At last, to paraphrase my minivan, we have arrived at our destination. Route guidance will cease. Enjoy your stay.
I can’t remember why I decided to pursue an all-time-greatest-teams playdown. Oh, wait; I do. I had spent many months analyzing NFL teams and constructing all-time lineups as part of the process of writing a book called Jim and Kit’s Big Book of All-Time Football Lineups (note to self: whack the title), and once I had a sufficient supply of lineups and snide Leo Sugar references I felt duty-bound to do something with them, and if the book wasn’t happening the playdown was a reasonable second choice.
I suppose I could have just thrown a bracket up there and given it the Colin Cowherd treatment and run an illegal gambling operation and had everyone in the office chip in a twenty to play, but that’s not how I operate. Long and overblown, baby, with absolutely no income potential: that’s Big Kitty Style.
So I started this thing on May 20, 2011, with a running account of Chargers-Chiefs, and almost 235 days later to the day here I am, playing out a post-Pro Bowl finale featuring the Bears and Packers banging leather helmet against leather helmet in a commercial-free, flyover-less, non-Kevin Harlaned paean to the wonders of football longevity.
Let’s nuke the hecklers right away, because Lord knows I love explaining once again how the two overwhelming favorites to get here got here.
Forget that one of these teams is in my backyard and the other is just over the fence. The Bears are here because over 90-plus years they’ve assembled more high-quality linemen on both sides of the ball than anyone. Anyone; not even close. The Bears also have four Hall of Fame running backs, five Hall of Fame linebackers, the two greatest kick returners ever, and pro football’s very own Babe Ruth, all coached by the guy who gave the NFL CPR for a decade.
The Packers are here because it snowed.
Well, more than that. The Packers are here because they have four great quarterbacks, three tremendous wide receivers, six HOF running backs, the highest-rated defensive player ever (Reggie White), a slew of HOF linemen and three HOFers in the secondary, with Vince Lombardi driving the bus.
And because it snowed.
The Packers and Bears are 1-2 in all-time wins, and first and fourth in all-time winning percentage. They are 1-2 in Hall of Famers, and between them they have 22 World Championships – almost one-fourth of all NFL titles. Lest you think it’s merely a function of longevity, the other team that was there at practically the beginning, the ChiStlAz Cardinals, has two NFL championships and no Super Bowl wins, and the rest of the pre-1935 teams – the Lions, Eagles, Redskins, and Giants – have been the Pimlico clay to the Packers and Bears’ Secretariat.
Oh, there are differences. The Packers were never coached by anyone as large as Abe Gibron, though Mike Sherman's astonishing paunch-that-launched-a-thousand-ships wins extra points for its shock value. The Bears peaked earlier than the Packers; the team has two championships in the last 50 years, versus the Packers’ five. Contemporary history totally favors the Packers, notwithstanding certain moments from Devin Hester and Jay Cutler’s chins, but we’re talking history history, and that has the teams in nearly a dead heat.
There were other worthy candidates for the finals; the Colts, Rams and – yes, J.B. – the Vikings all could claim positions. Teams like the Cowboys, Chiefs and 49ers offered intriguing possibilities and upset potential. If scores of years and hundreds of games weren’t weighing down the results, there might have been more upsets. But statistical probability grinds a straight path through this canyon, and at the end of the path you find Bears-Packers. There will be no more explanations.
Instead, a pregame tale of the tape. The Bears have managed to turn an impressive historical assortment of offensive talent into a subpar historical offense. If you index their offensive rankings on a year-by-year basis the Bears have a historical offensive ranking of 89, against a baseline of 100. Conversely, the Packers have an indexed offensive ranking of 111 – exactly as much above the norm as the Bears are below the norm.
Defensively it’s a different story. The Bears are far above the norm, as you’d expect – their indexed rating is 118 – but the Packers are at 113. On pretend paper, this is a game pitting a below-average-offensive/very-good-defensive team against a very-good-offensive/very-good-defensive team.
In that regard the pretend game is not much different from this week’s semi-pretend national-championship college-football game. It took about 10 minutes of watching LSU and Alabama this season to recognize that ‘Bama has a pretty good offense and a stellar defense, and LSU has a dysfunctional offense and an exceptional defense. Was there ever really any doubt that anything would happen in the Faux National Championship other than exactly what happened? I realize the endless weeks of buildup boosted the GNP by keeping 197 quasi-expert commentators employed through the holidays, but really. Step back, view things dispassionately, call it like you see it, and move on.
Leaving the world of real pretend national championships to return to the more comfortable yet lower-paying world of pretend pretend world championships, the crucial question is the eternal crucial question: How much weight do you give prewar performances, and how do you adequately weight the accomplishments of prewar players?
From 1921-41 the Packers were 163-65-18; the Bears were 177-62-30. The Packers are down 14 in the win column, but only down three in the loss column. That suggests some schedule-padding on the Bears’ part, not to mention a whole bunch of quasi-exhibitions ending in either scoreless ties or blowouts.
Yes, blowouts. The all-time Bears have scored 24,234 points. The all-time Packers have scored 24,975 points. However, if you want to start NFL time at 1946, the Bears have scored 18,973 points to the Packers’ 20,245. The Bears ran up the scores through the ‘20s, picking on the likes of the Akron Indians and the Louisville Colonels. The Packers had their games with the Racine Tornadoes of the football world but did proportionally less barnstorming than the Bears, holding down their numbers and creating an historical statistical dead heat that’s actually anything but.
Speaking to that point, the Bears have 16 HOFers who began their careers pre-war. The Packers have eight. The players can’t be thrown out because their accomplishments are legitimate, and they obviously outperformed their peers. But their contributions need to be discounted about 20 percent in this milieu to account for schedule-padding and generally inferior competition.
One note on that 20 percent discount: Almost every great lineman of the 1930s except for the centers Mel Hein and Alex Wojciehowicz played for the Bears, because when the NFL draft was instituted the Bears drafted linemen when almost every other team drafted skill-position players. The fact that the Bears had all the good linemen and were not flat-out dominant throughout the era suggests three things: the skill-position players were overrated, the offense was antiquated, and the great linemen may not have been all that great. You could discount these players – Fortmann, Stydahar, Kiesling, Musso, Turner -- 30 percent and not be overdoing it.
Outside of the dead-ball era, the difference between the two teams is one-seventh of a game per year – a dead heat record-wise, like we said, though inside that dead heat the Packers scored more points, won more championships, and played defense about as well, and the only reasonably good Bear quarterback, Sid Luckman, padded his stats during the war years. So you could read the tea leaves and say there’s a case for the Packers.
There’s also a case for the Bears. There’s the 1940 NFL Championship, the 1983 Bears, arguably one of best teams ever, and Walter Payton, Gale Sayers, and Dick Butkus – players who shifted the game’s tectonic plates.
We could find a dozen more reasons why this game is basically dead even, so we might as well play it out, knowing that there will eventually be a winner.
(This is not an empty declaration. Two years ago the championship game of the Australian Football League, that delightful mélange of volleyball, rugby, and fragmentation bomb, ended in a tie, so the next weekend they played another one. Imagine if you tried that with the Super Bowl. Al Michaels would blow a motherboard.)
The Packers kick off on a blustery 12-degree day at Soldier Field. Sayers runs the ball out to the 40, and the Bears immediately take advantage of the field position by running three plays for seven yards and punting.
The Packers get the ball, get a first down and nothing more, and kick back to the Bears. The Bears run five and kick back to the Packers, who go three-and-out and kick back to the Bears. The Bears gain ground steadily on these exchanges, moving their starting field position from their own 40 to the Green Bay 44.
The Bears pound the ball close to field-goal range, only to come away empty-handed when Reggie White strips the ball from Sid Luckman and Willie Davis returns the fumble to the Bears 34. At that point Starr goes to work methodically, using Forrest Gregg’s ability to neutralize Doug Atkins on the pass rush to connect on a series of short passes to Hornung, Canadeo, and Sterling Sharpe. That softens the middle for Jim Taylor, who hammers it into the end zone from seven yards out, putting the Packers on top 7-0.
