Meet the New Coach, Same As the Old Coach

Ohmigod.  You know what?  Suddenly I feel motivated to write about the Dolphins again!  Tune in tomorrow...

Tarzan

One more trip down Memory Lane. While I was going through some of the stuff my mother had in storage, I came across a bunch of old Tarzan paperbacks that once belonged to my father. He left them behind after the divorce and they stayed in a closet for years afterward. Now, while my mother had many virtues as a parent, making sure her kids’ time was occupied was not one of them so consequently as a boy I often found myself bored out of my skull. And on one of those occasions I decided to take a crack at some of those Tarzan books. I can’t remember what piqued my interest about them; probably the great Frazetta covers on some of them (see above, though Frazetta later said he wasn’t even trying his best with those paintings because the publisher was so cheap and wouldn’t give him back his artwork!).

I started with the very first one: Tarzan of the Apes. Unfortunately I never got to finish it because I made the mistake of bringing it to school with me and somebody ripped it off. (Who the hell steals a Tarzan paperbook? They’re cheap. You can get it for free at the library. And no junior high school punk thief reads books anyway.) So I never finished that one. Luckily I already had a comic book adaption so I knew how it ended, and I was smart enough to never again bring one of my own books to school. Lesson learned. I read the second book in the series, The Return of Tarzan, cover to cover. And I loved it. And I loved the next one, and the next one, and the one after that (Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, probably my favorite). Let’s face it, Tarzan’s a wish-fulfillment character right in the wheelhouse of a 12 or 13-year-old boy, something I happened to be at the time. And say what you will about Edgar Rice Burroughs as a writer but those books move (no less a writer than Gore Vidal said Burroughs possessed a rare gift: he could “describe action vividly”). The books are never boring. Well, they aren’t unless you maybe try to read them all in a short period of time. I made it through the first 13 but put down number 14 halfway through and never picked it or any subsequent Tarzan book back up again. The repetition must have gotten to me. But I’ve never lost my affection for the character.

For most people Tarzan’s not a character from a book though. He’s a character from movies and TV. The 1932 movie with Johnny Weismuller was such a hit that it kicked off a movie series lasting over 30 years. The series kept on going well past the time Weismuller got too old to play Tarzan anymore. No problem. They’d just get a new actor to play Tarzan. And I saw a bunch of these movies. Not at a movie theater though. On TV. In the pre-cable era old movies constituted the programming lifeblood of countless local TV stations and where I grew up one station featured a little show on the weekend called “Tarzan Theatre”, which was nothing but the opportunity to show a cheap old Tarzan movie every Saturday. (This clip isn’t of “my” Tarzan Theatre but it's close enough).

At the time of my first exposure to the Tarzan movies I hadn’t yet cracked open the books but my know-it-all father had and he was kind enough to explain to me how the movie Tarzan was actually a much-bastardized version of Burrough’s fictional creation. The book Tarzan was not only clever and resourceful, he was the child of an English lord, the master of several languages including English, and was perfectly at home in either civilized London or primeval Africa. The movie Tarzan on the other hand was a simple but good-hearted man-child who couldn’t speak in complete sentences or comprehend modern civilization (though like his literary counterpart he would deal out some serious ass-kicking when necessary). And while the first couple of Weismuller Tarzan movies were well-done big-budget MGM affairs the later ones, with or without Weismuller, just kept getting worse. Stupid plots. Bad acting.  The same stock footage used over and over again. Soundstages instead of location shooting. Even going to color didn’t improve things much. Until 1959.

After Weismuller retired the Tarzan producers replaced him with Lex Barker (for 6 films), and then Gordon Scott (nee Werschkul). But the budgets remained low and Tarzan remained the same monosyllabic character regardless of which actor donned the loincloth. That all changed with Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure. A new producer, Sy Weintraub, took over the series and changed things for the better. Realistic dangers. Sensible plots. Location shooting.  And best of all, Tarzan acted and spoke like a normal intelligent human being. With a real script for once Gordon Scott proved to be a terrific Tarzan in his fifth go-round as the character and Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure lives up to its title. The follow-up, Tarzan the Magnificent was equally good. I loved those two films. The highwater mark didn’t last though. Scott didn’t want to get typecast at Tarzan so he set off for Italy to make a bunch of movies there during the height of the “sword and sandal” craze. After that he left show business altogether and kind of disappeared.

