Dr. Z

by Paul Zimmerman

  Then he was traded to the George Allen Redskins. At 28 he wasn’t exactly a member of Allen’s Over the Hill Gang, but he finally got the exposure he needed to stake a reputation as the best ever at a position that still is not fully understood. I mean the 2006 AP All-Pro team didn’t even have a strong safety on it, preferring to go with two frees. Strong, free, what the hell’s the difference? Well, there is to me.

  I’m still waiting for someone to come along and stake a claim at the position. Troy Polamalu looks promising, but he hadn’t done it long enough. Ed Reed has switched from strong to free. Roy Williams is a big sticker, thus a popular Pro Bowl vote getter among the players, but he’s not a cover guy. Nope, Ken Houston it is, until someone comes along to challenge him.

  When I first started covering football free safeties were what I call “range” types, players who patrolled vast patches of territory, basically small, wiry guys with tremendous ball instincts — Jimmy Patton, Yale Lary, One-Eyed Bobby Onion, Willie Wood. Paul Krause, bigger and a bit slower, was the demon interceptor, but he wasn’t the tackler these other people were. It was hard to evaluate these players, at least it was for me, because we never knew what their responsibilities were on any play. So you let the interceptions do the work for you, if you were lazy, or you stacked up a whole pile of quotes, if you wanted to make it a popularity contest.

  I lean toward Wood as my range type because I just saw him as a more dynamic athlete, with an eye-catching burst to the ball and a good measure of toughness. Emotionally, though, I’m drawn to Larry Wilson, who first popularized the safety blitz, a technique deemed insane at the time. So I’ve given him a designation termed, “combination,” since he was a terrific player in space, a fearless hitter and a safety whose techniques were near perfect.

  But I can’t just neglect the dominant safetyman of our era, the Eagles’ Brian Dawkins, who does everything: blitzes, hits with real force, locks onto tight coverage downfield and, here’s the thing that swings the election for him, seems to have an electric effect on everybody around him.

  That brings us almost home in this complicated category, but now it’s time to talk about hitters because the free safety position appears in many guises, and it would be unfair to neglect the killer-type free safeties because they can influence things in dramatic ways. Who was the greatest hitter who ever played — at any position? I’ve been asked that question on a million mailbag columns for the Sports Illustrated website. In my Thinking Man’s Guide, it was an easy one to answer because all I had to do was shut my eyes, and I’d see Hardy Brown, an undersized, mean-spirited linebacker sending someone to dreamland.

  They said he did it with a shoulder he could pop like a coiled spring. Some of the blows I saw him deliver looked more like forearm pops. The blow I remember best came when Brown’s 49ers played the Rams in Kezar, and little Glenn Davis, Army’s famous Mr. Outside, caught a swing pass, and Brown popped him with the shoulder and he went down and stayed there. They took him out on a stretcher, and I had my binoculars on him and I can still see that deathly white face with the eyes closed. I thought he might be dead.

  “Hardy Brown,” Y.A. Tittle once said, “had a shoulder that could numb a gorilla.”

  I don’t know whether or not he could exist today. Technically a shoulder or forearm shot is not illegal, but too many of them aimed at the head would, I’m sure, generate some kind of legislation, “conduct unbecoming,” or “conduct becoming hazardous,” or something like that.

  The Colts’ middle linebacker, Mike Curtis, was nicknamed “The Animal” for obvious reasons, but I’d have to put him behind Brown in the mayhem sweepstakes … except for one memorable shot I saw him deliver. In a 1971 playoff game against the Dolphins, a fan came out onto the Baltimore Memorial Stadium just as Miami was about to run a play, grabbed the ball and started prancing around. Curtis’ blow, forearm to chest, sent him flying a good five yards. I interviewed him in a police holding area after the game.

  He was still a bit drunk … he’d taken a bus down from Rochester and had been drinking the whole way. He showed me his jacket. “Unzipped it, top to bottom,” he said. He seemed proud of it. Two weeks later he filed a lawsuit.

  “Read and react. Everyone else just stood around, Curtis sprung like a panther,” Colts center Bill Curry said. “I felt like telling that fan, ‘That’s what I have to face in practice every day.’”

