What about Super Bowl III did you not get? Kansas City Chiefs Destroy Vikes in SB IV.

 

Hank Stram and the Kansas City Chiefs were miles ahead of the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV.  

     Did the NFL learn anything from its ignominious defeat in Super Bowl III?  Not really, and neither did the sporting world, judging by the 14 point spread favoring the Minnesota Vikings over the Kansas City Chiefs for Super Bowl IV after the 1969 season.
    I continue to be amazed at how many people still make excuses for Baltimore even to this day. 
    Well, it was that washed up old man Earl Morrall's fault. Really?  The NFL Man of the Year, who later would earn 3 Super Bowl rings?  He's the reason the Colts lost?
      Well, the Colts would have won if they had started Johnny Unitas.  So you're 18 point favorites and you have the NFL MVP at quarterback, but you want to bench him for the Super Bowl and start a guy who had 11 completions on the year?  Really?  
    Be that as it may, the sporting world pretty much regarded Super Bowl III as a fluke. Maybe  Joe Namath was a sorcerer and cast a spell on Baltimore.  But this would all be rectified by the Minnesota Vikings, who--this time--really were the greatest team of all time, or so went the narrative.  Hence, the Vikings, aka the Purple People Eaters,  were installed as 14 point favorites over the Kansas City Chiefs.   

    The 1968 Colts had set several defensive NFL records.  But all those records were broken by the Purple People Eaters, led by a front four of Alan Page, Jim Marshall, Carl Eller and Gary Larson.  All four made the Pro Bowl along with safety Paul Krause. They gave up the fewest points in history, even fewer than the Colts, fewer than 10 points per game.  Incredibly, they were the number one defense versus the run, AND the number one defense versus the pass, and it wasn't close.  They also let the NFL with 30 INTs. 

     Quarterback Joe Kapp, who had come to the Vikings from the Canadian Football League, also made the Pro Bowl along with receiver Gene Washington, as the Vikings also led the NFL in points scored.  

    So, what about the AFL?  Well, frankly they were considered to be 14 points worse than the NFL, a scant four points better than the underdog Jets of Super Bowl III.  But there would be no Namath to create a miracle for the Kansas City Chiefs.  The Chiefs were led by two-time NFL reject Len Dawson at quarterback, who had been traded by Pittsburgh and then cut by the Cleveland Browns.  Dawson was another guy who had stats that look silly by today's yardstick, with 9 TDs and 13 INTs.  That get's you benched today, but it got Dawson to the AFL Pro Bowl (actually referred to as the AFL All Star game at that time).   Weirdly, backup Mike Livingston also made the AFL All Star game after subbing admirably for an injured Dawson for about half the season.  Fullback Robert Holmes, who plowed forward for 612 yards, also made the All Star game, even though  halfback Mike Garrett actually led the team with 732 rushing yards and another 432 receiving yards.  They also had Otis Taylor and Frank Pitts at WR. Defenders who made the All Star game included LBs Willie Lanier and Bobby Bell, CB Jim Marsalis, and S Bobby Bell. Yet despite that impressive list, there was not much question in the minds of most observers that the Chiefs did not match up against the Vikings.  Nor for that matter, did any of the other NFL teams.  The Vikings were just too good and could not be challenged by any other team on earth.  Any hope for another Joe Namath miracle evaporated when the Chiefs beat them in the AFL playoffs.  Hence, there could be no stopping the Vikings in Super Bowl IV. 
     There is only one slight problem with the narrative.  The Vikings did not blow away the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Instead, the Chiefs took the Vikings behind the tool shed and beat them up, much worse than the Jets had beaten Baltimore the previous year.  And just like the previous year, the NFL turned the ball over repeatedly against the zone defense.  Was it just bad luck? Well, how do you explain the utter humiliation of the Vikings Front Four?  Remember, all  four made the NFL Pro Bowl, but the Chiefs rang up 151 yards on 42 carries. 42 carries?  That is an insane total.  In 1969, I doubt if there was any team that lost an NFL game with 42 carries.       For those who want to blame Super Bowl III on Earl Morrall or Johnny Unitas, neither of those two star players was in Super Bowl IV.  
   Once again, the AFL won without an aerial bombardment.  QB Len Dawson was ruthlessly efficient, but never challenged and did not have to throw much.  He threw the ball only 17 times all game long, because the Chiefs were so thoroughly dominant there was no great need. 