Finding that box with my Dad’s old Tarzan books obviously triggered a lot of memories. It also got me wondering about what ever happened to Gordon Scott, my favorite Tarzan. Luckily the internet allows such questions to be easily answered. Turns out that that Scott’s days as a celluloid hero made him a lot of fans and maybe the biggest was a guy named Roger Thomas, all of 14-years-old when Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure came out. As an older man he made it his mission to track down and meet his boyhood hero. After years of trying he finally succeeded and in 2001 he arranged for Scott to visit him in Baltimore. Scott arrived and that “visit” ended up lasting for six years. Scott just basically moved in with the Thomases. Scott was a kind of a mysterious character, a bit of a recluse really, but Thomas loved having his hero around.  Can you imagine that happening to you? Your favorite childhood movie star coming to live with you years later? Becoming your close friend and eating dinner with you every night?  Unfortunately, Scott developed some serious health problems, had to go into a nursing home, and died in 2007. But this article about the relationship between Scott and his biggest fan is really touching.

As for Tarzan, without Scott the series swung on with Jock Mahoney for two films but at 42 he was already a bit long in the tooth for the part. So Weintraub had to pick a new one from over 300 applicants (including Frank Gifford!) and  here I can finally connect up this post to the National Football League because the man selected to play the next Tarzan was an active professional football player, Mike Henry. From the NFL gridiron to the African Jungle. A ninth-round pick from USC, Henry played linebacker for the Steelers from 1959 to 1962 and for the Rams from 1963 to 1965. (9 career INT’s and 6 career fumble recoveries). His 1962 Post cereal football card says “During the off season, Henry works as an extra in several movie and television studios in Hollywood.” But when Hollywood opportunity struck Henry chose movie stardom over NFL obscurity, retiring from the game in order to play the Lord of the Jungle. But Henry’s Tarzan wasn’t really much of a jungle dweller at all. The moviemakers refashioned the character as a globe-trotting hairy-chested James Bond type. Crazy huh?

Henry did three Tarzan films and there the series died. Luckily Henry didn’t die along with it. During the filming of Henry's second Tarzan movie Cheetah, played by Dinky the Chimp, used his fangs to rip open Henry’s jaw. Henry became delirious with jungle fever for several days but survived unlike Dinky the troublemaking chimp who was euthanized for his sins. Henry also suffered several injuries during filming and came down with dysentery, ear infections, and an infected liver as well (Plus a typhoon destroyed the set of his third Tarzan movie and brought with it a typhoid epidemic; bad juju). After making that third movie Henry was sick of the whole thing, called it a day and hung up the loincloth even though he had been all set to star in the TV series to immediately follow that third film. The part instead went to Ron Ely (who was good). The TV show lasted two years and several theatrical movies were cobbled together from some of the episodes but essentially the Tarzan movie series came to an end when Henry left.

A decade later Tarzan finally returned to the screen in two very different films: Greystoke (a fine period piece) and Tarzan the Ape Man (to this day the worst movie I have ever seen in a theatre). Then two more movies in the late 90’s: Disney’s Tarzan (not a bad cartoon) and Tarzan and the Lost City (unseen by me but I heard it sucked). Since then nothing. But in recent years we’ve seen Zorro and Sherlock Holmes refashioned into big-budget special effects blockbusters so I don’t see why the same can’t be done for Tarzan. But I have a feeling that when that future Tarzan movie appears it's not going to bear a whole lot of similarity to the original Tarzan books I read all those years ago.

30 Years Ago This Month

In my previous post I referred to the one football game I ever attended with my mother. It turned out to be one hell of a game, one of the most exciting I’ve ever seen. The Dolphins shut down the league’s top-scoring offense for three quarters, fell behind in the fourth quarter, rallied for a late game-tying TD, and then, facing certain defeat, blocked a field goal to send the game into overtime. Where they won. Awesome. The greatest NFL game I’d ever been to up to that time. And did I mention this was a Monday Night game? The crowd was absolutely electric that night and when that winning field goal went through the uprights the Orange Bowl was shaking. Literally. What a great game and a great night. But no one was talking about it the next day. Nobody. I found out the next morning before school that while I was yelling and high-fiving and cheering on the Fins to victory, a lunatic had gunned down my hero.