  I don’t think the big guys generate enough speed to be considered the game’s most devastating hitters … OK, maybe the Broncos’ left defensive end “Tombstone” Jackson, who could split helmets with his head slap, might figure in there somewhere, but I think that free safety has to rate as the player generating the biggest hits, replacing linebackers.

  Nowadays I’d give the nod to the Redskins’ free safety Sean Taylor, taking over from the Cowboys’ Roy Williams. But the all time No. 1, and I hate to go this route because I’m only reinforcing a negative, is Jack Tatum. The shot he delivered to Patriot wideout Darryl Stingley that paralyzed him was not, I believe, a clean blow, and I’ve argued this a million times. The pass was off target, Stingley was on his way to the ground when Tatum drilled him. He didn’t have to do it, but when someone has been trained in the guard dog mentality his whole career, don’t be surprised if he bites.

  The first time I saw Tatum in the flesh was in the 1971 Rose Bowl, Stanford against Ohio State. The L.A. papers had been going with a pregame angle I thought was kind of silly: “Will Stanford dare to throw into Tatum’s territory?” I mean, you don’t just give up on an area of the field. Tatum played the open, or wide side cornerback in Woody Hayes’ defense. Right, and someone is just going to avoid it. Silly Southern California angle.

  Stanford had a bunch of clever, pass catching backs, and on the game’s second series, Jim Plunkett threw a five-yard swing pass to one of them, Jackie Brown, to the wide side. Oh oh. Tatum came up to meet him. It took 10 minutes to run the next play because an ambulance came out on the field to collect Jackie Brown and take him away. Right out there, red light flashing, while the Stanford guys stood around and watched. There were no more short passes into Tatum’s territory.

  A footnote: I just looked at my play-by-play chart to make sure. Brown actually came back into the game and scored two touchdowns. But by running, not pass catching.

  Were NFL players actually afraid of Tatum? Yes. Here’s a letter I received recently from his teammate, Todd Christensen, the All-Pro tight end:

  “When I first came to the Raiders, I was a scrub, and as you well know, these are the guys who play offense for the defense, and vice-versa, on alternating days. So it was defensive day, and I was lined up in the slot to catch a slant. Plunkett timed it right, but so did Tatum, who had clearly lined me. He came in a blaze of color so fast that I actually shrieked a little ‘aaahhhh’ and then at the last second he veered off.

  “He came over to me and said, ‘Don’t worry, young buck, I was just getting my timing down.’ I am not ashamed to tell you that fear made its way into my constitution.”

  Tatum is not my all timer. Cliff Harris is. His hitting was not quite on par with Tatum’s … no one’s was … but Harris was a well respected intimidator. Plus a fine cover guy. He started his NFL life as a cornerback. And I don’t think any player ever studied the science of hitting as he did.

  The first time I ever got to know him, we had dinner at his restaurant in Arlington, Texas. We finally closed it at 2 a.m., and most of the time we had talked about an elaborate diagram he had drawn up, which I labeled, “Cliff Harris and the Science of Hitting.” He had been an engineering major in college, and his chart was filled with notations such as “point of maximum impact.” It’s been a while, but one thing I remember is his note on the swing pass, that the maximum impact does not come when the catch is first made. The idea is to wait until the back turns and starts upfield, then deliver your blow.

  He used to hate the grades the coach
es assigned. All it did, he said, was to induce a play-it-safe mentality. Don’t take chances, don’t screw up your grade.

  “I see a teammate in trouble and I gamble,” he said. “I leave my assignment and cover for him and I’ve guessed right and I knock the ball down. I grade a zero on the play. Same thing with a receiver coming across on a shallow route. I let him catch the ball and then I knock him out. Again, a zero on the play for allowing the completion. But the guy is out of the game.”

  Harris has been up for the Hall of Fame a number of times. I’ve spoken on his behalf each time, but I’ve failed. He is now in the Senior Pool. Pray for him.

  The last time I made up this list, Morten Andersen was my kicker, based on all-time numbers and percentage and whatever. But I’ve simplified it and zeroed in on one category. Clutch kicking. The greatest clutch kick I’ve ever seen was Adam Vinatieri’s 45-yarder in the howling snowstorm against Oakland that got the Patriots into overtime and subsequently into the Super Bowl, where his 48-yarder at the final whistle beat the Rams. Two years later his 41-yarder with four seconds left beat Carolina in the Super Bowl.

