My E-mailer of the Week is the worst kind of ripper. One who might be right. This is Patrick Bethea of Marianna, Fla., who ends his carefully thought out objection to something I wrote in my last column with: "I'd love to debate you on this, but I doubt you'll even get this short comment."Not only did I get it, but Jimmy, giving it the Old Timers' Reunion bit and stepping in for Andrew (who's in training for the Ironman competition to be held off Battery Park), chose to lead the section with it. Which is his way of saying, "I think this guy's got you by the ass."
I mentioned that Jimmy Johnson had something special going for him because of his skill in personnel. Maybe in Dallas, Mr. Bethea says, but not in Miami. "He single-handedly ended the career of the greatest QB of all time. He took away his audibles, he surrounded him with sub-par talent, and basically destroyed the Miami Dolphins."
OK, I am announcing that I am officially ready for the debate. Dan Marino was 35 when Jimmy Johnson took over, and he was starting to slip. Not noticeably, but he was getting rid of the ball earlier than he used to. Johnson was a coach who favored a strong running game. If you just arrived to a team, what would you build it around, a 35-year old, QB who, admittedly was still effective, in his 14th season, or around the philosophy in which you believed, which had been successful before.
Don Shula won a Super Bowl and went undefeated with the Kiick-Csonka-Morris ground game, and a quarterback, Bob Griese, who went to the Hall of Fame with very modest statistics. Johnson won two with a similar set-up, and Troy Aikman, who'll be up for enshrinement this season, despite the fact that his numbers were not overpowering.
In the 13 years in which Shula coached Marino, the Dolphins never won the big one. And here's a strange statistic. Two QB's who immediately preceded Marino, David Woodley and Griese, each had a better winning percentage as starters under Shula, both regular season and post-season. Not meaning to take anything away from the greatness of Marino, but his record in the playoffs was 6-7.
Johnson did not take away Marino's audibles. No coach with a feel for offense would ever completely remove them from a quarterback, especially a long time veteran. It would be like cutting off an arm. Hell, we had audible system (they called them "automatics" then) 52 years ago at Columbia.
Jimmy didn't end Marino's career. He was 35 when Johnson got him, as I've mentioned. A shoulder injury three seasons later probably did as much as anything to draw the curtain. Surrounded him with sub-par talent? OK, I'll give you this one. Johnson tried to build a running game. He did not have the success with talent that he had in Dallas. Destroyed the Miami Dolphins? Well, they were in the playoffs in three of Johnson's four seasons, winning their first-round game twice.
OK, debate's over. Please stay tuned to this channel because following the commercials, our network analysts will debate who won the debate.
― gear (gear), Friday, 4 November 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)
Move over T.O., NFL has rich history of altercationsThe trouble with the Terrell Owens-Hugh Douglas fight was that I didn't get to see it. So I can't accurately report on what happened. I'm sure that more or less serious punches were thrown, but whether or not they landed, and how much damage actually was done...well, I just don't know.
The idea of locker room fights, though, is an interesting one. I'm not talking about on-the-field dust-ups, which are common, I mean within the confines of the locker, or other off-field venues. I'll relate a few that come to mind, plus one that happened during practice, but was a carefully planned, contrived thing.
The best known locker room fight of the '60's involved a pair of Philadelphia Eagles, John Mellekas, a tackle, and Ben Scotti, a defensive back. This was the day after Pete Rozelle announced that the Sunday games, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, would take place as scheduled. A lot of players were upset about this.
"Damn guinea, Rozelle," Mellekas said after practice, "scheduling those games."
"What did you say?" said Scotti, whose heritage was Italian.
"Damn guinea..."
Blam! Blam-blam-blam! The punches came rapid fire. Mellekas had a good 60 pounds on him, but Scotti was a tough kid from Newark. He knew how to fight, and as we all know, it isn't always size that counts. It's who's madder, and who lands the first one.
Eventually it was broken up, but damage had been done. Mellekas did not talk about the incident. But Scotti did.
"His head was so swollen, I don't know how he got his helmet on," Scotti said.
In his first few years, Joe Namath was not popular with a certain faction on the Jets. They resented the money he was making, his lifestyle, his never-ending publicity and the favored position he held with the owner, Sonny Werblin. One year, Namath had come back from off-season knee surgery and wasn't feeling too hot when he reported to camp. The grumbling started his first night there. He'd had enough.
"We were in the dining room, and I was sitting next to Joe, and he decided it was time to make his stand," said Winston Hill, the All-AFL left tackle and one of Namath's biggest supporters on the team.
"Joe got up and said to the room, 'OK, anybody who has anything to say to me, let's have it out right now. Let's just go at it.'
"Nobody said a word. Joe looked around the room, and then kind of grimaced in pain and said, uhhh, and handed me his crutches. And I helped him back down to his seat."
Matt Millen had been a serious street fighter back in Hokendauqua, Pa. When he was in high school, he and his buddies liked to crash the local college fraternity parties on Saturday nights and look for fights. When Millen joined the Raiders, Al Davis realized he had a valuable asset there.
In January 1984, the Raiders were in Tampa, practicing for the Super Bowl against Washington.
"Al thought we needed a more aggressive Wednesday practice," says Millen, who was an inside linebacker. "He came over to me and said, 'I want a tougher practice. Start a fight.'
"So I picked out the worst fighter on the offensive side, Mickey Marvin, our right guard, and one of the nicest guys on the team. Poor Mickey never could figure it out. Two minutes into practice and he's rolling around on the ground with some idiot."
The one guy on the Raiders whom Millen could not stand was Big John Matuszak, the Tooz, the 6-8, 280-pound defensive end who had once been the first pick in the entire 1973 draft. Matuszak, now deceased, had rolled out of three camps by the age of 26. George Allen had cut him from the Redskins in training camp in 1976, and when he was asked why, Allen uttered a line that became a classic.
"Vodka and valium. The breakfast of champions."
Yes, Matuszak was known to abuse certain substances. One of his teammates, who didn't want me to use his name, said that he once got into a jam with Matuszak on a flight back from a Jets game.
"He was high on something or other, and he kept pestering me to read some poetry he had written. I wanted to sleep. Next thing I knew he was choking me."
One day in training camp Matuszak was pestering former running back Terry Robiskie, who had just become an assistant coach, about who would stay and who would go. Robiskie casually mentioned that he thought tight end Todd Christensen might be traded.
"That seemed to enrage Tooz, and he went after Terry," said the same guy who had gotten choked. "Terry found someone's crutch lying there and he started whacking him with it until help came."
Matuszak periodically would make headlines for off the field tiffs. Millen noted that they never involved big guys or people with any credentials for toughness. They were usually in bars or nightclubs involving male exotic dancers or half-drunk patrons.
"I wanted to test him out," Millen said, "to see if he could fight. He never went for it. One day he was staring at me in the locker room, and I said, 'What are you looking at?'
"He had been scowling, but he immediately turned it into a smile. 'I'm looking at a handsome guy,' he said. At that point I gave up. Al Davis always loved him, though. Once Al was standing next to me during a D-line drill, and he said, 'You know, that Matuszak is really a force out there.'
"I said, 'You've got it slightly wrong, Al. You mean a farce.'"
I've often wondered what I would do if a player threw a punch at me or challenged me to a fight. Thank God I never had to find out. But others did. Patriots cornerback Raymond Clayborn once got into a shouting match, in the locker room, with Boston Globe columnist Will McDonough. Clayborn put his hand on the writer's chest and shoved him. McDonough, who was from the fighting McDonoughs of Boston, threw a punch and knocked him into a laundry cart. Clayborn jumped out but the fight was broken up. Next day they made up.
The New York Post's Steve Serby never had been a fan of Jets quarterback Richard Todd, always lobbying hard for back-up Matt Robinson instead. One day Serby wrote something that enraged Todd. In the locker room they got into a shouting match, and finally Todd heaved him into an open locker.
"At the paper, they were all talking about filing a lawsuit," Serby said. "I said, 'No, I'll just show up tomorrow like nothing happened.' Which he did. Todd and he eventually made up. The players were impressed that no legal action had been taken. But when he stepped into the locker room after the incident, what did Serby see?
'On the floor there was an outline, in chalk, of a human figure," Serby said. "And written on the floor, like you'd see at a crime scene, was, 'Where The Body Lay.'"
― gear (gear), Friday, 11 November 2005 01:17 (twenty years ago)
three years pass...
two years pass...