Right before the game’s most dramatic moment, the New England Patriots’ attempt at a walk-off game winning field goal, Howard Cosell informed the audience of the murder of John Lennon. But the 80,000 of us actually at the game didn’t have a clue. We were screaming our guts out and rocking the stadium while everyone watching on TV suddenly could care less about the blocked field goal try.

For days afterward the news was filled with images of people deeply affected by Lennon’s death. People openly weeping about someone they’d never met. I didn’t have that reaction. Like I said, Lennon was my hero but I didn’t cry for him. I just felt weird. More than anything I was confused. I didn’t really know how to react. I didn’t know him and being a teenager, an introverted one at that, I wasn’t really given to openly expressing my feelings. But I knew I’d lost something.

When it comes to music I’ve always somehow found myself behind the times. While the rest of my peer group was digging disco and corporate rock and “Bruce, Billy and Bob” (as one of my friends put it), I was at home listening to my mother’s old Beatles records. My mother was a bit of a hippie and she had pretty good taste in music, assembling a nice collection of what we now like to call Classic Rock. And years after the group called it a day I played those Beatles albums over and over and over again. Their music meant everything to me. They were the Alpha and Omega of rock. My mother primarily owned the later period stuff, so when I wore those grooves out I got myself all their other records too. And I loved them all. I loved them so much that the music wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to learn about the band too. I wanted to know the legend. Who were these guys and what made them so great? I needed to know. So I picked up a little book called The Beatles Forever and I read it so many times that it eventually fell apart. I’ve read plenty of other books about the Beatles but this one’s still the best as far as I’m concerned. You get the basic history, some fine writing about the music, especially the solo careers, but the author, Nicholas Schaffner, really gets across just how important the Beatles were to the generation that grew up with them. And those were the people shedding tears in the wake of Lennon’s death.

Back in 1987 I saw a show marking the 20th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper and the so-called Summer of Love and at the end each of the surviving Beatles was asked if they believed it was true that “All You Need Is Love”. George Harrison said he did. I can’t remember exactly what Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr said but in the Beatles Anthology McCartney said he did believe that was the essential message of the Beatles. Maybe that’s too simplistic a summary of the entire Beatles catalog but let’s stipulate that McCartney’s right, after all, the man wrote a lot of love songs and he’s surely more qualified than anyone else to say what the Beatles were all about. After all, the Beatle became the most loved band of all time for a reason, or reasons. And surely one of those reasons was their message. Another reason has to be the Fab Four (seemingly) lived their own message, being so close to one another and so appreciative of their fans devotion (at least in appearance). The Beatles Forever lets you see all this from the viewpoint of a fan who felt this connection to the band. And the connection didn’t stop with the band as a group. The Beatles were so famous that each member of the band had a public persona, so every fan had a favorite Beatle. And like so many mine was John Lennon.

Because the Beatles had called it a day by the time I started listening to their music, I learned about them from Schaffner’s book and subsequently from various interviews, mainly Lennon’s famous Playboy interview published shortly before his death. The biting wit, the uncompromising truth-telling (as he saw it), the crazy political stunts (trying to help stop a war). And his songs seemed to come from a more personal place than McCartney’s. He was real. All this strongly appealed to my teenage self. Here was somebody I wished I could be like. Now even then I knew Lennon was hardly, as McCartney put it later, the idealized “Martin Luther Lennon” figure he became after his I murder. He was too complicated and damaged an individual for that. But that didn’t matter. I loved his music and I loved what he had to say on matters both political and personal. I certainly wasn’t alone. And then some crazy person with a gun shot him to death for absolutely no reason. All these years later it’s still horrible to think about.

The day after the game I expected to be able to regale my friends with stories about the game. But that never happened. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Certainly not me, and for the last 30 years I’ve never thought about that Monday Night game without thinking about the death of John Lennon.

