Dr. Z

by Paul Zimmerman

  For a guy who played such a correct, technically sound game on the field, he was pretty wacky off it. I found out when I spent a hilarious week on Oahu’s North Shore one off-season, trying to do a piece on Hendricks, who was an instructor at John Wilbur’s football camp. It’s hard to remember everything that happened or to read the notes I somehow managed to take. l seem to remember a place called Juju’s and something about fright masks and an amateur hour type of evening … not sure I was involved in it or not. I do remember asking him about his place of birth, Guatemala City, where his father had been stationed.

  “You’ve never seen flowers like that in your life,” he said and then proceeded to name the species of Hawaiian flora in our area. Then he got this faraway look.

  “You know something,” he said. “I really should have been a florist.”

  OK, Hendricks, nicknamed “Kick ’em” by his Raider teammates for one lamentable lapse of judgment, is my all-purpose outside linebacker. And now we move to the field of specialization. Jack Ham was the best pure coverage linebacker, with second place going to … oh, I guess I’d have to say Chuck Howley of the Cowboys’ Doomsday Defense. Ham lined up on the left side of the Steelers’ defense, which was kind of unusual because usually that was reserved for the strongside LBs skilled at playing the tight end.

  Maybe it was Ham’s instinctive ability to cut through traffic and stack up the power sweeps to the right, a big part of NFL offenses in those days, that kept him there. Maybe it was because Andy Russell, the RLB, was also an open side kind of player, but it worked out just fine. Ham was such a force in coverage, and against the wide plays, that even the All-Pro and Pro Bowl pickers, who usually grade linebackers on sack totals, could spot his greatness. He blitzed very seldom.

  Coverage was so instinctive to him that it never seemed like much of a big deal.

  “Jack and I were sitting next to each other on the bench,” Russell said, “and we were talking about the market, and he was telling me about some stock he really liked. Then we had to go out on defense. First play they ran, read the pass and dropped into his zone, deflected the ball with one hand, caught it with the other as he stepped out of bounds, flipped it to the ref and overtook me on our way off the field.

  “‘Like I was telling you,’ he said, as if nothing at all had happened, ‘you ought to look into that stock; it’s really a good deal.’”

  Ham and I were once talking about Lawrence Taylor. “Sometimes,” Ham said, “I think his playbook was written on a match cover.” In other words, LT’s coverage responsibility, so important in Ham’s scheme of things, was almost zero. His career interception total was nine. Ham’s was 32. Taylor, basically a defensive end in college, wasn’t really a linebacker at all, although he is generally acclaimed to be the best ever. He was an outside rusher who would occasionally line up in a stand up position, the finest in history at this special role created by Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick on the Giants.

  Later in their careers both coaches searched for other players to fill this role, which turned a 3-4 defense into a 4-3 and back again. Parcells tried it with Greg Ellis on the Cowboys; with Belichick’s Patriots it was Willie McGinest and then Rosevelt Colvin, basically down linemen who would stand up at times but really were pass rushers at heart. Taylor, of course, was the greatest.

  I’ve already written how LT, toward the close of his career, became introspective, even philosophical about the game. A couple of years from the end of his career, we got into a talk about how a player knows when the end is coming.

  “I’ll tell you how I know it,” he said. “The power rush starts going. That’s the thing that people never realized. I’d get sacks in lots different ways, but the best came from straight power, driving right into a guy and lifting him because he didn’t expect it from someone who weighs 245. It’s the starting point for everything, the base of operations. But when you feel that going, and right now I do, then you can tell things are coming to an end.”

  I lobbied hard for Dave Wilcox at the Hall of Fame Seniors Committee meeting. His was an almost unnoticed skill as the eras changed, playing the tight end, actually nullifying him, avoiding getting hooked on running plays, the typical modus operandi of the classic strongside linebacker. I think the quote that swung it for him was one from Mike Ditka.

  “Wilcox was the reason I quit when I did.”

  I had ammo from Mike Giddings, the super personnel guy, who’d been Wilcox’s linebacker coach on the 49ers.

