Post by TheShadow on Mar 17, 2007 9:12:41 GMT -5
www.time.com
By TOM CALLAHAN
Monday, Jan. 23, 1984
Redskins and Raiders: the juiciest possible match
With his usual restraint, Washington Quarterback Joe Theismann describes the Super Bowl as "the greatest spectacle created by man," and this year the festivities may include a football game. What seemed the tangiest possible match all along has agreeably come about: the defending champion Redskins, who have somehow avoided arrogance in the face of 31 victories in their past 34 games, vs. the Los Angeles Raiders, the National Football League's masters of the black arts.
"The three P's of Raiders football," according to Matt Millen, their analytical linebacker, "are pointing, pushing and penalties." Yet, remembering the Raiders' visit to Washington 14 weeks ago, Redskins Receiver Art Monk cannot contain his delight. "Pushing, shoving and fighting," says Monk with a sigh. "That was the most fun I ever had in a game." Washington won, 37-35, but everyone involved looked forward to another day, and here it is. Next Sunday the XVIIIth greatest spectacle created by man will break fresh ground in Tampa.
Washington was considered an oddball champion last year, when an eight-week strike muddied the results and disenchanted the customers. But if the Redskins were eccentric then, they have since gone completely crazy. Instead of laying off for a season, as Super Bowl teams are inclined to do, they poured it on. In 18 games since last January's 27-17 triumph over the Miami Dolphins, they lave lost merely two, each by one point, both on Monday nights. Scoring a record 541 points, permitting just 332, the Red skins are not yet esteemed at the level of past Pittsburgh, Miami or Green Bay dreadnoughts, but fewer complaints are heard lately about no great teams in pro football any more.
The Redskins are the property of Canadian-born Jack Kent Cooke, who expects everything he owns to shine like the top of his Chrysler Building. Cooke's team, coached by a bright man named Joe Gibbs, was constructed by boyish Talent Scout Bobby Beathard out of what some say were the pitiful leavings of '70s Coach George Allen, though Theismann, Fullback John Riggins, Place Kicker Mark Moseley, Offensive Tackle George Starke and Defensive Tackle Dave Butz were among the remnants. While Butz is a fine player (weighing over 300 lbs., resembling a 6-ft. 7-in. handball court), his cost to the Redskins in 1975 was two first-round draft choices and one second. In those days, Washington was renowned for trading away its future.
So Beathard, who arrived in 1978, was required to find talent in low places, and he developed a knack for it. The sturdiest section of the team, the offensive line, is the best example. Left Tackle Joe Jacoby, an undrafted giant from Louisville three years ago, is now an all-pro. "Running behind Jacoby," Riggins says, "you can't see anything else." Jeff Bostic, a plump center once cut by the Philadelphia Eagles, was hired several years ago solely to hike for kicks (the regular man had contracted snapper's "yips"). Now Bostic is also starting the Pro Bowl.
Washington is a strangely unified team of completely fragmented identities, unbearably cute. Tight ends included, the offensive linemen are the "Hogs," a brand name incorporated by Starke, who did not waste his Columbia education. The undersized receivers, notably 5-ft. 7-in. Alvin Garrett (cut thrice elsewhere), are the "Smurfs." Those who synchronize their celebrations in the end zone are the "Fun Bunch." After being strafed in a 48-47 loss at Green Bay, the defensive backs took to calling themselves "the Pearl Harbor Crew."
Riggins, the mythic figure on the team, customarily dresses as though he lives in a duckblind, but he took off his camouflage when the linebackers put theirs on. The only member in his club (34-year-old running backs who get stronger as they go), Riggins is an honorary Hog but avoids the Fun Bunch. His touchdown spike is the most distinctive in the game: he flips the ball to the nearest official. The ceremony has been performed 29 times this season.
"A lot of our guys," says Safety Mark Murphy, "have been told at some time or other that they can't play. So we know that there are teams with better talent. I hate to pick on the New York Jets, but they are a good example of a talented team without cohesiveness. We're just not cocky people. When we beat the Rams [the division playoff], 51-7, everyone was ready to put us in the Hall of Fame. But now that we barely beat the 49ers [the conference championship], 24-21, we seem to be human again."
If it is remarkable how well the Redskins recovered from last year's success, it is amazing how well Murphy weathered the strike. In the N.F.L., shop stewards tend to lose a step in the offseason, and Murphy was in the forefront of the negotiations. "Before the strike," he says, "the captains went to Joe Gibbs and told him there were some things we had to do. All he said was 'Whatever you do, stay together.' "
An assistant in San Diego three years ago, when Beathard recommended him to Cooke, Gibbs lost his first five Redskins games without panicking, then began winning at a Lombardian rate. He stresses fundamentals but is willing to lateral on punts. Under Gibbs, Theismann has changed from a slapdash quarterback to an efficiency expert (276 completions in 459 pass attempts for 3,714 yds., 29 touchdowns and only eleven interceptions).
"There's a warmth on this team that sustains us," says Theismann, 34. "But a lot of our success is simply Joe Gibbs. He convinced us that we're only as good as we play and that we have to play hard every week. This is going to be one physical football game. We may have to go out and get beat up once a day just to get ready."
It is long forgotten that the Raiders originally styled themselves after those stalwart Army football teams, the Black Knights of the Hudson, that Owner Al Davis so admired as a child growing up in Brooklyn. But the Raiders' silver-and-black has come to be associated with villainy, a source of pride to the wearers, who look affectionately upon mayhem.
"John Riggins and I came into the league the same year, and I like him," says Lyle Alzado, a particularly wanton defensive lineman. "But if he tries to run around my end, I'm going to have to take his head off." A similar warning—"beheaded" was the word used—has been issued to Wide Receiver Charlie Brown from Cornerback Lester Hayes, a sticky individual who used to ladle caramel all over himself until the league observed he was intercepting passes without knowing it.
Most teams reflect their coaches, but this one favors its owner. Davis is the only proprietor in the N.F.L. who does not feign piety, and he is one of just two (Cincinnati's Paul Brown is the other) whose understanding of the game is profound. A middle-age rock 'n' roller in a '50s hairdo and a black leather jacket, Davis casts a slim shadow, but it managed to cover elephantine Coach John Madden for ten years. After five seasons, including the championship year of 1980, current Head Coach Tom Flores remains a minor presence.
Davis' grudge with the N.F.L. is historic. He coached the Oakland Raiders from 1963 through 1965, when the upstart American Football League appointed him its commissioner. Once he began romancing the N.F.L.'s star quarterbacks, the Establishment came around to the wisdom of merger. Whether or not he was more capable than Pete Rozelle, Davis became the odd commissioner out, and a man does not go from czar back to coach. Al took his place in the owner's box, but the game plans continue to be smudged with his fingerprints. Now and then, he also enjoys booting Rozelle around courtrooms.
Since Davis ran out on a full house in Oakland in 1982 and made it stick after two trials against the league, the city has been trying to condemn the team—everyone condemns this team—and take over under the laws of eminent domain. Meanwhile the Raiders are in Los Angeles and starting to count over 90,000 patrons in the Coliseum, where Davis has not yet signed a long-term lease. For now, damages of some $35 million are owed the Raiders by the other 27 teams. Speaking for his players and himself, he says, "We don't take what the defense gives us, we take what we want."
Dropping back shorter and throwing quicker this year, unsinkable Quarterback Jim Plunkett has made Marcus Allen the handiest pass catcher among running backs and Todd Christensen the most prolific receiver of all others in the league. Christensen's 92 receptions are the record for a tight end. A failed Dallas Cowboy runner, who stubbornly still wears a backfield number, 46, Christensen is given to writing and quoting poetry. Says Plunkett, 36: "It's fun to play with the Raiders because everyone is encouraged to be himself."