Hi Mr. Kapp.  Please meet Buck Buchanan and Curly Culp.   

   One of the great things about this game was that Coach Hank Stram was wired for sound, and he is hilariously funny yet also insightful.   Some of the best quotes, 

"Just keep matriculating the ball down the field, boys!"


 "Kassulke (Viking SS Karl Kassulke) was running around there like it was a (foreign) fire drill. They didn't know where Mike (Garrett) was. Didn't know where he was! They look like they're flat as hell."

" Nice going, baby! The mentor! 65 toss power trap! I tell ya that thing was there, yes sir boys!"


In addition to providing entertainment for us fans, Stram's mike conveys the obvious truth that the Vikings could not cope with the Chief's playbook.  Dawson would later write, "It was obvious that their offense had never seen a defense like ours.(Len Dawson, "Super Bowl IV," Super Bowl: The Game of Their Lives, Danny Peary, editor. Macmillan, 1997. ISBN 0-02-860841-0)"  There were a huge number of innovations that the AFL had, that the NFL was only starting to recognize by 1969.  They first of all had the zone defense with the bump and run press coverage.  It wasn't really a secret by that time, but the Vikings were not used to playing against it, whereas all of the Chiefs' games used it.  The AFL had the hot read, in which the receivers would shorten their routes in the event of a blitz. 
      Stram had a very complex "Offense of the Future" which used multiple formations, shifts and unorthodox plays.  Stram loved to call reverses on overagressive defenses, and speedy Frank PItts ran three of them against the Vikings.  It's not so bad if they catch you once with a reverse.  But if you get caught three times, that usually means you are slow learners. Stram was able to read the brute-force Vikings like a textbook, whereas the Vikings were still trying to progress from DC Comics to Marvel.
   The final score was 23-7, and it could have been much worse.  Just like the Jets the previous year, there was little reason to throw the ball, and for the most part Kansas City was willing to grind it out on the ground.  So that's what they did.
     At some point, you have to admit that the AFL was not so weak after all.  One game might be a fluke.  But the Jets gained 142 yards on the ground, and the Chiefs gained 151.  Thus, these games were won in the trenches, not due to some flukey quarterback play.  It would be fair to say that two years in a row, the NFL got  pounded into submission.  Had the situation demanded more throwing, the AFL passing game would have probably made the statistical difference even worse. John Madden used to say, "the best team really does win the Super Bowl," and I believe he was right.  The Chiefs really were that good.  Over two games, the NFL had been favored by 32 points, and they lost by 25.  That's a 57 point swing in two games.  I mean, come on, you have to realize at some point that something was up.  In my opinion this probably represents the worst failure of Las Vegas oddsmakers to handicap football games. One game might be a statistical fluke, but two upsets in a row with a combined 57 point swing?   They were incredibly off.  
   In this observer's mind at least, the Jets and Chiefs were playing with significantly better playbooks, and that has a lot to do with their dominant wins in the Super Bowl.  Their advantage was lost to some extent in the 1970 off-season, as the leagues merged, and NFL Coordinators were at last obliged to figure out what was in the AFL playbooks.  In 1970, the merged leagues saw the old NFL teams generally outplay their AFL counterparts, though the new American Football Conference won the Super Bowl again, with Baltimore now residing in the AFC.  Ironically, this time Johnny Unitas started but got injured, and Earl Morrall came in and rang up 10 unanswered points as the Colts eked out a 16-13 victory over the Cowboys, who like the Vikings were an expansion team beginning to flex their muscles.   Youth was being served, both inside the NFL as well as the AFL.  

     

Um, don't look at this, kids.  Maybe the key to the Super Bowl was to have a nice cigarette at halftime (this photo is actually from SB#1).   



 

Cleveland Browns Acquired Team Guys on Offense

Jeff Janis has only 17 catches in his career but is a special teams ace and valued backup.  