  Thus he was 3-for-3 on the three most important kicks in the team’s history. A miss on any one of them could have affected the lives of many people. I don’t want to bog this down with a parade of numbers during Vinatieri’s whole career, but they are of Hall of Fame quality. Pressure kicking is the story. Just ask Mike Vanderjagt, who has the best lifetime percentage in history. When faced with the biggest pressure kick of his life, though, a 46-yarder that could have put the Colts into the AFC championship, the result was a badly skunked low line drive, way wide right. The Colts got rid of him after the season.

  Have you ever heard fans consistently cheer a punter and never boo him? Yes, if you’ve watched the Giants’ Jeff Feagles knock them out inside the five-yard line. Yes, if you were a 49ers fan in the late 1950s and 1960s when Tommy Davis was punting. Yes, emphatically yes, if you were sitting anywhere near me in the Kezar Stadium end zone, with the wind blowing in your face, watching Davis trying to get the Niners out of a hole … “Come on, Tommy! Please, God, let him get one off”… and hearing that sweet KABOOM! as he rockets another one into the gusts in the windiest stadium in the league. A high hanger into the wind, 48 yards from scrimmage, 4.8 on the stopwatch. Week after week of that, game after game.

  Punting out of the end zone, into the wind, what’s the hang time? That’s one of many ways I judge punters, probably my favorite way. Davis was the best and he’s my man. For years Sammy Baugh, with his phony gross average built on quick kicks, the old bounce and roll play, was the all-time career record holder. Davis was second in gross yardage, punting in the worst conditions in football. Then Shane Lechler came along and forged to the lead with his 46.1 average. Nope, Shane doesn’t do it for me. A middle of the end zone punter. Before they started calculating net yardage, it was a hidden statistic. Then finally bowing to the insistence of ex-Giant and Jet punter Dave Jennings … I mean he had been begging for it for only 10 years or so, but the Elias Statistics Bureau, in its infinite wisdom, moves at the pace of a 10K run at Fat Farm, USA … they started counting net, and the guys who couldn’t place the ball were exposed.

  Lechler led the NFL by three yards on gross average in 2006, but he was 12th in net, which means that either l) he couldn’t keep the ball out of the end zone, which was true (19 touchbacks, high in the league and nearly double those of his nearest pursuer) or 2) the punt coverage team was crummy (true again … the Raiders’ 12.9 yards allowed per punt return was third worst in football). But he’ll probably make the Hall of Fame some day if he keeps his gross up there. Ray Guy, a middle of the end zone punter with a lofty hang time, keeps coming up at the enshrinement meetings. Why I don’t know. His career gross average is lower than that of anyone in the game today. They didn’t keep net in his day, but Peter King, a fellow selector, figured it out once, using old play-by-play sheets, and it was very anemic, something like the low 32s.

  Glenn Dobbs of the old AAFC, with the top gross average ever, would be an exotic choice, but he really didn’t do it long enough, and I didn’t get to see him punt more than a couple of times in his career. Nope, it would take someone with an absolute thunderfoot to dislodge an emotional favorite such as Davis.

  I’ll be really brief with the return men since the numbers speak such a loud message. Right now Chicago’s Devin Hester is a one-year wonder. A few more seasons like his rookie year of 2006 and we’d have to take him seriously. Gale Sayers has the best career kick return average in history. But it was a short career. Dante Hall has run a lot more kicks back, but they’ve got the same number of TDs, and Sayers’ average is more than six yards higher. Sayers is my man.

  Jack Christiansen, who doubled as the strong safety on the great Lions’ secondary nicknamed Chris’ Crew, burst onto the scene with rookie and second-year seasons the likes of which never have been duplicated — punt return averages of 19.1 and 21.5 yards with six touchdowns. He coasted in on those figures to give him the second best career average in history. Well, I guess he’s my pick, even though Chicago’s great scatback, George McAfee, was three-hundredth of a yard higher. In the modern era … Hall was impressive for a while, but I’ve always liked him better returning kickoffs. So I guess that’s it, except for one man.

  If I were down to my last punt return of the game and I needed a single effort to get me back in position to win it … that was it, one last shot … who would choose to be back there waiting for that kick? I can think of only one name, Deion Sanders. He might retreat and lose yards, and I’m sure that’s what brought his average down during his career. But that scene has been repeated just so many times, Sanders back there, kind of waving his hand from side to side, maybe clowning a bit, the crowd tense, expectant, the punt team nervous, and then, oh my God, he just might … wait a minute, they’ve got him pinned. But those instincts of his, the excitement he generated.

  His return average couldn’t match Christiansen’s. Career TDs were the same, six. But I just can’t get that picture out of my mind. I’m switching votes. Is it too late? Sanders is my all-time NFL punt returner.

  If you wanted to break down the members of the special teams suicide squads into specific areas of expertise, as Buffalo coach Bobby April does, I’m sure you could give me a pretty efficient set of operatives, all going at a fully proficient level, pick one. But there’s a certain romance attached to this position, so for old times’ sake, I’ll go with Henry Schmidt, one of the cast of unforgettable characters who decorated my Thinking Man’s Guide. I draw from it now.

  I began covering the Jets full time in 1966. Schmidt was a reserve tackle. He was in his fourth pro camp and by the time he hit New York he was just about playing out the string. His salary was $15,000. His face was craggy and lined, and it was painful to watch him getting out of the team bus after a 15-minute airport trip. His battered knees cramped and aching, he would hobble like a 60-year-old man.

  When the Jets finally cut him, I was surprised to see that he was only 29. He looked like 40. And then I remembered who Henry Schmidt was. He was the greatest hot man, or wedge buster, that I’d ever seen. I had watched him in his rookie year with the 49ers in 1959. He was inordinately fast coming down the field for a guy 6-4, 254 pounds. The Niners fans loved him, but when he’d hit the wedge and splinter it like kindling, it would draw a gasp, rather than a cheer, from the crowd. Usually the ball carrier would be part of the mob that Henry took down on his wild attacks. When people saw that he was actually able to get up and walk off the field, that’s when the cheers would come.

  Seven years later I saw what all that wedge busting had done to Schmidt. The only miracle was how he had managed to survive as long as he did.

  “The problem,” Jets linebacker Larry Grantham explained to me one day, “was that Henry was terribly nearsighted. He’d just aim at the biggest cluster he could find. Then someone fitted him with contact len
ses. When he actually could see what was coming at him, well, that was it for Henry as a wedge buster.”

  This ends the sad story of Henry Schmidt. And thus ends the roster of my all-time team.

  * * *

  Best Defenses of All Time

  Entitled “Curtain Falls on Ravens Defense,” this column appeared on SI.com on Feb. 8, 2001.

  Post-Super Bowl, I did a one-pager for the magazine in which I tried to put the Ravens’ defense in some kind of perspective and compare it to some of the great units of the past. Since I didn’t want to rent a U-Haul to bring my library down to Tampa, I had to do it on general impressions. Now, more than a week later, armed with my full battalion of charts and reference books, I’ve tried to come up with a more thorough breakdown.

  It can be frustrating work, especially when you’re dealing with statistics. The encyclopedias and yearbooks are inconsistent. So are the press books. So, basically, I tried to avoid a heavy reliance on numbers and concentrate more on the individuals, as I remember them.

  I chose eight great defensive units of the past for my breakdown and comparison — Detroit’s in the 1950s, when the Lions won three NFL titles, stretching into the early ’60s; the Lombardi Packers of ’60 through ’67, when Green Bay won five championships, including two Super Bowl victories; George Allen’s L.A. Rams’ Fearsome Foursome units of the ’60s; Buffalo, the dominant defensive team of the early AFL; Minnesota’s Purple People Eaters of the late ’60s and ’70s; the Cowboys’ Doomsday Defense of the ’60s and ’70s; Pittsburgh’s four-time Super Bowl champion Steel Curtain of ’72 through ’79; and the Chicago squad of the mid-’80s.

  I know I’m neglecting many fine defenses — the Giants of different eras, the champion Colts, the early Paul Brown teams in Cleveland, Denver’s Orange Crush — but I have to draw the line somewhere. The teams I chose basically had continuity and the ability to put their stamp on the game for a number of years.