The Bears get another great kickoff return – out to the Packer 48 – but do nothing with it, in the process pointing up the Bears’ major flaw, something that had appeared in previous games but had always been subsumed by strong line play and good defense. Sid Luckman is an overrated quarterback – he’s one of two prewar QBs to start for an all-time team, and he ain’t no Sammy Baugh -- but beyond him the Bears have no quarterback, so he has to play. If he’s able to hand the ball off to Payton and Sayers most of the game and only throw the ball as a change of pace, he’s fine. But shut down the run and force the pass and Luckman has neither the skills nor the skill players to play effectively.
And that’s what happens here. White, Davis and Jordan (with help from Ray Nitschke) control the running game. Adderley, Woodson and Wood cover the receivers. On defense, the Bears aren’t quite strong enough in the D-line to put consistent pressure on the Packers’ quarterbacks (Brett Favre gets a couple of series after Bart Starr gets knocked woozy in the second quarter), and don’t have the D-backs to run with the receivers.
The result deteriorates like the grass at midfield. Pressed into a passing situation, Luckman throws a flare meant for Bill Hewitt right into the arms of Charles Woodson, who undercuts the route, breaks beautifully on the ball, and returns the pick to the Bears 35. The drive produces a Chester Marcol field goal – matched after a long return on the ensuing kickoff leads to a short drive for a three-pointer.
With the lid off the goal and the Bear mystique shattered, the Packers move right back down the field. This time it’s Favre, hooking up with Sharpe on a 24-yard catch-and-run and Hutson on a 45-yard post-corner route that puts the Packers up by two touchdowns.
The Bears are not equipped to play from behind. The Packers’ front line attacks the run with abandon and let their defensive backs handle their business – which they do without difficulty. Offensively, the Packers dial back the aggressiveness as gameday turns dark and blustery; they tack on a third-quarter field goal and withstand a very late Bears touchdown to prevail 20-10.
The stat sheet doesn’t have much to say. Taylor runs for 61 yards and a score. Hornung and McNally each catch four passes out of the backfield. Lofton has a couple of catches, Hutson catches five with a score, and Sharpe snags four.
Defensively, White has 2.5 sacks, Davis has 1.5, and designated pass rusher Ted Hendricks gets home once. In addition to Woodson’s pick, Bobby Dillon and Leroy Butler intercept Luckman, whose day is generally luckless.
Speaking of the Bears’ offense, their vaunted running attack doesn’t amount to much. Even with Bronko Nagurski leading the way, Payton can only manage 71 yards on 19 carries. Sayers is even less productive, with 59 yards rushing, though he does catch six passes for 81 yards. In fact, the passing yards are almost exclusively allocated from the tight end down; Harlon Hill’s two catches and Bill Hewitt’s three are hardly the stuff championships are made of.
So there you go. It pains me greatly to anoint the Green Bay Packers as the champions of the first-and-only Football With 1 Stick Gum all-time playdowns. Why does it annoy me? For those outside of the Packers’ sphere, it seems like hopeless homerism. For those inside the sphere, it’s the only possible outcome. And personally, I have a tremendous antipathy towards the Packers. When the Packers win it buoys the spirits of those around me, and has that pleasant residual effects. But at the same time, it's so cliched. It's like yet another riff on the "Hoosiers" theme starring Dennis Quaid, where the plucky band of underdogs hit the winning shot as time expires. I'm quite anti-cliche, thank you; I love underdogs like Matthew Stafford loves corn dogs, but I prefer the ones with the funky uniforms that get eliminated in round 2. The Packers, the Titletown ouevre, the innumerable houses and mailboxes and lawn tractors and pickup trucks and silos and tea cozies dolled up in green and gold, it gets old after a while. Especially when there's a team like the Saskatchewan Roughriders out there needing some love.
In the end, the weight of talent over time couldn't be denied. The Packers got a few breaks but generally had the most balanced team from line-to-backs on both sides of the ball. They had enough prewar players to create a deep roster and enough great postwar players to provide the necessary punch. There could have been many other outcomes, but this is the one that got home this time.
Fortunately for pretend matchups like this, there’s always a tomorrow. And it starts today. But only after I savor this one for a couple of minutes.
Showing posts with label Sid Luckman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sid Luckman. Show all posts
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
Bears-Rams: Let's Try A Run, Nagurski
Final Four is trademarked, so I can’t use it in this context. I can’t even think it in this context. In fact, I had to pay $275 just to mention it in my lead. Hey, NCAA: You take PayPal, right?
Okay, $275 poorer I press on. The four remaining teams in our all-time playdown are the Colts, Packers, Bears, and Rams. Disappointed that the Cowboys and 49ers didn’t make it? Tell them to get better players. Disappointed that the Cardinals didn’t make it? Just be thankful that that D-Line of Don Brumm, Chuck Walker, Eric Swann and Leo Sugar made it out of the first round. Baby steps. And no more Kevin Kolb experiments.
If the here-and-now suggests the Colts, Bears and Rams are all-time nothings (I can hear the shouts now: “You’d rather have Dan Orlovsky over Kevin Kolb? And you call yourself an expert?”, to which I reply, using my best expert tone, “Braaaaaaaaaap!!!”) don’t get your Victoria’s Secrets in a wad. It’s the norm for at least one of the four to stink at any given time. There has only been one year when all four teams have been truly bad (1982), no years when are four have been really good, and lots of years when three of the four have been really bad (1953, 1973, and 1974) or really good (2002, 2003, 2010, and most of the '60s). It’s more a matter of how good they are when they’re really good than how bad they are when they’ve been really bad. The Chad Hutchinson years are a mulligan, in other words.
The thing that distinguishes these four teams is in fact just how good they’ve been when they’ve been good. I hesitate like Colin Firth to use the word “dynasty” to apply to professional football. In my opinion there were only three true dynasties in sports: the Canadiens, the Yankees, and the Celtics. Every other proto-dynasty was just an extended period of goodness. In fact, if we were doing this exercise in any other professional sport the fix would be in – not because the fix was actually in in the sense of pretend Mafiosos rigging the pretend results so that all the pretend betting in pretend Las Vegas would tilt their way, but because the top teams were that much better for that much longer over so many more decades. You really think the all-time St. Louis Baseball Cardinals could take down the all-time New York Baseball Yankees? Albert Pujols could be swinging the hammer of Thor and Bob Gibson could be throwing sub-atomic particles at the speed of light and the Yankees would still prevail in five.
The sketchy initial impressions of our four all-time teams are that the Bears and Rams are the “defensive” teams of the foursome and the Packers and Colts are the “offensive” teams. Of course, the initial impressions are wrong, and also of course, the two defensive teams play each other.
The Rams resemble a defensive team the same way that Newt Gingrich resembles the Dalai Lama. They’ll have three Hall of Fame quarterbacks once Kurt Warner makes it in, they’ll have four HOF wide receivers once Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt make it, they have three HOF running backs, and they throw in a couple of HOF linemen just for giggles. They actually have more offensive firepower than any of the four, but they have Deacon Jones, who holds the trademark on the quarterback sack (whoops – there goes another $75. Hey, Deacon: You take PayPal, right?) and Merlin Olsen, arguably the third-greatest athlete (after Lou Brock and Ferdinand the Bull) to while away his toast-'n'-jelly days schlepping flowers.
Actually, the most fascinating thing about the Rams-Bears matchup is how archetypical it is. How many games have been characterized as a clash between a running team that plays tough defense and a wide-open passing team that plays swinging-gate D? Well, this is that game, and on Mt. Olympus. Instead of Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson versus Tim Tebow and Von Miller, this game offers Walter Payton and Dick Butkus against Norm van Brocklin and Deacon Jones. The only way this game could be more souped-up is if they were throwing around lightning bolts instead of The Duke.
