Thanks For the Memories, Earl

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I guess everyone knows about the 1972 Miami Dolphins — the only team in modern pro football history to go undefeated through the regular season and the postseason.

Fewer people remember that more than half of those wins were accomplished without the Dolphins' star quarterback, Bob Griese, who went down with a broken leg and dislocated ankle in the fifth game of the season. He was replaced by backup Earl Morrall, who had recently been picked up on the waiver wire after being released by the Baltimore Colts.

Miami's coach, Don Shula, had been Morrall's coach for a time in Baltimore. They had been in Super Bowl III, which the Colts lost to the New York Jets. Shula knew precisely what he was getting when he picked up Morrall. Possibly no backup quarterback has ever stepped in as the substitute for the starter better equipped to run his coach's offense and succeed.

In fact, Morrall wound up leading the AFC in passing, just as Griese had the year before — in spite of throwing only one pass in the first four games.

He started the last nine games of the 1972 regular season and the first two games of the playoffs while Griese recovered. It wasn't always as easy as it may seem today; they struggled at times, but the Dolphins won all those games.

They hung on to beat Buffalo by a single point the week after Griese went down. They beat the Jets by four points in the 10th game, and they barely got past a mediocre Cleveland Browns team in the playoffs. Griese returned to the lineup in the second half of the AFC championship game, then led the Dolphins to the Super Bowl title.

He was on a third Super Bowl team as well. He was still on Miami's roster the next year when the Dolphins defended their title in Super Bowl VIII.

I remember having Morrall's football card and not knowing who he was. There were some players who were like that. I only knew their names because I had their cards. It wasn't until years later that I learned Morrall had been the quarterback of the Colts team that lost to Broadway Joe Namath and the Jets. I knew who Namath was, of course. Who didn't?

That was a good Colts team, too. Before facing the Jets, the Colts lost only one game. In a year when most teams were equally balanced between the run and the pass, Morrall completed more than 57% of his passes for nearly 3,000 yards.

Anyway, Morrall died Thursday at the age of 79. The news was confirmed today. From what I have heard, he had been in poor health for awhile.

He played pro football in relative obscurity for more than two decades. In those two Super Bowl seasons, with the sports world watching his every move, he led his teams to a combined record of 24–2.

He died in relative obscurity, too. I'm sure there were many young people across the country who didn't know who he was when they heard of his death.

The historian in me would like to think that someday football fans will re–discover the rich history of their sport — and Morrall's contributions to it.

But the realist in me doubts that will ever happen.

History's Spotlight

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Perhaps it is fitting that this year's Heisman Trophy race is expected, by many observers, to be one of the closest ever.

Whoever the winner turns out to be, it's likely to be fodder for one of those "what–if" debates.

I suppose that is the most intriguing thing about the study of history — the wide variety of the "what if" questions.

You can find them taking many shapes in every human endeavor — politics, religion, sports, the arts, everything.

Most of the time, they are along the lines of the road not taken — sort of like the Burt Lancaster character in "Field of Dreams." But sometimes there are the tragic tales of those who did not live long enough to realize their full potential.

Today is the 50th anniversary of such a milestone in one such life story.

On this day in 1961, Ernie Davis was the first black man to be awarded the Heisman.

That isn't a "what–if" — unless you're thinking of the guys who were on the ballot with Davis.

It was the second–closest vote in Heisman history, with Davis beating the runnerup, Ohio State fullback Bob Ferguson, by only 53 votes.

Texas' Jimmy Saxton, Minnesota's Sandy Stephens and Alabama's Pat Trammell rounded out the top five.

It capped what must have been one of the greatest football careers of all time. In 1959, as a sophomore, Davis led Syracuse to a national championship and was named MVP of the Cotton Bowl. In 1961, as a senior, he was MVP of the Liberty Bowl, and everyone thought his career would continue into the NFL.

Davis seemed to be a great natural talent for whom the NFL was the next logical step. If the Super Bowl had existed at the time, speculation probably would have centered on when, not if, he would play in it — and how many times he would return.

In 1962, he was drafted by the Washington Redskins, who quickly dealt him to the Cleveland Browns. The Redskins were owned by George Preston Marshall, who was known to be racist.

The Redskins were the last NFL franchise to resist signing black players, which Marshall defended as being based on sound business strategy. He said he wanted to maintain good relations with the Southern market.

In Cleveland, Davis was expected to be paired with Jim Brown to form what may well have been the most potent running game in NFL history.

But no one will ever know how great that backfield could have been. In the summer of 1962, Davis was diagnosed with leukemia, and he died the following year at the age of 23. He never played a down in the NFL.

Brown was Syracuse's star halfback before Davis came along; in fact, Brown helped recruit Davis, who went on to break all of Brown's school records.

And Cleveland was reasonably successful even without Davis in the early to mid–1960s — until Brown retired. More than 40 years later, Brown was recognized as the greatest pro football player of all time by The Sporting News.

But other teams, most notably the Packers, climbed the mountain ahead of the Browns.

Davis played at a time when freshmen were not allowed to play varsity ball. In the three years that he could play varsity ball, he was named first–team All–America twice.

How much greater could the Browns have been with Davis in the backfield?

It may not be one of history's greatest "what–if" questions, but it's got to be near the top of the list for sports.

Before There Was a Super Bowl ...

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On this day in 1966, an NFL season came to a conclusion for the last time in the pre–Super Bowl era.

In the next two years, the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys would square off for NFL championships that entitled the winner to advance to an AFL–NFL World Championship Game against the winner of the AFL title.

Within a few years, that game became known as the Super Bowl, the name by which it is still known today.

But, on Jan. 2, 1966, there was no Super Bowl yet. The NFL title was still the prize that waited at the end of the rainbow, and the Packers, having beaten the Colts in a conference playoff game the week before, and the Cleveland Browns met in Green Bay with the NFL title on the line.

It is ironic, I suppose, that the 2010 Packers will be playing on that same field later today. They will need a victory to assure themselves a spot in the playoffs, and they must defeat a long–time nemesis, the Chicago Bears.

They'll also have to overcome something else.

In spite of talk of global warming, I don't think winter weather in Green Bay, Wisc., has changed much in nearly half a century. If today's forecast is correct (sunny and windy with a high of 16°), the weather in Green Bay today is more likely to resemble the "Ice Bowl" that was played in December 1967 than the weather that greeted the Browns and Packers in January 1966.

On this day 45 years ago, it was actually a comparatively balmy 26° with a moderate breeze of about 12 mph (the wind is predicted to gust to around 20 this afternoon).

There had been a snowstorm before kickoff, but the field had been covered by a tarp so the field was clear when the game began.

Much like the Chiefs–Dolphins playoff game in 1971, of which I wrote last week, the Packers–Browns game that was played on this day in 1966 was a turning point in the history of the NFL.

Prior to that day, the Browns had been a dominant team. They were the defending NFL champions. They had won four NFL championships in the previous 15 years, and they had played for four others.

They were America's Team before the phrase was invented.

But the sun was setting on their dynasty. The great Jim Brown, who led the NFL in rushing that year and was named MVP by both AP and UPI, voluntarily retired after the game was played. (Brown is now in his 70s, but many of Cleveland's rushing records that he set during his playing days still stand.)

When the offense didn't get the job done, Gary Collins' 46.7–yards–per–punt average tended to pin foes deep on their own side of the field. The defense was getting old, but it still managed to get the job done most of the time, and, while the Browns have played for league championships since that afternoon in Green Bay, they have have never won one.

In hindsight, the Browns may have benefited from playing in a weak division, at least when compared to the one in which Green Bay played. The Browns had the best record in the NFL that year (11–3), but their closest competitors, Dallas and New York, finished four games behind them at 7–7.

For all intents and purposes, the Browns had wrapped up the division with about a month left in the season. They went 6–1 in the last half of the season, and it is safe to say they did not approach many of those games with anything approaching a sense of urgency.

(The fact that their only loss in the second half of the season came against the young and struggling Los Angeles Rams from the other division The Packers, meanwhile, were locked in a down–to–the–wire battle with the Colts and Bears, and, as I wrote last week, had to beat the Colts for a third time to qualify for a spot in the NFL championship game.

When they beat the Browns on this day in 1966, the Packers won the first of three consecutive NFL championships — an accomplishment that remains unique in NFL history. In the last 45 years, they have played in four Super Bowls. True, many of those years were mediocre for the Packers — after winning the first two Super Bowls, they spent the next 30 years trying to get back and, usually, falling far short of the mark — but the Browns have seldom been close enough to catch a whiff of the Super Bowl in all that time.

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The outcome was far from certain when the teams went to the locker room at intermission.

The first half was tight. Green Bay led, 13–12, with the difference being a rare botched conversion by the ordinarily dependable Lou Groza, but the Packers' defense asserted itself in the second half, and the Packer offense, behind its famous power sweep, scored 10 unanswered points, winning the game, 23–12.

The weather may have played a role in the outcome. I've been told the second half brought snow, mud and fog — and, if either team had been particularly reliant on the passing game, that might have caused some serious problems.

But neither team was especially proficient at passing. It was still the era of the ground game

In fact, Cleveland, with Brown in the backfield, had the NFL's best rushing offense. The Packers weren't as potent as they had been earlier in Vince Lombardi's coaching tenure, but, with Paul Hornung and Jim Taylor in the backfield, they were still pretty good.

The real difference in the game probably was the Green Bay defense, ranked #1 in the NFL (Cleveland was ranked ninth of 14). The Packers allowed Brown to run for only 50 yards that day, while Taylor slogged it out for 96 yards (he never ran for more than eight yards on a single carry all afternoon) and Hornung gained 105.

Pro football would change in many ways in the years to come.

The running game gradually gave way to the passing game.

Equipment and rules were modified to eliminate some injuries and mitigate the effects of others.

Some say it is better. And maybe it is.

But sometimes I'm not so sure.