Drew Stanton's numbers are not exciting.  But he is a backup QB that has a habit of winning games.  

     The Browns have gone out of their way to obtain guys who are good leaders in the clubhouse, paying a steep price for "character guys" in each position group on offense, including quarterback Drew Stanton, OL Donald Stephenson, WR Jeff Janis.  These guys are not the necessarily the best available players but do stabilize an offensive unit that was essentially devoid of veteran leadership when Josh McCown was sent packing and Joe Thomas wound up on IR. You can see a plan emerging.  The team will have at least one sane voice in each meeting room during the week. 

Stanton, Stephenson and Janis do not have eye-popping scouting reports from Pro Football Focus, and in fact are each considered below average,  but they are all Coach-on-the-field type guys that will act as a bridge between the coaching staff and the young Browns players. None of these guys figure to be starters, but they are going to establish the right kind of leadership.

     Janis may be particularly important because the Browns' best receivers are not considered quite the bedrock of stabilty, with off-suspended Josh Gordon and protege Antonio Calloway.  Corey Coleman has also generated some minor off season drama with an alleged off-the-field altercation as well being called out for inadequate conditioning in 2016.  Hopefully Janis can help to stabilize these talented but possible troubled players.     

    The Cleveland Browns contemptuously trashed their veteran leadership last year.  Unquestionably the leader of the offense was Josh McCown, a guy who would do anything for the team, and supported the other quarterbacks no matter what.   No less an authority than the Browns' bad boy Johnny Manziel explained it thusly on Twitter: 

   "Draft a QB in the first round and put him into a toxic Quarterback room vs. what it was like my second year with [Josh] McCown,” Manziel said. “COMPLETELY different situation. It’s all about the right fit and mine in Cleveland wasn’t right. That’s just the facts. I also have nobody to blame but myself.”   

     Manziel's tweet was probably a bit ill advised, as even the mildest of controversy is not what his career needs right now, but nevertheless the salient point is that he articulated very well the need for sanity in the quarterbacks' meeting room. Josh McCown created a much better environment for the other quarterbacks as they tried to assimilate the complexities of the Browns' offense.  The quarterback room is like a war room, where plans are made up and plays are created and modified. Most of the burden falls on the Coaching Staff, but the players are part of that process also.  

     Browns GM Sashi Brown, on the other hand seemed determined to eliminate veteran leadership, for reasons that are not clear.  Perhaps he thought he could help to mold a new cadre of loyal Browns by relying on younger minds.  In any case, McCown was sent packing as well as the unquestioned leader of the defense in Joe Haden. Also sent packing were star linebacker DeMario Davis, S Jordan Poyer, CB Tramon Williams and other guys who have been around the league for a while.  

     This year, the Browns again ejected all quarterbacks including DeShone Kizer, Cody Kessler, Kevin Hogan.  But most importantly, future Hall of Fame lineman Joe Thomas is retired.  This presented the Browns with a leadership vacuum among the players if not a talent vacuum and that is probably why the Browns brought in Janis, Stanton and Stephenson.  Having veteran starters like Tyrod Taylor and Carlos Hyde is going to help also.      

       

     Veteran defensive starters Jason McCourty, Jamar Taylor, and Danny Shelton are also gone this year, despite seeming to have played well last year. In their place are E. J. Gaines, Demarious Randall and T. J. Curry. The Browns have addtional veteran presence on defense with former All Pro Jamie Collins, Jamie Meder, Chris Kirksey and perhaps Tank Carder, so on that side of the ball they were better off than the offense. 
     The Browns seem to have pursued a plan of acquiring not just talent but leadership on the offensive side of the ball.   My guess is that even if the box score doesn't mention guys like Stanton, Janis and Stephenson, their presence is going to be felt by the rest of the team. 

Browns WRs in 2017 Struggled. How Bad was It?

Corey Coleman had a shot to keep the Browns' last drive alive last year, but came up short, sending them to their 16th loss of the season. 

      Looking back on the infamous 2017 Cleveland Browns season, one of the most painful subjects is the wide receivers.  I'm actually an optimist about the Browns.  You might not have recognized that last year when I had the audacity to suggest that they were only a four win team, much of it due to weakness at the wide receiver position.  