As so often happens with games like these, what each team does well lines up with the other team’s weaknesses. The Rams don’t need to run, and pass defense (including a pass rush) is the Bears’ sole weakness. The Rams get after the quarterback like no one else but are lacking ‘50s-style run stuffers in the line – pity, because the Bears come right after their opponents with a battalion of ill-tempered linemen and a fleet of big-boned running backs.
Most of these games go off-script. Rodgers runs a mess of pitch sweeps to Ryan Grant and Tim Tebow dazzles (okay, not really dazzles, but doesn’t suck) with flag pattern after flag pattern to Eric Decker, and the whole sloppy mess causes fantasy-football players everywhere to throw handfuls of nacho-cheese Doritos at their big-screens.
This game doesn't. The Bears run, the Rams pass, the Bears block, the Rams shoot the gaps, the Bears control the line of scrimmage, the Rams go vertical, both teams get really dirty, and one team goes home.
That team is the … well, not so fast. It’s still the pregame show.
The only way we’re going to make any headway here is to send James Brown in search of more Doritos, and while he’s gone, look more closely at the areas of discord – the Rams against the run and the Bears against the pass.
The Rams have had a top-two defense six years (1947, 1966-67, 1970, and 1974-75). The Bears have had a top-two defense nine seasons since 1942 (1942, 1948, 1963, 1965, 1985-86, 1988, 2001, and 2005), which should tell you something right there.
In the six years where the Rams had one of the league’s top defenses, they were (going from earliest to most recent) first, third, second, fourth, first, and second against the run, and second overall every year except 2004.
The Bears were first, second, first, second, first, first, first, first, and second overall and third, second, second, ninth, third, first, 25th, 29th, and fifth against the pass.
The best Rams defenses (where most of the Hall of Famers are) are better against the run than the best Bears defenses are against the pass.
The way to beat the Bears, in other words, is to pass against them. The way to beat the Rams is not necessarily to run against them.
So does any of this matter?
Not much, because the Bears also have the greatest kick returners in history. I absolutely hate – I mean, Black-Eyed Peas levels of hate -- to have a game like this come down to special teams, because that would mean Kevin Harlan is right (“Big games like these ALWAYS come down to special teams!!”), but kick-returning is a huge plus for the Bears.
Gale Sayers didn’t get into the Hall of Fame on the strength of his 4,956 rushing yards alone. He got there on the strength of 4,956 rushing yards plus a kickoff-return yardage average that’s still the best in NFL history, a kickoff-return TD number that’s still top-three, and an all-purpose-yards-per-game number that isn’t tracked as an official statistic but which is large enough to make Mark Cuban want to buy it and move it to Dallas.
The reason Devin Hester is serious Canton material isn’t because he’s a pretty good third receiver. He’s Rust Belt-bound because when you kick the ball to him … you don’t want to kick the ball to him. Ever, under any circumstances. And that’s why he’s HOFesque.
The other reason why kick returns matter is because Deacon Jones, inventor of the quarterback sack (damn – another $75 out of my pocket) doesn’t play on kick returns.
Okay. So the Rams kick off to a split-back tandem of Sayers and Hester, and … hold on. Just think about that for a second. The Rams kick off, and if they kick it long it’s going to The Greatest Kick Returner In Football History, numbers 1 and 1a. Of course they’re going to run the kickoff back a long way. There is not a number out there that would suggest otherwise.
So the Rams kick off and Hester runs it out to the Rams’ 43. A mess of runs and an incomplete pass take it down to the 21, where Kevin Butler kicks a field goal. 3-0 Bears.
The Bears kick off to the Rams and Ollie Matson, no mean returner hisownself, flies it out to the Rams’ 40. Two runs and three passes take the ball down to the Bears’ 37, where the drive bogs down. Max Zendejas comes in to kick a field goal, but Doug Atkins blocks it with his island-size paw. Fortunately there’s no Devin Hester to return the blocked kick, and the Bears go three-and-out.
The Rams are set up nicely at their 39, and a series of quick slants and sideline routes take the ball down to the Bears’ 29. A screen to Marshall Faulk seemed like a good idea at this point, but Dick Butkus strips him clean and Bill George recovers. Faulk stumbles off the field holding his forearm by the hair, like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid, and another drive goes a-glimmering.
The Bears pound it up the middle for about 17 yards, and that’s about it for the first quarter. The Rams lead in the excitement category 17-3, but excitement only matters in Battle of the Network Stars football, and then only when they hand the ball to Loni Anderson.
The Rams get the ball to start the second quarter, and they go right to work. A draw play to Eric Dickerson gets them their first positive rushing yards, and it’s quickly followed by a swing pass to Ollie Matson that nets 14. At this point Norm van Brocklin gets the bright idea to air it out to Crazylegs Hirsch and … it works. Whaddya know. Hirsch takes it 48 yards for a score, and suddenly it’s 7-3 Rams.
Oh, but then they kick it to Gale Sayers. First down Bears at midfield.
The problem with long kick returns, even for a defense as good as the Rams and an offense as woefully one-dimensional as the Bears, is that it asks the offense to do about 37 percent less to achieve the same result. And doing about 37 percent less is what the Bears’ offense is all about.
In the case of this drive, it means one middling 16-yard pass to Mike Ditka, a couple of nice eight-yard runs by Walter Payton, a little swing pass to Gale Sayers, and ultimately a two-yard plunge by Bronko Nagurski that puts the Bears up 10-7, taking us to halftime.
The halftime stats are nothing to write home about, even if you’re just writing home to ask for money. The Bears rush for just short of 70 yards and pass for 35. The Rams rush for 11 and pass for 139, but the fumble and the interception are, in the immortal words of The Philadelphia Story’s Macaulay Connor, a great levelerer.
The Rams get the ball to start the second half and take off down the field like they’ve been shot out of a gun. Unfortunately, it’s my son’s BB gun, and so they wind up about 20 yards short of the target. Max Zendejas knocks it through from 35 and we’re all tied at 10.
All things considered, the Rams would have been better turning over the ball on downs, because Hester takes the kick inside the Rams’ 40. Perhaps buoyed by this, Luckman does the unthinkable and lobs one between the arms of Deacon Jones in the direction of Lake Michigan. Harlon Hill jumps, Ed Meador jumps, and since Hill jumps better than Meador it’s a touchdown. Butler’s extra point makes it 17-10, and you can sense all the water leaking from Merlin Olsen’s Birthday Party Bouquet.
The Rams do their best to respond. Pinned back deep in their territory for the first time all afternoon, the Rams mix draws, screens, sideline patterns, and one sweet seam route to Torry Holt to move inside the Chicago 20 before the roof caves in, courtesy of Joe Stydahar and Dick Butkus. Two QB sacks plus an incompletion force Zendejas to attempt his third field goal. He knocks it through and the Bears’ lead shrinks to 17-13.
Finally the Rams squib a kickoff, forcing the Bears to start inside their 40. A three-and-out is matched by a five-and-out from the Rams, which is matched by another three-and-one, then a six-and-out, then a five-and-out, and before you know it it’s the Rams’ ball on their 27 with less than three minutes on the clock.
Van Brocklin is masterful. He works over the overworked Bears’ secondary with quick passes to fast receivers. The Rams thrust-and-parry down to the five, but then the angles tighten and the passes don’t get through. Zendejas is called on once again and delivers the field goal that brings the Rams within three.
The Bears get the ball with less than two minutes to play and a simple task to accomplish: Get a first down – just one. With the game on the line, Payton rushes for four and then two, bringing up a key third and four. The Rams are out of timeouts; a first down seals the game.
As has happened so many times in their existence, the Bears’ survival will be determined by their ability to run for four yards when they need it. True to character, they hand the ball to Bronko Nagurski and let a line-full of HOFers attend to their business. Nagurski gains five. Luckman takes a knee and Bears fans go home slightly less ornery than when they came.
It’s not a pretty game – again – but once again, it epitomizes Bears football. Payton runs for 87, Nagurski adds 36, and Luckman throws for 121 with no interceptions. Between them Sayers and Hester return nine kicks for 217 yards.
The Rams’ numbers are more impressive by far. Van Brocklin throws for 286, Hirsch has a long TD, Holt and Bruce each catch four, Dickerson and Faulk combine for 117 yards rushing – but those numbers are ultimately irrelevant. Two empty sorties into Chicago territory are fatal in a game this close.
So, yeah, Kevin Harlan, you called it all right. It did come down to special teams. Play the game tomorrow and it might have a different outcome. But today the Bears move on. The Final Four now numbers three.
Drat. I hope the NCAA takes Visa.
Okay, $275 poorer I press on. The four remaining teams in our all-time playdown are the Colts, Packers, Bears, and Rams. Disappointed that the Cowboys and 49ers didn’t make it? Tell them to get better players. Disappointed that the Cardinals didn’t make it? Just be thankful that that D-Line of Don Brumm, Chuck Walker, Eric Swann and Leo Sugar made it out of the first round. Baby steps. And no more Kevin Kolb experiments.
If the here-and-now suggests the Colts, Bears and Rams are all-time nothings (I can hear the shouts now: “You’d rather have Dan Orlovsky over Kevin Kolb? And you call yourself an expert?”, to which I reply, using my best expert tone, “Braaaaaaaaaap!!!”) don’t get your Victoria’s Secrets in a wad. It’s the norm for at least one of the four to stink at any given time. There has only been one year when all four teams have been truly bad (1982), no years when are four have been really good, and lots of years when three of the four have been really bad (1953, 1973, and 1974) or really good (2002, 2003, 2010, and most of the '60s). It’s more a matter of how good they are when they’re really good than how bad they are when they’ve been really bad. The Chad Hutchinson years are a mulligan, in other words.
The thing that distinguishes these four teams is in fact just how good they’ve been when they’ve been good. I hesitate like Colin Firth to use the word “dynasty” to apply to professional football. In my opinion there were only three true dynasties in sports: the Canadiens, the Yankees, and the Celtics. Every other proto-dynasty was just an extended period of goodness. In fact, if we were doing this exercise in any other professional sport the fix would be in – not because the fix was actually in in the sense of pretend Mafiosos rigging the pretend results so that all the pretend betting in pretend Las Vegas would tilt their way, but because the top teams were that much better for that much longer over so many more decades. You really think the all-time St. Louis Baseball Cardinals could take down the all-time New York Baseball Yankees? Albert Pujols could be swinging the hammer of Thor and Bob Gibson could be throwing sub-atomic particles at the speed of light and the Yankees would still prevail in five.
The sketchy initial impressions of our four all-time teams are that the Bears and Rams are the “defensive” teams of the foursome and the Packers and Colts are the “offensive” teams. Of course, the initial impressions are wrong, and also of course, the two defensive teams play each other.
The Rams resemble a defensive team the same way that Newt Gingrich resembles the Dalai Lama. They’ll have three Hall of Fame quarterbacks once Kurt Warner makes it in, they’ll have four HOF wide receivers once Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt make it, they have three HOF running backs, and they throw in a couple of HOF linemen just for giggles. They actually have more offensive firepower than any of the four, but they have Deacon Jones, who holds the trademark on the quarterback sack (whoops – there goes another $75. Hey, Deacon: You take PayPal, right?) and Merlin Olsen, arguably the third-greatest athlete (after Lou Brock and Ferdinand the Bull) to while away his toast-'n'-jelly days schlepping flowers.
Actually, the most fascinating thing about the Rams-Bears matchup is how archetypical it is. How many games have been characterized as a clash between a running team that plays tough defense and a wide-open passing team that plays swinging-gate D? Well, this is that game, and on Mt. Olympus. Instead of Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson versus Tim Tebow and Von Miller, this game offers Walter Payton and Dick Butkus against Norm van Brocklin and Deacon Jones. The only way this game could be more souped-up is if they were throwing around lightning bolts instead of The Duke.
As so often happens with games like these, what each team does well lines up with the other team’s weaknesses. The Rams don’t need to run, and pass defense (including a pass rush) is the Bears’ sole weakness. The Rams get after the quarterback like no one else but are lacking ‘50s-style run stuffers in the line – pity, because the Bears come right after their opponents with a battalion of ill-tempered linemen and a fleet of big-boned running backs.
Most of these games go off-script. Rodgers runs a mess of pitch sweeps to Ryan Grant and Tim Tebow dazzles (okay, not really dazzles, but doesn’t suck) with flag pattern after flag pattern to Eric Decker, and the whole sloppy mess causes fantasy-football players everywhere to throw handfuls of nacho-cheese Doritos at their big-screens.
This game doesn't. The Bears run, the Rams pass, the Bears block, the Rams shoot the gaps, the Bears control the line of scrimmage, the Rams go vertical, both teams get really dirty, and one team goes home.
That team is the … well, not so fast. It’s still the pregame show.
The only way we’re going to make any headway here is to send James Brown in search of more Doritos, and while he’s gone, look more closely at the areas of discord – the Rams against the run and the Bears against the pass.
The Rams have had a top-two defense six years (1947, 1966-67, 1970, and 1974-75). The Bears have had a top-two defense nine seasons since 1942 (1942, 1948, 1963, 1965, 1985-86, 1988, 2001, and 2005), which should tell you something right there.
In the six years where the Rams had one of the league’s top defenses, they were (going from earliest to most recent) first, third, second, fourth, first, and second against the run, and second overall every year except 2004.
The Bears were first, second, first, second, first, first, first, first, and second overall and third, second, second, ninth, third, first, 25th, 29th, and fifth against the pass.
The best Rams defenses (where most of the Hall of Famers are) are better against the run than the best Bears defenses are against the pass.
The way to beat the Bears, in other words, is to pass against them. The way to beat the Rams is not necessarily to run against them.
So does any of this matter?
Not much, because the Bears also have the greatest kick returners in history. I absolutely hate – I mean, Black-Eyed Peas levels of hate -- to have a game like this come down to special teams, because that would mean Kevin Harlan is right (“Big games like these ALWAYS come down to special teams!!”), but kick-returning is a huge plus for the Bears.
Gale Sayers didn’t get into the Hall of Fame on the strength of his 4,956 rushing yards alone. He got there on the strength of 4,956 rushing yards plus a kickoff-return yardage average that’s still the best in NFL history, a kickoff-return TD number that’s still top-three, and an all-purpose-yards-per-game number that isn’t tracked as an official statistic but which is large enough to make Mark Cuban want to buy it and move it to Dallas.
The reason Devin Hester is serious Canton material isn’t because he’s a pretty good third receiver. He’s Rust Belt-bound because when you kick the ball to him … you don’t want to kick the ball to him. Ever, under any circumstances. And that’s why he’s HOFesque.
The other reason why kick returns matter is because Deacon Jones, inventor of the quarterback sack (damn – another $75 out of my pocket) doesn’t play on kick returns.
Okay. So the Rams kick off to a split-back tandem of Sayers and Hester, and … hold on. Just think about that for a second. The Rams kick off, and if they kick it long it’s going to The Greatest Kick Returner In Football History, numbers 1 and 1a. Of course they’re going to run the kickoff back a long way. There is not a number out there that would suggest otherwise.
So the Rams kick off and Hester runs it out to the Rams’ 43. A mess of runs and an incomplete pass take it down to the 21, where Kevin Butler kicks a field goal. 3-0 Bears.
The Bears kick off to the Rams and Ollie Matson, no mean returner hisownself, flies it out to the Rams’ 40. Two runs and three passes take the ball down to the Bears’ 37, where the drive bogs down. Max Zendejas comes in to kick a field goal, but Doug Atkins blocks it with his island-size paw. Fortunately there’s no Devin Hester to return the blocked kick, and the Bears go three-and-out.
The Rams are set up nicely at their 39, and a series of quick slants and sideline routes take the ball down to the Bears’ 29. A screen to Marshall Faulk seemed like a good idea at this point, but Dick Butkus strips him clean and Bill George recovers. Faulk stumbles off the field holding his forearm by the hair, like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid, and another drive goes a-glimmering.
The Bears pound it up the middle for about 17 yards, and that’s about it for the first quarter. The Rams lead in the excitement category 17-3, but excitement only matters in Battle of the Network Stars football, and then only when they hand the ball to Loni Anderson.
The Rams get the ball to start the second quarter, and they go right to work. A draw play to Eric Dickerson gets them their first positive rushing yards, and it’s quickly followed by a swing pass to Ollie Matson that nets 14. At this point Norm van Brocklin gets the bright idea to air it out to Crazylegs Hirsch and … it works. Whaddya know. Hirsch takes it 48 yards for a score, and suddenly it’s 7-3 Rams.
Oh, but then they kick it to Gale Sayers. First down Bears at midfield.
The problem with long kick returns, even for a defense as good as the Rams and an offense as woefully one-dimensional as the Bears, is that it asks the offense to do about 37 percent less to achieve the same result. And doing about 37 percent less is what the Bears’ offense is all about.
In the case of this drive, it means one middling 16-yard pass to Mike Ditka, a couple of nice eight-yard runs by Walter Payton, a little swing pass to Gale Sayers, and ultimately a two-yard plunge by Bronko Nagurski that puts the Bears up 10-7, taking us to halftime.
The halftime stats are nothing to write home about, even if you’re just writing home to ask for money. The Bears rush for just short of 70 yards and pass for 35. The Rams rush for 11 and pass for 139, but the fumble and the interception are, in the immortal words of The Philadelphia Story’s Macaulay Connor, a great levelerer.
The Rams get the ball to start the second half and take off down the field like they’ve been shot out of a gun. Unfortunately, it’s my son’s BB gun, and so they wind up about 20 yards short of the target. Max Zendejas knocks it through from 35 and we’re all tied at 10.
All things considered, the Rams would have been better turning over the ball on downs, because Hester takes the kick inside the Rams’ 40. Perhaps buoyed by this, Luckman does the unthinkable and lobs one between the arms of Deacon Jones in the direction of Lake Michigan. Harlon Hill jumps, Ed Meador jumps, and since Hill jumps better than Meador it’s a touchdown. Butler’s extra point makes it 17-10, and you can sense all the water leaking from Merlin Olsen’s Birthday Party Bouquet.
The Rams do their best to respond. Pinned back deep in their territory for the first time all afternoon, the Rams mix draws, screens, sideline patterns, and one sweet seam route to Torry Holt to move inside the Chicago 20 before the roof caves in, courtesy of Joe Stydahar and Dick Butkus. Two QB sacks plus an incompletion force Zendejas to attempt his third field goal. He knocks it through and the Bears’ lead shrinks to 17-13.
Finally the Rams squib a kickoff, forcing the Bears to start inside their 40. A three-and-out is matched by a five-and-out from the Rams, which is matched by another three-and-one, then a six-and-out, then a five-and-out, and before you know it it’s the Rams’ ball on their 27 with less than three minutes on the clock.
Van Brocklin is masterful. He works over the overworked Bears’ secondary with quick passes to fast receivers. The Rams thrust-and-parry down to the five, but then the angles tighten and the passes don’t get through. Zendejas is called on once again and delivers the field goal that brings the Rams within three.
The Bears get the ball with less than two minutes to play and a simple task to accomplish: Get a first down – just one. With the game on the line, Payton rushes for four and then two, bringing up a key third and four. The Rams are out of timeouts; a first down seals the game.
As has happened so many times in their existence, the Bears’ survival will be determined by their ability to run for four yards when they need it. True to character, they hand the ball to Bronko Nagurski and let a line-full of HOFers attend to their business. Nagurski gains five. Luckman takes a knee and Bears fans go home slightly less ornery than when they came.
It’s not a pretty game – again – but once again, it epitomizes Bears football. Payton runs for 87, Nagurski adds 36, and Luckman throws for 121 with no interceptions. Between them Sayers and Hester return nine kicks for 217 yards.
The Rams’ numbers are more impressive by far. Van Brocklin throws for 286, Hirsch has a long TD, Holt and Bruce each catch four, Dickerson and Faulk combine for 117 yards rushing – but those numbers are ultimately irrelevant. Two empty sorties into Chicago territory are fatal in a game this close.
So, yeah, Kevin Harlan, you called it all right. It did come down to special teams. Play the game tomorrow and it might have a different outcome. But today the Bears move on. The Final Four now numbers three.
Drat. I hope the NCAA takes Visa.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Last(ish) Line On Linemen
I really can’t leave Dick Schafrath alone.
All the buzz these days is that left tackle is the hardest line position to play. It's the QB's blind side, there are speed rushers coming off the edge, he rarely has help -- oh, and he has to get out and lead the way on running plays. Dick Schafrath was the Browns' left tackle from 1959-71. He was All-Something six seasons and is about as far away from Canton as Pago Pago, and he's going to stay there, thanks in part to a highly obscure restriction called the Rule Of One Or Two.
I hadn't known such a thing as the Rule Of One Or Two existed until I started writing about Schafrath and thinking of reasons why he wasn't getting more consideration for Canton. The only thing I could think of that might work against him was that if he were elected to the HOF, three of Jim Brown's blockers would be in Canton, and that's a lot. That's more than every other running back ... because almost every postwar HOF running back has a lineman who blocked for him in the Hall of Fame, but never more than two, and almost every postwar HOF offensive lineman blocked for an HOF running back. Look at the list:
PLAYER -- POSITION -- YEARS PLAYED -- HOF RUNNING BACK/OL
Dwight Stephenson C 1980 1987 None
Mike Webster C 1974 1990 Franco Harris
Jim Langer C 1970 1981 Larry Czonka
Frank Gatski C 1946 1957 Marion Motley, Jim Brown
Jim Ringo C 1953 1967 Ollie Matson, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor
Alex Wojciechowicz C 1938 1950 Steve Van Buren
Bulldog Turner C 1940 1952 George McAfee
Russ Grimm G 1981 1991 John Riggins
Randall McDaniel G 1988 2001 None
Gene Hickerson G 1958 1973 Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly
Bruce Matthews G 1983 2001 Earl Campbell
Joe DeLamielleure G 1973 1985 O.J. Simpson
Mike Munchak G 1982 1993 Earl Campbell
Tom Mack G 1966 1978 None
Larry Little G 1967 1980 Larry Czonka
John Hannah G 1973 1985 None
Stan Jones G 1954 1966 Gale Sayers
Gary Zimmerman T 1986 1997 None
Rayfield Wright T 1967 1979 Tony Dorsett
Bob Brown T 1964 1973 Ollie Matson
Jackie Slater T 1976 1995 Eric Dickerson
Ron Yary T 1968 1982 None
Anthony Munoz T 1980 1992 None
Lou Creekmur T 1950 1959 John Henry Johnson, Doak Walker
Dan Dierdorf T 1971 1983 None
Bob St. Clair T 1953 1963 Jim Perry, Hugh McElhenny
Art Shell T 1968 1982 Marcus Allen
Mike McCormack T 1951 1962 Jim Brown
Forrest Gregg T 1956 1971 Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung
Rosey Brown T 1953 1965 Frank Gifford
George Connor T 1948 1955 George McAfee
Lou Groza T 1946 1967 Marion Motley, Jim Brown
Jim Parker T 1957 1967 Lenny Moore
Jim Taylor FB 1958 1967 Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo
Jim Brown FB 1957 1965 Frank Gatski, Mike McCormack, Gene Hickerson
Joe Perry FB 1948 1963 Bob St. Clair
Marion Motley FB 1946 1955 Frank Gatski
Paul Hornung HB 1957 1966 Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo
Doak Walker HB 1950 1955 Lou Creekmur
Frank Gifford HB 1952 1964 Rosey Brown
Lenny Moore HB 1956 1967 Jim Parker
Hugh McElhenny HB 1952 1964 Bob St. Clair
Emmitt Smith RB 1990 2004 Larry Allen*, Big Cat Williams*
Thurman Thomas RB 1988 2000 Ruben Brown*
Barry Sanders RB 1989 1998 Lomas Brown*
Marcus Allen RB 1982 1997 Art Shell
Eric Dickerson RB 1983 1993 Jackie Slater
Tony Dorsett RB 1977 1988 Rayfield Wright
Leroy Kelly RB 1964 1973 Gene Hickerson
Walter Payton RB 1975 1987 Jay Hilgenberg*
John Riggins RB 1971 1985 Russ Grimm
Earl Campbell RB 1978 1985 Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews
Franco Harris RB 1972 1984 Mike Webster
Larry Csonka RB 1968 1979 Jim Langer
O.J. Simpson RB 1969 1979 Joe DeLamellieure
Gale Sayers RB 1965 1971 Stan Jones
Ollie Matson RB 1952 1966 Jim Ringo, Bob Brown
John Henry Johnson FB 1954 1966 Bob St. Clair
As with any chart like this, some compromises were made in the interest of proving a point. Ollie Matson spent most of his career behind linemen other than Brown and Ringo, and Shell and Allen’s careers overlapped exactly one year. Stan Jones was playing defense when Sayers came to town – and Sayers is in Canton at least as much for his skill as a kick returner. Furthermore, linemen and running backs who played most of their careers in the AFL are out, because those players were chosen more on individual merit (on, in Floyd Little’s case, individual reputation) than on continuity or team performance. Ron Mix is in the Hall of Fame because he’s a great lineman, not because of the job he did blocking for Dickie Post. Little is in despite – or perhaps because he was – running behind no one better than Bobby Maples. You see some of this on the NFL side with Mack, Stephenson, Hannah, and Munoz, but they were clearly miles above their contemporaries and the tomato cans playing behind them, and they are decidedly exceptions.
The asterisked players are not HOFers but probably will be. The only reach here is Ruben Brown, and he could be balanced by adding Chuck Foreman behind Ron Yary’s name and the RB-esque John Elway behind Gary Zimmerman.
Some previously baffling inclusions and omissions come into focus when the Rule Of One Or Two is applied. A Hog had to make it into the Hall of Fame; John Riggins’ presence required it. Duane Putnam should have been the guy riding in on Ollie Matson’s coattails, but Matson the running back is covered and Matson the kick returner doesn’t need anyone. Conversely, the only way Mick Tinglehoff, John Niland, and Marvin Powell are going in is if the crystal doors mysteriously swing open for Dave Osborn, Calvin Hill, and Freeman McNeil. Dick Stanfel is worse off; he never even blocked for John Henry Johnson. Leon Gray is definitely out because there can’t be two HOF linemen from a Patriot team whose best runner was Steve Grogan. Instant Replay aside, Jerry Kramer isn’t a HOFer because Gregg and Ringo are already there, and three Packer linemen, even with the entire Packer backfield already enshrined, would be overkill. Schafrath isn’t going in because the voters chose Hickerson instead, and they’re not going to add a fourth guy who blocked for Jim Brown. At some point, their reasoning must go, Brown has to be given credit for what he did on his own.
It will be interesting to see how this phenomenon plays out. Unless Willis McGehee kicks it into sixth, Jonathan Ogden will go into Canton without ever having blocked for a HOF RB. Walter Jones squeaks by through his limited association with Edgerrin James. Speaking of which, someone from the Colts’ line is going to have to start looking good over time. Jeff Saturday is the likely candidate, but is Canton really going to open its gates for a four-time All-Something just because he passed the ball between his legs to Peyton Manning?
Time, and the Veterans’ Committee, has a habit of rewriting history from the way things happened into the way things should have happened. It should have happened that a great running back always had a great lineman leading the way. The fact that it didn’t always is just another inconvenient truth.
BUT WHAT ABOUT QBs?
Now, Jim in L.A. asks, "Is there a lineman-QB connection?" There’s a connection all right, but less of a one than there is for RBs:
PLAYER -- POSITION -- YEARS PLAYED -- HOF RUNNING BACK/OL
Dwight Stephenson C 1980 1987 Bob Griese, Dan Marino
Mike Webster C 1974 1990 Terry Bradshaw
Jim Langer C 1970 1981 Bob Griese
Frank Gatski C 1946 1957 Otto Graham, Bobby Layne
Jim Ringo C 1953 1967 Norm Van Brocklin, Bart Starr
Alex Wojciechowicz C 1938 1950 None
Bulldog Turner C 1940 1952 Sid Luckman
Russ Grimm G 1981 1991 None
Randall McDaniel G 1988 2001 None
Gene Hickerson G 1958 1973 None
Bruce Matthews G 1983 2001 Warren Moon
Joe DeLamielleure G 1973 1985 None
Mike Munchak G 1982 1993 Warren Moon
Tom Mack G 1966 1978 Well …
Larry Little G 1967 1980 Bob Griese
John Hannah G 1973 1985 None
Stan Jones G 1954 1966 Well …
Gary Zimmerman T 1986 1997 John Elway
Rayfield Wright T 1967 1979 Roger Staubach
Bob BrownT 1964 1973 None
Jackie Slater T 1976 1995 None
Ron Yary T 1968 1982 Fran Tarkenton
Anthony Munoz T 1980 1992 None
Lou Creekmur T 1950 1959 Bobby Layne
Dan Dierdorf T 1971 1983 None
Bob St. Clair T 1953 1963 Y.A. Tittle
Art Shell T 1968 1982 Well …
Mike McCormack T 1951 1962 `Otto Graham
Forrest Gregg T 1956 1971 Bart Starr
Rosey Brown T 1953 1965 Y.A. Tittle
George Connor T 1948 1955 Well …
Lou Groza T 1946 1967 Otto Graham
Jim Parker T 1957 1967 Johnny Unitas
Troy Aikman QB 1989 2000 Larry Allen*, Big Cat Williams*
Warren Moon QB 1984 2000 Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews
Dan Marino QB 1983 1999 Dwight Stephenson
Steve Young QB 1985 1999 None
John Elway QB 1983 1998 Gary Zimmermann
Jim Kelly QB 1986 1996 None
Joe Montana QB 1979 1994 None
Jim Finks QB 1949 1955 None
Dan Fouts QB 1973 1987 None
Bob Griese QB 1967 1980 Larry Little, Jim Langer
Terry Bradshaw QB 1970 1983 Mike Webster
Len Dawson QB 1957 1975 Well …
Fran Tarkenton QB 1961 1978 Ron Yary
Joe Namath QB 1965 1977 Well …
Roger Staubach QB 1969 1979 Rayfield Wright
Sonny Jurgensen QB 1957 1974 Chuck Bednarik
George Blanda QB 1949 1975 Well …
Johnny Unitas QB 1956 1973 Jim Parker
Bart Starr QB 1956 1971 Jim Ringo, Forrest Gregg
Y.A. Tittle QB 1948 1964 Rosey Brown, Bob St. Clair
Norm Van Brocklin QB 1949 1960 Chuck Bednarik
Bobby Layne QB 1948 1962 Lou Creekmur, Frank Gatski
Otto Graham QB 1946 1955 Frank Gatski, Mike McCormack, Lou Groza
The ones with “Well …” in the spot where an HOFer should go are up for debate. Tom Mack played with Joe Namath for four games over the course of one season. No one associates Tom Mack with Joe Namath. Can you really say Mack blocked for Namath in the same way Larry Little blocked for Bob Griese? I say no. I also say no to every HOF lineman who played with George Blanda, since they played with him when he was a benchwarmer and a kicker, no to George Connor because Luckman was done when Connor was playing offense, and no to every HOFer who played with Len Dawson when he was mucking around with Detroit and Cleveland prior to the genesis of the AFL.
I’ll believe in the QB-OL relationship when they start putting in guys like Len Hauss and Randy Cross.
All the buzz these days is that left tackle is the hardest line position to play. It's the QB's blind side, there are speed rushers coming off the edge, he rarely has help -- oh, and he has to get out and lead the way on running plays. Dick Schafrath was the Browns' left tackle from 1959-71. He was All-Something six seasons and is about as far away from Canton as Pago Pago, and he's going to stay there, thanks in part to a highly obscure restriction called the Rule Of One Or Two.
I hadn't known such a thing as the Rule Of One Or Two existed until I started writing about Schafrath and thinking of reasons why he wasn't getting more consideration for Canton. The only thing I could think of that might work against him was that if he were elected to the HOF, three of Jim Brown's blockers would be in Canton, and that's a lot. That's more than every other running back ... because almost every postwar HOF running back has a lineman who blocked for him in the Hall of Fame, but never more than two, and almost every postwar HOF offensive lineman blocked for an HOF running back. Look at the list:
PLAYER -- POSITION -- YEARS PLAYED -- HOF RUNNING BACK/OL
Dwight Stephenson C 1980 1987 None
Mike Webster C 1974 1990 Franco Harris
Jim Langer C 1970 1981 Larry Czonka
Frank Gatski C 1946 1957 Marion Motley, Jim Brown
Jim Ringo C 1953 1967 Ollie Matson, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor
Alex Wojciechowicz C 1938 1950 Steve Van Buren
Bulldog Turner C 1940 1952 George McAfee
Russ Grimm G 1981 1991 John Riggins
Randall McDaniel G 1988 2001 None
Gene Hickerson G 1958 1973 Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly
Bruce Matthews G 1983 2001 Earl Campbell
Joe DeLamielleure G 1973 1985 O.J. Simpson
Mike Munchak G 1982 1993 Earl Campbell
Tom Mack G 1966 1978 None
Larry Little G 1967 1980 Larry Czonka
John Hannah G 1973 1985 None
Stan Jones G 1954 1966 Gale Sayers
Gary Zimmerman T 1986 1997 None
Rayfield Wright T 1967 1979 Tony Dorsett
Bob Brown T 1964 1973 Ollie Matson
Jackie Slater T 1976 1995 Eric Dickerson
Ron Yary T 1968 1982 None
Anthony Munoz T 1980 1992 None
Lou Creekmur T 1950 1959 John Henry Johnson, Doak Walker
Dan Dierdorf T 1971 1983 None
Bob St. Clair T 1953 1963 Jim Perry, Hugh McElhenny
Art Shell T 1968 1982 Marcus Allen
Mike McCormack T 1951 1962 Jim Brown
Forrest Gregg T 1956 1971 Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung
Rosey Brown T 1953 1965 Frank Gifford
George Connor T 1948 1955 George McAfee
Lou Groza T 1946 1967 Marion Motley, Jim Brown
Jim Parker T 1957 1967 Lenny Moore
Jim Taylor FB 1958 1967 Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo
Jim Brown FB 1957 1965 Frank Gatski, Mike McCormack, Gene Hickerson
Joe Perry FB 1948 1963 Bob St. Clair
Marion Motley FB 1946 1955 Frank Gatski
Paul Hornung HB 1957 1966 Forrest Gregg, Jim Ringo
Doak Walker HB 1950 1955 Lou Creekmur
Frank Gifford HB 1952 1964 Rosey Brown
Lenny Moore HB 1956 1967 Jim Parker
Hugh McElhenny HB 1952 1964 Bob St. Clair
Emmitt Smith RB 1990 2004 Larry Allen*, Big Cat Williams*
Thurman Thomas RB 1988 2000 Ruben Brown*
Barry Sanders RB 1989 1998 Lomas Brown*
Marcus Allen RB 1982 1997 Art Shell
Eric Dickerson RB 1983 1993 Jackie Slater
Tony Dorsett RB 1977 1988 Rayfield Wright
Leroy Kelly RB 1964 1973 Gene Hickerson
Walter Payton RB 1975 1987 Jay Hilgenberg*
John Riggins RB 1971 1985 Russ Grimm
Earl Campbell RB 1978 1985 Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews
Franco Harris RB 1972 1984 Mike Webster
Larry Csonka RB 1968 1979 Jim Langer
O.J. Simpson RB 1969 1979 Joe DeLamellieure
Gale Sayers RB 1965 1971 Stan Jones
Ollie Matson RB 1952 1966 Jim Ringo, Bob Brown
John Henry Johnson FB 1954 1966 Bob St. Clair
As with any chart like this, some compromises were made in the interest of proving a point. Ollie Matson spent most of his career behind linemen other than Brown and Ringo, and Shell and Allen’s careers overlapped exactly one year. Stan Jones was playing defense when Sayers came to town – and Sayers is in Canton at least as much for his skill as a kick returner. Furthermore, linemen and running backs who played most of their careers in the AFL are out, because those players were chosen more on individual merit (on, in Floyd Little’s case, individual reputation) than on continuity or team performance. Ron Mix is in the Hall of Fame because he’s a great lineman, not because of the job he did blocking for Dickie Post. Little is in despite – or perhaps because he was – running behind no one better than Bobby Maples. You see some of this on the NFL side with Mack, Stephenson, Hannah, and Munoz, but they were clearly miles above their contemporaries and the tomato cans playing behind them, and they are decidedly exceptions.
The asterisked players are not HOFers but probably will be. The only reach here is Ruben Brown, and he could be balanced by adding Chuck Foreman behind Ron Yary’s name and the RB-esque John Elway behind Gary Zimmerman.
Some previously baffling inclusions and omissions come into focus when the Rule Of One Or Two is applied. A Hog had to make it into the Hall of Fame; John Riggins’ presence required it. Duane Putnam should have been the guy riding in on Ollie Matson’s coattails, but Matson the running back is covered and Matson the kick returner doesn’t need anyone. Conversely, the only way Mick Tinglehoff, John Niland, and Marvin Powell are going in is if the crystal doors mysteriously swing open for Dave Osborn, Calvin Hill, and Freeman McNeil. Dick Stanfel is worse off; he never even blocked for John Henry Johnson. Leon Gray is definitely out because there can’t be two HOF linemen from a Patriot team whose best runner was Steve Grogan. Instant Replay aside, Jerry Kramer isn’t a HOFer because Gregg and Ringo are already there, and three Packer linemen, even with the entire Packer backfield already enshrined, would be overkill. Schafrath isn’t going in because the voters chose Hickerson instead, and they’re not going to add a fourth guy who blocked for Jim Brown. At some point, their reasoning must go, Brown has to be given credit for what he did on his own.
It will be interesting to see how this phenomenon plays out. Unless Willis McGehee kicks it into sixth, Jonathan Ogden will go into Canton without ever having blocked for a HOF RB. Walter Jones squeaks by through his limited association with Edgerrin James. Speaking of which, someone from the Colts’ line is going to have to start looking good over time. Jeff Saturday is the likely candidate, but is Canton really going to open its gates for a four-time All-Something just because he passed the ball between his legs to Peyton Manning?
Time, and the Veterans’ Committee, has a habit of rewriting history from the way things happened into the way things should have happened. It should have happened that a great running back always had a great lineman leading the way. The fact that it didn’t always is just another inconvenient truth.
BUT WHAT ABOUT QBs?
Now, Jim in L.A. asks, "Is there a lineman-QB connection?" There’s a connection all right, but less of a one than there is for RBs:
PLAYER -- POSITION -- YEARS PLAYED -- HOF RUNNING BACK/OL
Dwight Stephenson C 1980 1987 Bob Griese, Dan Marino
Mike Webster C 1974 1990 Terry Bradshaw
Jim Langer C 1970 1981 Bob Griese
Frank Gatski C 1946 1957 Otto Graham, Bobby Layne
Jim Ringo C 1953 1967 Norm Van Brocklin, Bart Starr
Alex Wojciechowicz C 1938 1950 None
Bulldog Turner C 1940 1952 Sid Luckman
Russ Grimm G 1981 1991 None
Randall McDaniel G 1988 2001 None
Gene Hickerson G 1958 1973 None
Bruce Matthews G 1983 2001 Warren Moon
Joe DeLamielleure G 1973 1985 None
Mike Munchak G 1982 1993 Warren Moon
Tom Mack G 1966 1978 Well …
Larry Little G 1967 1980 Bob Griese
John Hannah G 1973 1985 None
Stan Jones G 1954 1966 Well …
Gary Zimmerman T 1986 1997 John Elway
Rayfield Wright T 1967 1979 Roger Staubach
Bob BrownT 1964 1973 None
Jackie Slater T 1976 1995 None
Ron Yary T 1968 1982 Fran Tarkenton
Anthony Munoz T 1980 1992 None
Lou Creekmur T 1950 1959 Bobby Layne
Dan Dierdorf T 1971 1983 None
Bob St. Clair T 1953 1963 Y.A. Tittle
Art Shell T 1968 1982 Well …
Mike McCormack T 1951 1962 `Otto Graham
Forrest Gregg T 1956 1971 Bart Starr
Rosey Brown T 1953 1965 Y.A. Tittle
George Connor T 1948 1955 Well …
Lou Groza T 1946 1967 Otto Graham
Jim Parker T 1957 1967 Johnny Unitas
Troy Aikman QB 1989 2000 Larry Allen*, Big Cat Williams*
Warren Moon QB 1984 2000 Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews
Dan Marino QB 1983 1999 Dwight Stephenson
Steve Young QB 1985 1999 None
John Elway QB 1983 1998 Gary Zimmermann
Jim Kelly QB 1986 1996 None
Joe Montana QB 1979 1994 None
Jim Finks QB 1949 1955 None
Dan Fouts QB 1973 1987 None
Bob Griese QB 1967 1980 Larry Little, Jim Langer
Terry Bradshaw QB 1970 1983 Mike Webster
Len Dawson QB 1957 1975 Well …
Fran Tarkenton QB 1961 1978 Ron Yary
Joe Namath QB 1965 1977 Well …
Roger Staubach QB 1969 1979 Rayfield Wright
Sonny Jurgensen QB 1957 1974 Chuck Bednarik
George Blanda QB 1949 1975 Well …
Johnny Unitas QB 1956 1973 Jim Parker
Bart Starr QB 1956 1971 Jim Ringo, Forrest Gregg
Y.A. Tittle QB 1948 1964 Rosey Brown, Bob St. Clair
Norm Van Brocklin QB 1949 1960 Chuck Bednarik
Bobby Layne QB 1948 1962 Lou Creekmur, Frank Gatski
Otto Graham QB 1946 1955 Frank Gatski, Mike McCormack, Lou Groza
The ones with “Well …” in the spot where an HOFer should go are up for debate. Tom Mack played with Joe Namath for four games over the course of one season. No one associates Tom Mack with Joe Namath. Can you really say Mack blocked for Namath in the same way Larry Little blocked for Bob Griese? I say no. I also say no to every HOF lineman who played with George Blanda, since they played with him when he was a benchwarmer and a kicker, no to George Connor because Luckman was done when Connor was playing offense, and no to every HOFer who played with Len Dawson when he was mucking around with Detroit and Cleveland prior to the genesis of the AFL.
I’ll believe in the QB-OL relationship when they start putting in guys like Len Hauss and Randy Cross.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
So Is It Nature Or Nurture, Harlon Hill?
So were the Bear quarterbacks so bad because they were throwing to Tom Waddle and Willard Dewveall, or were the Bear wide receivers so bad because Steve Walsh and Jack Concannon were doing the throwing?
The Bears' career-receiving-leaders list is a smorgasbord of mediocrity peppered with Brian Baschnagels and Marty Bookers, but part of that was by design. In the first NFL draft, while the rotten teams were drafting the Jay Berwangers of the world, George Halas drafted eight linemen; subsequently he perfected a devasting rushing offense.
Under Halas and the subsequent Halas-lite leadership, first-round draft choices have been spent on running backs, linemen and linebackers, with only the occasional nod to a wide receiver (c.f., the fast but perpetually disappointing Willie Gault).
Harlon Hill was the pinnacle of Bears wide-receivership from the '30s through the '80s, rivaled only by Johnny Morris for a couple of seasons. He was a genuine home-run threat who still ranks eighth all-time in yards per catch. That and three All-Pro nods won't get you into the Hall of Fame or even buy you a cup of coffee, but by Bears standards it puts you right at the top ... yelling at Sid Luckman to throw you the damn ball.
The Bears' career-receiving-leaders list is a smorgasbord of mediocrity peppered with Brian Baschnagels and Marty Bookers, but part of that was by design. In the first NFL draft, while the rotten teams were drafting the Jay Berwangers of the world, George Halas drafted eight linemen; subsequently he perfected a devasting rushing offense.
Under Halas and the subsequent Halas-lite leadership, first-round draft choices have been spent on running backs, linemen and linebackers, with only the occasional nod to a wide receiver (c.f., the fast but perpetually disappointing Willie Gault).
Harlon Hill was the pinnacle of Bears wide-receivership from the '30s through the '80s, rivaled only by Johnny Morris for a couple of seasons. He was a genuine home-run threat who still ranks eighth all-time in yards per catch. That and three All-Pro nods won't get you into the Hall of Fame or even buy you a cup of coffee, but by Bears standards it puts you right at the top ... yelling at Sid Luckman to throw you the damn ball.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sid Luckman, Who Smells Worse Than Brian Urlacher (Now)
You always hear about the guys hurt by World War II, and not just from the shelling and carnage and such but by not being able to play sports one's allotted number of years. Explain that to Nile Kinnick, and then return to consider the players who were helped by staying stateside and ringing up four years of 4-Fs. Baseball cites Hal Newhouser as the textbook example -- except some of his best years were 1946-48, when all teams were at full strength, though perhaps not entirely accustomed to a wicked 12-6 curveball being thrown by a mean man.
In the NFL, Baugh, Hutson and Isbell all got a bump from the war, but perhaps no one was bumped higher than Sid Luckman. It's not that Luckman was a bad quarterback pre-war; he was All-Pro twice in three years, and the Bears won titles in those years, in part because Luckman's supporting cast included five Hall of Famers, four of them in the line. They could have stuck Amos Alonzo Stagg behind that line, put welder's goggles on him, spun him around a couple of times, and he still would have had time to shake out the cobwebs and hit Pudge Heffelfinger streaking down the sideline.
To say Luckman thrived during the war is like saying Lockheed came out okay on the deal; he led the league in some sort of passing every year but 1942 -- and the Bears were undefeated that year. He was also a a reasonably talented punter and a hell of a defensive center fielder even though most of the contemporary photos make him look like Sonny Jurgensen in wool. In retrospect, Luckman was like the Bears' equivalent of a victory garden, or Rosie the Riveter; the war placed a premium on players who could fill multiple roles, and Luckman had to fill multiple roles because of the war. The fact that he filled them about as well as Baugh or Hutson makes him a first-line HOFer.
In the NFL, Baugh, Hutson and Isbell all got a bump from the war, but perhaps no one was bumped higher than Sid Luckman. It's not that Luckman was a bad quarterback pre-war; he was All-Pro twice in three years, and the Bears won titles in those years, in part because Luckman's supporting cast included five Hall of Famers, four of them in the line. They could have stuck Amos Alonzo Stagg behind that line, put welder's goggles on him, spun him around a couple of times, and he still would have had time to shake out the cobwebs and hit Pudge Heffelfinger streaking down the sideline.
To say Luckman thrived during the war is like saying Lockheed came out okay on the deal; he led the league in some sort of passing every year but 1942 -- and the Bears were undefeated that year. He was also a a reasonably talented punter and a hell of a defensive center fielder even though most of the contemporary photos make him look like Sonny Jurgensen in wool. In retrospect, Luckman was like the Bears' equivalent of a victory garden, or Rosie the Riveter; the war placed a premium on players who could fill multiple roles, and Luckman had to fill multiple roles because of the war. The fact that he filled them about as well as Baugh or Hutson makes him a first-line HOFer.
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