Mom

I profusely apologize to my few readers out there for the lack of posts these past couple of months. While I’ve never been the most prolific blogger, a number of recent events in my life left me with no desire to write even a single word. And the very worst of these events was the sudden death of my mother. I definitely won’t post some maudlin reminiscence of her here or, worse, an explication of our complicated relationship.


No, this is a football blog so indulge me as I remember my mom in relation to football. Basically, she had no understanding of the game whatsoever. None. Simply put, my mom embodied the cliché of the woman who just doesn’t get football at all. She loved the excitement though; she really seemed to be having a good time at the one game I remember us attending. And she certainly enjoyed being around when her boys were home watching a game together and cheering on the Fins. But she couldn’t really follow a game so her questions about, oh, anything having to do with the game (“Are the Dolphins playing today?” “No mom, it’s Saturday) were always good for some laughs. And the introduction of fantasy football just ratcheted up the unintentional comedy. “The Dolphins won. Does that help your team?” “No mom. As nice as that result was we only care about stats in fantasy football.” She never could grasp that. She didn’t comprehend NFL blackout rules either. On those rare occasions the Dolphins didn’t sell out my mother was invariably puzzled to find out I got to watch the Miami game that she, a South Florida resident, had to miss. Of course when the game was televised she never knew what channel it was on anyway and, since she also didn’t quite get the concept of local television markets, she didn’t understand why I couldn’t give her an answer.

We never once had a normal football-related conversation. She didn’t know any of the players outside of Dan Marino. She didn’t know strategy. She didn’t know the rules. But whenever she did ask me something about football there was a real good chance the question was going to put a smile on my face.

Thanks for the laughs mom.

George Blanda

Alright, I haven't been inspired to write anything lately but if I don't I'm going to forget how so let me dig deep into my past and try to come up with something and see where it goes.

Past Interference was most definitely remiss in not paying homage to the late great George Blanda last month. The shape of that man's NFL career is so strange, impressive and unique that absolutely nothing like it could ever happen again. A failed starting QB stint with the Chicago Bears. Washed out of the NFL at 32. Rejuvenated as the first star QB of the new American Football League. Leading the Houston Oilers to two championships. And the coda: a final 9 seasons of action as the over-40 kicker for the Oakland Raiders. I missed almost all of that. When I was a kid Blanda to me was just that really old guy who kicked for Raiders. Of course 48 seems a lot younger to me now then it did then.

As you may know Blanda's shining moment as a player came in 1970 where he passed and kicked the Raiders to a win or tie in five consecutive contests. This would be pretty impressive for any player but Blanda being 43-years-old and all at the time made what he did instantly legendary.  I didn't know about any of this when it happened though. Too young. I've been watching NFL games for as long as I can remember but a game is always in the present. So as a kid the NFL's past was a complete mystery to me. Blanda, Jim Brown, Johnny U, Lombardi, Bronko Nagurski. All of it. Or at least it remained a mystery until I started reading whatever I could get my hands on. Any book or magazine with a piece of NFL history would do. And one of my favorites was a (literally) little publication called Football Digest.

Man did I love that magazine. The pieces I still remember the most ran under the column title, "The Game I'll Never Forget". One was by a guy named Bert Rechichar who recounted an interesting game he played on September 27, 1953. Rechichar, a defensive back for the Baltimore Colts, picked off a pass in that game and returned it for a TD, helping his team win the day 13-9. But what made that game truly memorable for Rechichar were the other points he scored in the game. He kicked a field goal at the end of the first half, and that field goal was 56 yards long. A pretty impressive kick today but a mind-blowing one in 1953 as that boot set an NFL record that lasted for 17 more years.

Another Game I'll Never Forget column that I've never forgotten concerned a game that has probably never been forgotten by anybody who was there. It was the 1970 Lions-Bears game where Chuck Hughes died. The only on-field death of an NFL player. Fanhouse had a good piece about it recently.  Unfortunately, I was too young at the time I read the Football Digest column to be able to grasp the essential tragedy of what had happened on that sad day.

But I was old enough to appreciate the Football Digest article that excitingly laid out exactly what happened in each of George Blanda's five clutch performances in 1970 (I wish I had a link to that article but I don't; here's the NFL Hall of Fame's summary).   Amazing hardly begins to describe how brilliantly Blanda played through those games. Oakland's quarterback, Darryl Lamonica, suffered several injuries during that stretch giving Blanda the opportunity to both pinch hit at the QB position and make critical kicks, something he did again and again and again (and again and again). Through nothing but the power of the written word Football Digest brought Blanda's heroics to life for me years after the dust had settled on the playing fields. I never saw those games but thanks to that Digest article I knew Blanda had done something unforgettable. I did get that.

But I've only now come to understand what George Blanda's 1970 season must have meant for America as it happened. Very few athletes have ever done something so transcendent at such a relatively advanced age. Nolan Ryan. Jack Nicklaus. And George Blanda in 1970. With millions of men in their 30's and 40's watching and cheering him on. Men many years removed from their own athletic prime, watching a guy, a contemporary, the oldest guy on the field, the oldest player in the game, still playing at the highest level and finding a way to win. Beating players over two decades younger. There's something about that must have resonated with football fans like nothing else could have. I think it's why despite the complete circus his career has now become so many are still rooting for Brett Favre. Thanks to Blanda the 1970 Raiders made a playoff run, ultimately falling 10 points short of the Super Bowl. But today the 1970 Oakland Raiders are barely remembered. It's George Blanda we remember. He accomplished something far rarer than winning a Super Bowl. He became an icon.

What If: Super Bowl V

One more Earl Morrall-related post for the time being. Let’s revisit the scene of his greatest triumph, Super Bowl V. While Morrall may not have led his team to any actual points that day, he didn’t do anything to cost his team the game either. He entered the game with his team trailing and left the field as a Super Bowl winning quarterback. But it almost didn’t happen. Obviously the dramatic play of the game was the game-winning field goal with five seconds left. But in my opinion the single-biggest play came much earlier in the game.


With two minutes and 48 seconds left in the first half, the Baltimore Colts trailed the Dallas Cowboys 13-6. Dallas had completely shut the Colts down to that point. The Colts had failed to gain a single first down and their only score had come on a 75-yard twice-deflected TD pass caught by John Mackey (the Colts missed the extra point). Johnny Unitas subsequently threw an interception and the hit he took on the play broke some of his ribs. When the Baltimore Colts got the ball back at their own 48-yard line, it was Earl Morrall now taking the snaps from center. And Morrall proceeded to do something Unitas could not do: throw for a first down. Morrall did it twice, moving the ball to the Dallas two-yard line. Three straight runs netted zero yards and with less than 30 seconds left in the half the Colts faced a big decision. Take the easy FG or gamble and take a shot at tying the game? The Colts chose the gamble and lost when Morrall overthrew Michell in the end zone. 13-6 Dallas at the half.

More disaster ensued on the opening kickoff; the Colts fumbled it and Dallas recover at the BAL 31. Five plays took it down to the Baltimore two-yard-line leaving the ‘Boys on the verge of delivering the knockout punch. Then, on THE play of the game, Duane Thomas fumbled it back to the Colts. Or maybe it really wasn’t a fumble. The Cowboys Tight End, a guy named Mike Ditka, later remembered it this way:

We had a talented team that year and lost a game to Baltimore that we really shouldn't have lost, on a very controversial play. An official called a fumble on Thomas, but it wasn't a fumble. If I'm going to remember one play in a Super Bowl, that's the play I'm going to remember because it was a terrible call....I was on the ground, right beside the guy who picked up the ball. The guy who picked up the ball was our center, Dave Manders. The guy who fumbled it evidently was Thomas, but actually Duane really let the ball go when he heard the whistle blow. We felt there was no fumble on the play, and if we had scored then, it wouldn't have mattered what would happened later because the game would have been over.