   "Four wins?  Kennel, have you flipped your lid?  Hey, they signed Kenny Britt!  Plus young prospects like speedy Corey Coleman, Ricardo Louis and Hollywood Higgins!  Victories are assured!"   
   Well, that's not what happened.  They were even worse than I imagined.  Corey Coleman broke the same hand he injured last year, and never showed an ability to catch the ball, though he is fast and elusive with the ball. 
    The table provides a few stats about how bad they were, but in reality does not begin to tell the full story.

Wide Receivers Catch Percentage and PFF Ranking.  

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    In terms of catch percentage (balls caught divided by targets), they were epic underperformers. The Browns did have Hollywood Higgins catching more than half his chances, but all the other wideouts were under 50 percent. Frankly this is incredible. The table shows their rank according to percentile both for Catch percentage as well as their overall ranking by Pro Football Focus.  Not that PFF is always right, and I doubt whether the Browns get the same level of attention as other teams, but at least they made the effort. 

  PFF's ranking is based on 116 WRs in the NFL which is essentially three starters per team, plus 20 extra top extra wide receivers.
   The catch percentage stat is based on a different pool from Pro Football Reference, because they include tight ends and running backs, resulting in a total pool of 212 players.  So I used a percentile basis.  So, for example, PFF ranks Josh Gordon as 83rd percentile meaning that 83% of the group is not as good as him.  Conversely, his catch percentage 2.8 percentile means only 2.8% of the group was worse. 
     Josh did see a lot of double coverage and did not have a very accurate qb throwing passes his way, but I wonder if his ranking by PFF might be a bit generous. How could you be 83rd percentile in overall performance if you're one of the poorest performers at catching the ball?   
     But no matter how you slice it, the rest of the Browns wide receivers struggled to catch the ball, and the guys at PFF were not very impressed.  It would be very hard to conceive that a guy ranked 12th percentile (i.e., Corey Coleman) could be an NFL starter.  Catching fewer than 40% of the balls thrown his way is just an amazing stat and not in a good way.  Corey will either improve or a new starter will be found.  
     You can blame some of the problem on young quarterback DeShone Kizer, but tight ends David Njoku and Seth DeValve plus halfback/slot Duke Johnson had respectable stats with the same quarterback.  Wide receivers just really did have a difficult time in 2017.  
     Kenny Britt actually was sent away last year, but it would not be surprising to see the other Browns receivers pushed for their jobs in 2018.   
     

Hooray for Hollywood!  Rashard Higgins caught a few footballs in 2018 but is considered by PFF to be in the bottom 5% of the NFL.  Ouch. 

The Super Bowl Drought for the Old Guard NFL, 1968-1983

     You might imagine that the old school NFL--teams that were established prior to the merger of the All America Conference and the NFL in 1950--continued to dominate.  In fact, that pattern started to emerge with Super Bowl I and II taken by Green Bay, who basically obliterated everything in their path. The pattern was shattered by the New York Jets and Joe Namath after the 1968 season. But would you believe that it would take FIFTEEN YEARS before the old school would win another Super Bowl?

That's correct.   To clarify, by Old School I am referring to the teams that were with the NFL prior to the merger with the All America Conference in 1950,  and stayed in the NFC after the merger with the AFL in 1970. Specifically, these teams were New York Giants, Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, St. Louis (formerly Chicago) Cardinals, and Los Angeles (formerly Cleveland) Rams. 

I got interested in this question based on some commentary in the Remember the AFL group on Facebook.

The old Cleveland Browns (now Ravens) and San Francisco 49ers were originally in the AAC and joined the NFL in 1950. But the Browns as well as the Steelers and Baltimore Colts (who actually replaced the defunct Dallas Texans in 1953) joined the AFL in 1970.  So for the purposes of accounting, I have grouped the former AAC teams with the Steelers and Colts.  They are all transplanted teams, and thus differentiated from the Old Guard.  

The NFL expanded a few times as well.  It seems like the Dallas Cowboys have always been in the NFL, but in reality they were an expansion team, along with the Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints, set up to counter the AFL.  They were later followed by Tampa, