linebackers and D-backs match up, the quality issues are in ... oh, yeah. The running backs and wide receivers.

The Chiefs roll out No. 65 all-time in all-purpose yards (Priest Holmes), No. 90 in rushing (Larry Johnson), and Nos. 178 and 172 all-time in receiving (Otis Taylor and Henry Marshall). The Cowboys counter with Nos. 1 and 8 all-time in rushing yards (Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett), No. 29 all-time in receptions (Michael Irvin), and No. 30 all-time in receiving TDs (Bob Hayes), with No. 5 in career receptions (Terrell Owens) on the bench, complaining about his playing time.

Even having the best tight end ever can’t make up for that.

I know I’m getting all conventional on you, and I apologize. There are many ways the Chiefs could win, but the Cowboys have more ways. If the kicking game pins the ‘Boys deep and the Chiefs’ D-line somehow slows down the Cowboys’ running game, the QBs simply go over the top to some of the best deep threats ever. If Johnny Robinson and the gang shut down the passing game, TD and Dancin’ E can run it forever.

Enough of the prelims. So how does the game go?

The ‘Boys get the ball at their 20 and run it out to midfield. The Chiefs get the ball at their 22 and run it out to the 27. The ‘Boys get the ball back at their 39 and run it down to the Chiefs’ 37, and miss a field goal. The Chiefs run it out to the 43 and kick it down to the 30. The ‘Boys push it out to the 44 and kick it down to the 23. And this goes on for a while until the ‘Boys finally move it down far enough for Rafael Septien to kick a field goal.

Late in the second quarter the Chiefs finally cross midfield and use a Priest Holmes screen and a Tony Gonzalez seam route to work the ball down to the 28, where the drive stalls but Jan Stenerud is true. Three-all.

At this point, the wheels fall off of the Chiefs’ war wagon. Eschewing the two-minute drill in favor of the home run, Aikman calls an audible, Bob Hayes slips behind Emmitt Thomas, and he outruns the pack to the end zone. The halftime gun sounds with the Cowboys ahead 10-3.

After the Chiefs go three-and-out to start the second half, the ‘Boys strike again. This time it’s Aikman to Witten for 15, to Irvin for 22 and finally to Drew Pearson in the corner of the end zone from 29. The extra point makes it 17-3.

The Chiefs answer with another nothing drive, and Dallas gets right back to it, mixing sweeps and square-outs until they get inside the 20. The drive stalls, and Septien boots a 29-yard field goal to stretch the lead to 20-3.

And that’s the ball game, for all intents and purposes.

The Chiefs pull Len Dawson in favor of Trent Green, who drops back to pass, assays the field, and says to himself, “Hey – I don’t have any wide receivers,” just before being buried under a mountain of Too Tall Jones and Jethro Pugh. He crumples like a wet paper towel and Randy White recovers the remains. The result is another field goal, and more playing time for Len Dawson.

Dawson eventually gets the dink-and-dunk game going enough to score a TD against a prevent defense, but in the end it’s Super Bowl I all over again. The Cowboys prevail 26-10.

The numbers are not all that great for either side: 163 yards rushing for the Cowboys against 82 for the Chiefs. 268 yards passing for the ‘Boys against 223 for the Chiefs. Emmitt gets 91, TD 61. Hayes catches three for 70, Irvin five for 71. Priest Holmes has a nice all-around day – 57 yards rushing, 89 yards receiving – but Larry Johnson does nothing, and the wideouts stink.

The Cowboys will have their judgment day, as God is my witness. But it ain’t today.

So as Jerry Jones dances on the star in the middle of Texas Stadium like the Thunderbirds version of Jerry Jones dancing on the star in the middle of Texas Stadium, repeat to yourself: It’s okay to hate the Cowboys. It’s okay to hate the Cowboys. It’s okay to hate the Cowboys.

It’s just really hard to deny them.

Colts and Vikes and Yikes!

This is the toughest one of these I’ve ever done, and I could easily be convinced that it could go the other way. So if you totally disagree, realize that I do, too … half the time.


It’s always smart to bet the under when the Vikings are playing because – well, because they are the Vikings, and the Vikings never seem to quite get there. Theirs is the classic case of the Jaguar, the Triumph, the Pontiac Solstice and all the other underpowered sports cars that have struggled to hit 60 in less than a fortnight. They look damned nice in the showroom, but get them out on the open road and the promise of performance takes on a downright political air. A balanced budget by 2012, anyone?

Like the aforementioned vehicles, the Vikings’ problem has never been hitting 60 – i.e., winning football games. The team’s problem has been akin to Tom Wolfe’s description of the times leading up to the breaking of the sound barrier. Before the sound barrier was broken there were all sorts of scary stories being swapped about what would happen to a plane if it broke the sound barrier – gauges going haywire, pilots blacking out, engines stalling, that sort of thing. Well, the Vikings play football with the absolute assurance that their sabrejet will disintegrate into smithereens if they win a Super Bowl.

That fact cannot be left out of the calculations as we ponder a matchup between the Vikings and Colts. The Vikings are the better team record-wise over their history, but that’s mainly because they have had no prolonged stretches of badness. The Colts, on the other hand, have had two – once at their inception, and once again in the Frank Kush/Ron Meyer days of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

As the editorial we have repeatedly noted in these matchup reports, stretches of badness are not a horrible thing. A team that has been biblically good and bad fares better than a mediocre team because the moments of bliss supply great players to the all-time teams , making up for the fact that the moments of bleccch supply Spain Musgrove and other assorted pillars of salt.

The Colts have had their bleccch, but no one is touting Marty Domres as the solution to any problem on the all-time roster, or looking to plug holes with Roosevelt Leaks. (I know. Clever.)

The Vikings, meanwhile, have been populated year after year by good players, lots of good players, with 10 bona-fide greats. According to pro-football-reference.com’s Player Value Ratings, Alan Page is the fifth-best player to have played since 1950, Carl Eller is 11th, Fran Tarkenton is 12th, Paul Krause is 28th, Ron Yary is 44th, John Randle is 86th, Randall McDaniel is 111th, and Gary Zimmerman is 123rd. The Vikings’ best non-HOFers, Randy Moss (33rd) and Chris Doleman (57th) are right up there (and if you’re wondering why Randle is in the HOF and Doleman isn’t, you’re not alone).

Looking at that lineup opened my eyes. The Vikings have 7 percent of the 125 best postwar players. Could the Colts match that?

Here’s the result:

Vikings     Rating    Colts   Rating

Page          5             Manning 3

Eller           11          Unitas 10

Tarkenton  12          Faulk 19

Krause       28          Harrison 30

Moss         33           Marchetti 39

Yary          44           Hendricks 49

Doleman    57           James 57

Randle       86           Wayne 111

McDaniel   111         Parker 123

Zimmerman 123         Berry 123




Additional Players Additional Players

Tinglehoff 102          Kunz 166

Marshall 107            Moore 179

Carter 159               Boyd 228

Foreman 332           Dickerson 228

                                Curtis 242

                                Mitchell 242

                                Saturday 242

                                Donovan 262

                                Mackey 436



Actually, when you figure in the non-HOFers (wouldja put in Marshall and Tinglehoff already?), the Vikings have 9 percent of the best postwar players, and the Colts have 8 percent. But the Colts do better in the depth department.

The stars are relatively equal. What about the teams?

Here are the black marks against the Vikings. Tarkenton was a great quarterback but not a horribly efficient one. He has the same career passer rating as Jeff George and Ken O’Brien, and his closest career comp is long-lived but inefficient QB John Elway. He has no running game to work with, no tight end, and marginal depth at wide receiver.

On defense the Vikings are weak in the secondary beyond all-time centerfielder Paul Krause and their linebackers are the Sons of Jeff Siemon – which is to say, square-jawed white guys. Punting is a problem, the return game is nil, and the placekicker lacks range.

The Colts are plagued by an iffy O-line (though having George Kunz check in at 169th all-time is an unexpected boost), a shallow D-line and a secondary comprised of the Sons of Rick Volk. Punting and returning are sub-par, and the placekicker lacks range.

One the other hand, Tarkenton was Michael Vick with book-learnin’, and the Vikings line up Steve Hutchinson, Tinglehoff, McDaniel, Yary, and Zimmerman across the offensive front. That’s a tough line. The pass rush is a real pass rush, not a random assortment of HOF names. You have to believe that Eller, Marshall, Page, Randle, Doleman, Jared Allen, Keith Millard, and Big Cat Williams could bring some heat. If the truism is universal that lines win games, the Vikings look Ford tough.

The Colts have more offensive weapons without question. Their top three receivers consist of one HOFer and two more sure things. They have three HOF running backs and a mercurial fourth, an HOF tight end and the current game’s most productive tight end, and their backup QB is arguably the best at his position in history.

The linebackers are okay, too.

The stars are relatively equal, and so are the teams. This is not a situation where our best guys can beat up your best guys (expect for John Mackey, who could beat up anyone). This is one drum-tight matchup. So how in the world do you translate it to the field?

Here’s one way:

Tarkenton, working behind the John D. Rockefeller of offensive lines, takes advantage of a relatively weak Colts pass rush and a so-so secondary to lob bomb after bomb down the field in the direction of Randy Moss. Banzai Pipeline waves of Vikings’ pass rushers breach the earthworks, forcing Peyton Manning into numerous mistakes. The Vikes capitalize, Fred Cox kicks three short field goals (are there any other kind?), Adrian Peterson runs out the clock and the Vikings win 37-17.

Here’s another:

The Vikings, grind-it-out team no longer, play long-ball from the opening kickoff, momentarily stunning the Colts. A 47-yard Tarkenton-to-Moss rainmaker is good for six, and Cox tacks on the extra point. After a Krause interception, the connection repeats itself from 63. Vikings 14-0.

At this point, and after a commercial break, Ray Scott issues forth with the Bud Light Overriding Fact of the Game: The Colts have the most productive offense in pro-football history. Despite having the mobility of Westminister Abbey and playing behind an offensive line that classifies Tony Ugoh as indispensible, Peyton Manning has been sacked less than almost any other modern-day QB. He is to beating the blitz what Perez Prado is to the mambo, and in this setting he has a magic cupboard overflowing with weapons. Double tights with Mackey and Dallas Clark? Check. Pound the ball with Eric Dickerson? Check. Four wides with Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Ray Berry, and Jimmy Orr? Double-check. Flares to Lydell Mitchell, Lenny Moore, or Marshall Faulk? Yep. Halfback-option pass with Tom Matte? Even got that.

And it all works.

Manning chews up 78 yards in 11-yard bites before throwing the perfect post route to Marvin Harrison.

Time elapsed: two minutes, 22 seconds.

The Vikings come right back, riding a couple of 40-yard passes down to the Colts’ 8, where the jump-pass to Cris Carter is a fait accompli that pushes out the Purple People Eaters to a 21-7 lead.

Manning charges back, skillfully mixing the seam route, the out route, the flare pass, and the draw play. However, after Chris Doleman sniffs out a Lenny Moore screen pass on third-and-four and drops him for a loss of three, the Colts have to settle for a 36-yard Adam Viniateri field goal. 21-10 Vikings.

And wouldn’t you know it? The Vikings blow right back.

Passes to Anthony Carter and Ahmad Rashad get Minnesota across midfield, and when Bob Boyd makes a TD-saving tackle on a Randy Moss post-corner route, the Vikings are left with a first-and-goal from the six. A TD would make it 28-10 Minnesota, and with a D-line like the Vikings’, you can pretty much mark this one down in the Great Big Scorebook In The Sky.

Ah – and I’ve been waiting a long time to say this -- but these are the Vikings.

Bubba Smith and Gino Marchetti sandwich Tarkenton, he fumbles, and Dwight Freeney recovers. It takes Manning less than three minutes to march the Colts 87 yards, with Faulk taking it in from the 11. 21-17 Vikings.

The Vikes try to strike back, but the Colts’ secondary makes a big play at long last. Jerry Logan wrestles the ball away from John Gilliam, and the Colts are in business on their 32. This time it takes Manning four minutes to get the Colts a TD, with Wayne making an acrobatic grab in the back of the end zone.

The half ends with the Colts on top 24-21.

The second half starts like the first. After a rare three-and-out from the Colts, Tarkenton-to-Anthony Carter from 43 puts the Vikings back ahead, and after a Lydell Mitchell fumble Robert Smith runs it in from 16. 35-24 Vikings.

Ah, but these are the Vikings, and Peyton Manning lives for rush moments like these. In slightly more than three minutes he has the Colts back in the end zone, and after back-to-back sacks from Marchetti and Freeney he’s back in business. With the Colts on the doorstep Manning is forced into three straight incompletions, leaving it to Viniateri to get the Colts close. He nails the field goal, and the Vikings still lead 35-34.

The Vikings get the ball with the lead and five minutes left. They promptly get hit with an illegal-procedure penalty, quickly nullified after Adrian Peterson breaks off a 17-yard run, injuring his shoulder in the process. At this point, a holding penalty combined with three ineffectual runs brings the clock down to the two-minute warning and puts the Vikings in a punting situation.

You know the rest. Colts 37, Vikings 35.

The numbers are well-nigh staggering. Tarkenton goes 22-for-47 for 487 yards and four TDs. Manning goes 32-for-50 for 436 and three scores. Harrison catches seven, Berry six, Wayne five, Faulk five, Mitchell three, Clark three, Mackey two, and Moore one.

Players win these games, no question. But teams with historical proclivities to not win big games do not win these big games, everything else remaining relatively equal.

These are the Vikings, in other words. And they are.

The Ultimate Battle For The Really Big Bay

Funny how life works. Conduct your life on and off the field with the courteous restraint of a Tasmanian devil and eventually you get nailed for steroids. Match up football teams by all-time win-loss percentage and play them through a bracket, and the ‘Niners meet the Raiders in the second round.

This one shapes up as a barnburner, in part because the teams are simultaneously of an era and not of an era. Many of the teams’ best players played against each other, but the games they played scarcely resemble one another. The ‘Niners played a pass-first, controlled-passing, athletic-defense game. The Raiders ran first, beat you up in the lines, and had a passing game that could beneficently be called uncontrolled.

I know this sort of analogy descends into cliché faster than Lindsay Lohan can go from house arrest to rehab, but the two teams really reflect their communities. Oakland is gritty and nasty, a black vision of doom set to a soundtrack by N.W.A.; San Francisco has been so wide-open you’d almost expect to see Jerry Garcia rolling numbers on the sideline and Steve Young marching out of Candlestick arm-in-arm with Harvey Milk.

Furthermore, there is no clear-cut favorite between the two. Both have mystique, both have a resume, and both have a relatively limited past, so unlike the Cardinals, they can’t dredge up an Ernie Nevers to make up for six decades of Marcel Shipp and Elmer Angsman.

So let’s set the scene: The Raiders trot out an offense featuring Marcus Allen, Fred Biletnikoff, Tim Brown, and a massive line to face a defense consisting of Ronnie Lott and some bodies. The Niners counter with Steve Young, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Joe Perry, and Hugh McIlhenny (and not much of a line) versus a defense consisting of Ronnie Lott and some bodies. (Actually, Ronnie Lott does not make the all-time Raiders roster, and the bodies include Howie Long, Lyle Alzado, and the vastly underrated Greg Townsend. But it makes for nice symmetry.)

It sounds reasonable that like the Bears, the Raiders could ride their up-front superiority to a grind-it-out victory over a high-flying offense.

Well, no.

The devil for the Raiders is in the details. They have no quarterback, and you need one to win one of these games, especially when you’re playing a team where the guy holding the Sharpie cap for the guy holding the Sharpie for the guy holding the clipboard (John Brodie) threw for 12,000 more yards than the Raiders’ No. 1 (Ken Stabler).

The Raiders’ secondary is likewise a little light – el baddo when you’re playing a team like the ‘Niners that hooks up more than Bret Michaels on South Beach. It’s not that the secondary is missing HOF-quality talent; it’s that the talent outside of Willie Brown is either past its prime (Lott), before its time (Charles Woodson), not quite ready for prime time (the soonly departed Nnamdi Asomugha) or star-crossed in some other way (Lester Hayes, Jack Tatum).

Worse yet for a team playing a West Coast passing offense, the linebackers are highly suspect. It’s asking a lot of Phil Villipiano for him to chase around Brent Jones, run down Roger Craig, and basically be the guy back there.

The offensive challenges are likewise daunting. The Raiders’ long-bomb passing game plays right into the hands of a talented secondary that includes Jim Johnson, Eric Wright, Tim McDonald, Merton Hanks, and Abe Woodson in addition to Lott. The 49ers’ D-line is a potent mix of run-stuffers (Dana Stubblefield and Leo Nomellini) and pass-rushers (Bryant Young and Fred Dean). And the linebackers are rangy and athletic enough to chase down Marcus Allen (and who else? Mark van Eeghen? Justin Fargas?).

Still, the Raiders put up a good fight. They take the opening kickoff and pound the ball down the field, running Marcus Allen right and left and mixing in little bits of Biletnikoff and Todd Christiansen. The drive bogs down inside the 20 and the Raiders settle for a short Sebastian Janikowski field goal.

As it turned out, that was all the opening the ‘Niners needed.

Young marches the ‘Niners down the field at head-spinning speed, capping the drive with a short TD toss to Brent Jones. A booming Ray Guy punt pins back the ‘Niners against their goal, but Young could care less. He rolls out for 16, Perry and Craig crack off big runs, and then Rice splits the defense from 43 yards out. The first quarter ends with San Francisco on top 14-3.

The Raiders come back on a Stabler-to-Branch bomb set up by a long Tim Brown kick return, but the ‘Niners strike yet again. This time it’s Montana doing the honors, swinging one out to Perry and watching him jet it in from 27.

The remainder of the half follows the same pattern. The teams trade scores unevenly, the ‘Niners score their fourth straight TD, and the first half ends with San Francisco up 28-13.

Things change little in the second half. San Francisco’s superior depth wears down the Raiders, even Y.A. Tittle plays a few snaps, and the 49ers move on 42-23.

The stats tell the story. Marcus Allen runs for 121, but Stabler completes only 14 of his 33 passes for 278 yards, a score, and two interceptions. Young, Montana, and Tittle throw 39 passes, complete 25, and roll up 407 yards passing, with four TDs and only one pick. Rice catches 11 and Jones seven, and everyone else pitches in. Perry runs for 67 and Craig 51, and that’s more than enough.

The tough paper matchup turns out to be not so tough after all. The Raiders’ greatest weakness meshed with the ‘Niners’ greatest strength, and the result was carnage.

The Silver and Black still have their swagger (and not the Old Spice swagger, either). Nothing can take their swagger. But what they could really use is a few more good players.