  “Strongside linebackers get hooked to the inside now on running plays, and it just doesn’t seem to matter,” he said. “How many times do you think Wilkie got hooked? Never. It was a point of honor with him.”

  That was part of it, of course, but trying to get him the nomination as the senior candidate and then getting through the major enshrinement voting based on a platform of not getting hooked, well, I think half of them would have looked at me as if I were telling them that he stayed away from the ladies on Bourbon Street.

  No, I think the strongest thing that emerged, in addition to the Ditka quote, was a battery of testimony that Giddings provided, statements from just about every Niner who ever lined up behind Wilcox about how much he had done for their careers. Plus, of course, many quotes from opponents who respected the world of old fashioned values that he represented. And to the credit of the selectors and the Seniors Committee members, there was just something about Wilcox and the humility he showed in doing a specialized skill better than anyone else ever had.

  Oh, he could rush the passer if he had to. Giddings mentioned the game in which they decided to turn him loose on the quarterback, and he had three sacks and two forced fumbles. It was just that he was too valuable in his regular job.

  At one time middle linebacker was such a glamour position that All-Pro teams would have two, sometimes even three MLBs on them. The TV special, The Violent World of Sam Huff, brought the position into focus but what a cast of characters. How about if I give you 10 names, each of whom was called by some publication or rating service, the best ever at one time. Dick Butkus, Joe Schmidt, Ray Nitschke, Willie Lanier, Mike Singletary, Lee Roy Jordan, Tommy Nobis, Chuck Bednarik, and most recently, Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher.

  Believe me, each one had his supports, and I can even throw in a couple more and make a case for them — Jack Lambert, the first MLB with really deep, downfield range, and Sam Mills, a personal favorite for his absolute genius on the field and ability to lift the performances of everyone around him.

  OK, Butkus is my No. 1, and I’ve spent many wee hours in press rooms and bar rooms waging the same battle over and over again. About 15 years ago, when run-stuffing middle backers started getting the hook on what were considered passing downs, I heard Butkus described as a player who would be on the field in base downs but not when it was time to throw the ball. That one has picked up momentum, and my only answer is to look at the people who are advancing it.

  Butkus came up in 1965. That’s 42 years ago, as of this writing. In 1970 he suffered a serious knee injury that never was properly treated by the Bears and resulted in a six-figure settlement when Butkus sued them. He never was the same player after that, although, out of habit, they still put him on the All-Pro teams for two more seasons. So let’s say that his last good season was 1970, before he got hurt, which was 37 years ago. I look at some of the people who are issuing these pronouncements on what downs he would or would not play, and they weren’t born while he was in his prime. Or maybe some of them were in grade school, or teenagers. See what I’m getting at? They just don’t know nuttin’ about nuttin.’

  Butkus had a reputation as some sort of Cro-Magnon who beat offensive linemen senseless and then did the same to ball carriers.

  “Not true,” said the Packers’ Jerry Kramer when I talked to him about Butkus. “The last thing he wanted to do was take you on. He tried to get rid of you as quickly as possible, so he could be in
the best position to make the tackle. And when he was, yeah, the runners suffered.”

  Sure, everyone knows he was hell on wheels against the run, but pass defense seems to be the point of contention. He didn’t have the range downfield of Lambert or Singletary. He wasn’t required to because the Bears wouldn’t put him in zone coverage that would send him deep. He couldn’t close on a shallow receiver as Lewis could in his prime; Ray was the best I’ve ever seen at that, but he didn’t get tied up in traffic, either, as Lewis occasionally would. He destroyed traffic, anything that would slow him down on his way to a tackle would infuriate him. The MLB’s usual coverage responsibility in those days was second man out of the backfield, and speed usually wasn’t that big a factor because the assignment didn’t usually have him turning and running downfield with the back. By the time the second man out would turn upfield, the rush would have arrived.

  Butkus covered the swing and flare routes, short stuff over the middle, and he knew angles and how to get through traffic, and his coverage left nothing to be desired, even when he had to hustle downfield. He was fast enough. He had what Vince Lombardi called “competitive speed,” plus great instincts. But if I had to say what he did best, it was operate without a decent pair of tackles in front of him.

  Lewis had a pair of 350-pound monsters, Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams, to keep the blockers off him in the ’01 Super Bowl. Urlacher played behind Tank Johnson and a very solid two-gapper, Ian Scott, and, for most of the season, Pro Bowler Tommie Harris in 2006 and, a few years before that, Pro Bowler Ted Washington. Butkus’ tackles were nondescript guys such as Dick Evey and John Johnson and Willie Holman and Frank Cornish. He never played behind a Pro Bowl tackle in his entire career. And yet he could cut through whatever line scheme they had going against him in a flash and get rid of the blockers and gather himself for the thundering hit. Yeah, I’ll stick with him.

  They are legislating the cornerback position out of football. Interference rules get tighter every year, a push to produce more passing and scoring and offense that Tex Schramm and the Competition Committee started many years ago. The worst thing is that there’s no consistency to the calls. Basic things that coaches teach get flagged by one officiating crew, allowed by another. Players such as Champ Bailey, labeled a “shutdown corner,” still get beaten deep on occasion, when the Broncos are actually manning it up and not hiding in a Cover-2, everyone’s blue plate special these days. No, cornerbacks might have good streaks, or even a good run for a full season, but the following year they could come back and go into shock.

  Here we go again … all together now … “It’s not the way it used to be!” OK, since my team dwells, depressingly, in the past perfect tense, let’s bring it as up to date much as I can. Deion Sanders. Timed in the high 4.2s. Greatest closing speed of anyone, ever.

  In 1994, when Sanders was 27 and presumably at the peak of his game, he had one season with the 49ers. I asked Merton Hanks, the free safety and a fellow with whom I was fond of discussing football and personnel and one thing and another, what he would write if he were doing a scouting report on his famous teammate.

  “Don’t let him bait you into throwing the quick out against him. He’ll let two or three go and then take the next one back for six. It’s a cat and mouse game with him, and you’re not going to win. Don’t throw the deep sideline route on him. With the sideline for protection, he’ll either smother it or pick it off. You could try a deep post, just to keep him alert, but that’s risky, too, because it’ll look like a completion, and then he’ll close fast enough to get the pick.

  “So what does that leave? You could try to run a pick play on him, but he’ll yell so loud that the officials will watch for it from then on and you won’t get it again. You could drag him across the middle on a shallow cross. He doesn’t like it inside much, but you’d better make sure your quarterback leads the guy just right because if it’s a little bit off, a little bit behind him, Deion’s gonna grab it. If you complete a couple of those, you might force them to protect him in a zone, but anyone who coaches him has to know that’s the stupidest thing to do with him because he gets bored in zone coverage and loses a little concentration. But … if somehow you can manage to get them in some kind of a zone … well, it’s a big if. That’s how you get ready for Deion, the ‘if’ approach. Hasn’t worked too well so far, has it?”

  Here is the problem with Jimmy Johnson, whom I will say without reservation is the greatest defensive back who ever lived: For the first eight years of his career, no one knew who he was. The 49ers weren’t in the postseason, they weren’t on national TV, he didn’t have big interception numbers (the only ones that define a cornerback) because everyone was afraid to throw at him. I was working in New York, as beat man covering the Jets for the Post, and the AFL didn’t face the NFL in the regular season in those days. I did have a friend, though, named Mike Hudson who’d been my classmate at Stanford and worked for the UPI in San Francisco during this period, a Niner fan, like me, and I’d get periodic letters from him saying, “You’ve got to see this cornerback we’ve got, J.J. Johnson. I’ve never seen anything like him.”

  I remember seeing him once or twice during that period of 1961-68, his first eight years in the league, and I couldn’t record much of anything because he didn’t make any plays, and the reason for that was that no passes were thrown in his direction, or if there were, they amounted to maybe a couple of quick outs or something like that. That should have been the tipoff right there, but where’s the sign that says a former lineman had to be a keen evaluator of pass defenders?

  Then the Niners got good with three straight playoff seasons, 1970-72. And a year or so before that, someone must have grabbed their PR director, George McFadden, by the throat and told him, “You’ve got to do something for J.J. He’s 31 years old, and no one’s ever heard of him.” So in 1969, when Johnson already had passed his 31st birthday and had completed eight years in the league, the Niners press book listed an unusual statistic for him — passes thrown into his coverage, passes completed, yards gained. The numbers were 25 of 74 for 250. Broken down for his 13 games (he missed one), the average was 5.7 passes (and there was no way of telling whether this was in man or zone coverage), 1.9 completions for 19.2 yards per contest.

  Next year the press book did the same thing, and the two-year stats came out to a per-game average of 5.9 passes, 2.1 completions, 23.1 yards. I phoned my buddy, Mike.

  “Did he give up any TDs?” I asked him.

  “I never saw him give one up.”

  Well, something must have kicked in because he made All-Pro for four straight years, starting in ’69, and led the defense on three straight division championship teams. By now I was watching him every chance I got and I’d never seen anyone as smooth and graceful in his pass coverage. The Niners PR staff stopped listing those good stats after two years, but I saw games in which the opponent only threw at him two or three times. In ’71 he broke his wrist in the ninth contest and played the rest of the season with a cast on, and they still were afraid to test him, and when they did, he’d knock the ball down with his cast.

  The fade started coming in ’73 when he banged up his knee and, for that season and the following three, he slowly declined. But come on now … those were his 13th through 16th years in the league, at age 35 through 38. I would talk to him by phone from time to time. A proud, dignified, humble person, a little sad, maybe, but able to hide his bitterness at being overlooked during the prime years of his career.

  Then I became a Hall of Fame selector. Johnson’s name would surface briefly and then sink. I couldn’t understand it, but a decade and a half after his career ended, he was still hardly known. I became strident, shrill, “You’ve got to understand that this guy…” etc. Wrong approach. After getting stiffed a few times, J.J. issued a statement that he would appreciate it if his name no longer would be proposed for enshrinement, just as Harry Carson did recently. Oh, my God. Someth
ing had to be done.

  In 1994 my pitch was that this was J.J.’s last year as a “modern” candidate. After that he would go into a dismal swamp called the Seniors Pool, in which many were swallowed but few emerged. One per season, out of all the great, unrecognized names of history, would be pulled out of that groaning mass, that Dante’s vision of hell, and presented for possible enshrinement. And that was the fate that would befall the greatest cornerback in history unless you, the selectors, acted and acted now.

  Well, he made it. I saw him at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. There was no more talk about how his name shouldn’t have been proposed, etc. He was in tears. I was in tears. End of story.

  In the old days, the strong safeties were sturdy fellows who were expected to lock onto tight ends but still had to be gifted in zone coverage downfield. Free safeties were wispy guys with tremendous range. Then the monster safeties arrived, 220 to 230 pounds, strong or free, it didn’t matter. The big free safeties followed in the wake of the early “killer” types, Jack Tatum, Cliff Harris, the Chicago pair of Gary Fencik and Doug Plank. They were what Al Davis used to call, “obstructionists,” a euphemism for roughnecks. The big strong safeties could either play “in the box,” as fourth linebackers in the base defense, or they could man the actual LB spot in nickel defenses.

  At 6-3, 198, Ken Houston was a big strong safety in his era. You didn’t find many of them over 200 pounds. Even the Raiders’ intimidating pair of Tatum and SS George Atkinson weighed in at 200 and 180, respectively. The AFL knew all about him because he was the finest SS the league had ever produced, not just a big sticker, as most of them were, but a gifted cover man, too. But so what? AFL? AFC? It was all bush league to pro football’s Old Boys Club. Even when Houston set a record for career interception TDs, which was broken by Rod Woodson 30 years later, nobody got very excited.