Regardless of what actually happened, the officials ruled Thomas had fumbled. The Colts remained unable to put points on the scoreboard, but their defense shut Dallas down the rest of the game and two Craig Morton interceptions, setting up a short TD run and an easy FG, gave the Colts exactly what they needed to win. But if Dallas had gone up 20-6 then it’s hard to see how they could have lost. A 14-point lead is all-but-insurmountable in Super Bowl history. And given the ineptitude of the Baltimore offense, it’s hard to envision a scenario where they scored two offensive touchdown. Even if the Colts still score that short TD off of a 4th quarter interception return they’d never get a second INT because Dallas would be protecting a lead. And with a late 4th quarter lead I’m sure Tom Landry could have sussed out that preventing Craig Morton from throwing another pass would have been the best way to ensure victory.

I submit to you then that Thomas’ fumble (or “fumble”), almost surely decided the outcome of Super Bowl V. If Dallas scores on that drive they go on to win that Super Bowl. So in my opinion that fumble is the single biggest fumble in NFL history. The most famous fumble in NFL history is of course “The Fumble”, i.e. Ernest Byner’s fumble in the 1987 AFC Championship Game. But Byner’s fumble only cost the Browns a chance at forcing overtime and a shot at the Super Bowl. Duane Thomas’ fumble (or “fumble”) cost Dallas an actual Super Bowl victory.

So what if Thomas doesn’t fumble? Well Dallas almost surely wins that game. And by winning Super Bowl V as well as Super Bowl VI we’d now be about that Cowboy team as one of the great teams in NFL history. And I think the reputations of two men in particular would have been affected in the most positive way by victory in Super Bowl V.

First, Tom Landry. Landry’s obviously one of the NFL’s all-time greatest coaches but you never see anybody consider him the greatest coach. Generally either Vince Lombardi or Paul Brown top the lists (see here and here). Lombardi’s got the 5 titles and the all-time best winning percentage while Brown’s got three NFL titles (and three AAFC ones) and his reputation as perhaps professional football’s most important innovator. Brown and Lombardi made their mark in the pre-merger NFL of course. Two more recent candidates I’ve seen others make cases for are Bill Walsh who won 3 Super Bowls and changed the shape of the game with the introduction of the West Coast Offense, and Joe Gibbs who won three titles of his own but with a different QB each time. (With three of his own Belichick of course might prove to be a popular candidate when he finally retires). And of course Don Shula’s another strong candidate, with all that winning more games than anybody else business, coaching in more Super Bowls than anybody else, and, oh yeah, the perfect season. Shula coached against Lombardi and kept on winning games after Walsh and Gibbs retired. (Super old school fans might go with George Halas or Curly Lambeau but I’m leaving them out of this.)

But Tom Landry never seems to make it into the conversation despite an incredible resume. Essentially, you look at three things when evaluating coaches: Wins, Influence on the Game, and Championships. When it comes to victories, Landry chalked up more wins than anybody but Shula and Halas. As for influence, Landry’s right up there with Brown and Walsh as one of the game’s great innovators. The flex defense, the shotgun, the use of computers, hiring a quality control coach, etc. And a few of Landry’s disciples went on to pretty good coaching careers, Dan Reeves, Mike Ditka and Gene Stallings. So no doubt what’s keeping Landry out of consideration from the top spot is the fact he “only” won two championships. Halas, Brown, and Lombardi won more in the pre-Super Bowl era. Walsh and Gibbs won three in the Super Bowl era. Like Landry, Shula won but two as well but he won 77 more games than Landry and his winning percentage is a lot higher.

But what if Landry notched that third Super Bowl title? Then he’s got as many NFL championships as Brown, Walsh and Gibbs, and one more than Shula. Only Noll would have more Super Bowls but Landry’s got 61 more wins and a higher winning percentage than Noll and Noll only won with the same corps of superstar players while Landry would have won titles with two different QB’s. As for Walsh and Gibbs, Landry coached more seasons than those two men combined.  Here's something else.  In their 1971 championship season, Dallas gave up only 18 points in their three playoff games.  In 1970, they allowed only 26 points.  That's pretty amazing.  Just 44 points allowed in 6 playoff games combined.  If Dallas goes up 20-6 in Super Bowl V giving that dominant defense a cushion to work with, and with the offense no doubt taking the air out of the ball to eliminate the chance of an INT, it's likely they don't give up anymore points the rest of the way.  So now the Cowboys win back-to-back titles while giving up only 34 points total in the postseason. Would be talking about the greatest defense ever? They’d certainly be in the conversation. And the hands-on coach of that all-time great defense? Tom Landry. Now, I’m not saying only bad luck cost Landry that Super Bowl. The TD that could have been was set up by a fumbled kickoff return and Dallas’ only touchdown of the game was set up by an INT. Landry was the one who picked Craig Morton to start Super Bowl V for him even though a clearly superior QB in the person of Roger Staubach was sitting on the bench. But the Cowboys were this close to winning that game.

Landry’s third on the all-time wins list. He posted 18 straight winning seasons at one point. He was an innovator on both offense and defense. In addition to those titles he did win, he had four near misses going up against maybe the two greatest dynasties ever, the 60’s Packers and the 70’s Steelers. With three titles to his credit, including two back-to-back crowns, I really think a lot of people would be naming Landry as the greatest coach ever, not just one of the greatest.

The other guy hurt badly by the Super Bowl loss: the game’s MVP, outside linebacker Chuck Howley. Howley had such a great game that day he earned the MVP award despite being on the losing team. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb in saying that will never happen again. He also had another great Super Bowl the following season when his team won. So had his team won both, Howley would be the key defensive player for a dominant defensive back-to-back Super Bowl winning team. And Howley didn’t just rise to the occasion in the postseason, he made six All-Pro teams. Yet he can’t get a sniff of the Hall of Fame. He’s ever even been a semifinalist! He should be in anyway but if he’d been the MVP of the winning team he’d probably be a lot closer than he is now.

One final thought. It’s a lot more hypothetical but I can’t help but think the Cowboys win Super Bowl V in as convincing a fashion as they won it the next year if Landry had gone with Staubach. And if that had happened, then we might also be talking about Staubach as a strong contender for the title of greatest QB of all-time.

Two Random Observations From Week 5

1) When the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Indianapolis Colts Sunday, they left the league without a single undefeated team.  Not one NFL team could even make it to 4-0 in 2010.  Weird huh?  I saw that this was the earliest the NFL’s lacked an undefeated team since 1970.  And you know what that means right?  You don’t?  Well, it means it’s also the earliest the 1972 Miami Dolphins have ever gotten to celebrate the fact that they remain for another season the only perfect team in NFL history.  Congrats fellas.  No angst this year.   


2) When Brett Favre hooked up with Randy Moss for an undeniably exciting TD bomb on Monday night, we saw something very unusual.  ESPN’s broadcast stayed with a shot of Favre running down the field towards the end zone so he could celebrate the TD with Moss.  No, it wasn’t unusual for ESPN cameras to focus on Favre.  I’m aware of that network’s man-love for The Ol’ Dongslinger.  What was unusual was the sheer length of time the cameras stayed on Favre’s post-TD antics.  Normally what we see any time a TD’s scored are a dizzying series of jump cuts, each one lasting maybe two seconds.  The guy who scored.  The QB.  The coach.  Fans in the stands.  The cheerleaders.  The opposing coach. On and on until it’s time for the replays.  Now I’m glad we get such nice state-of-the-art camerawork these days, especially in the nationally broadcast games.  And I’m glad for the inventive camera angles.  But sometimes, it’s not such a bad idea to just stay with the guy who actually scored or the guy who threw it to him.  In their haste to add some human interest the game producers are now actually depriving the viewing public of some good stuff.  Case in point: the Dallas-Tennessee game this past weekend.  After Jason Witten scored a critical TD, one camera caught offensive lineman Marco Colombo rushing over to him and Witten gave him the ball. And then...the camera cut away for more various and sundry reaction shots.  And in the process, they missed the TD celebration that ended when Colombo hit the ground, something that by rule apparently constitutes an unlawful celebration penalty.  When this finally dawned on the announcers they explained what happened.  But they had to do so without visual aids because all those stupid camera shots apparently meant they missed getting a good shot of the unlawful celebration. You reap what you sow NFL boradcasters. Stop overproducing the games!