Allen's second season was less enjoyable than his first. This year Eric Dickerson of the Los Angeles Rams was "the new Marcus Allen," and the old one registered just one 100-yd. rushing game all season until the playoffs. With breezy 121-and 154-yd. games against Pittsburgh and Seattle in the tournament, Allen and the Raiders are on a sprint. Plunkett throws downfield mostly to Christensen or Cliff Branch. But when the Seahawks concentrated on those two, Malcolm Barnwell caught 100-yds.' worth of passes in the first half alone.
On defense, seven veterans remain from Super Bowl XV three years ago, and the four replacements are select. They include Ends Howie Long, the leading sacker and pro bowler, and Alzado, who reached the Super Bowl once before, with Denver. From Cleveland two years ago, Alzado grumbled his way to Raiders camp, always the N.F.L.'s final stop, in trade for an eighth-round draft choice Former New England Patriot Mike Haynes, maybe the best cornerback in the game, was willing to sue to force the league to allow his trade. The fourth new man is Safety Vann McElroy, who was momentarily injured during the Washington game at the time the Raiders were yielding a 15-point fourth-quarter lead. Onside kicks had something to do with the reversal, and all-purpose Redskins Runner Joe Washington came in to play too. Allen was available for but one down. Also, Haynes had not yet arrived, and Branch pulled a hamstring in the first half. These are enough alibis for the Raiders (14-4 through the playoffs), but given more time, they will think of others.
It has been a season of excuses in the N.F.L. The luck of the television draw was poor. In one horrible New York Giants game at St. Louis on a Monday night, more damage was done than even Nielsen could estimate. For the rematch at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, 51,589 no-shows were counted. All network football ratings drooped, but the ratings of ABC'S Monday Night Football-were off 12%. Advertisers sounded restless.
Counterprogramming of the "I-am-a-teen-age-centerfold" variety was involved. But the impression is strong that many people have cooled on the sport for one reason or another, turned off by the strike or the pervasive talk of drugs. Spring football, the invention of the U.S. Football League, has spoiled the anticipation of a new season. While the U.S.F.L. has bagged its second-straight Heisman Trophy in Nebraska's Mike Rozier, who signed a $3 million contract with the Pittsburgh Maulers last week, the real damage to the N.F.L. has been the endlessness of pro football.
To many, there appears to be something wrong with the game itself. Shackling the pass defenders with scrupulous rules, the competition committee (Tex Schramm, Don Shula, Paul Brown and Eddie LeBaron) may have misjudged the public's enthusiasm for high-scoring games. After the 49ers lost last week on two niggling calls, San Francisco Coach Bill Walsh wondered if "the flavor of the game" had been sacrificed in pursuit of touchdowns. The league responds that the 43.6 points per game this season are in line with past averages. Having three years left on both its union and TV contracts, the N.F.L. should be in a relaxed state, but the league has been almost too harried to enjoy its own party.
To maintain his leverage over inn keepers in New Orleans, Miami and Los Angeles, Rozelle likes to move the festiva around, and Tampa represents a new stop. Eager to offer the country something more than a cigar, the community has been practicing to be "superhosts" and actually instructing cab drivers in etiquette.
To spruce up the areas that tourists are likely to frequent, $1 million worth of palm trees and tropical plants were installed. Unfortunately, a freeze killed most of them.
Super Bowl XVIII is as apt as not to be resolved by a toe. Chris Bahr, the Raiders' sidewinder, kicked the winning field goal in three games this season with :20, :04 and :03 remaining. Moseley, last year's M.V.P., has been fine but fallible. He is a man of premonitions. "For some reason I had a bad feeling about today. I told my wife last night," Moseley said after missing four field goals last week but then making the one that mattered. If Moseley just foresees a sports event this week, the N.F.L. will be grateful.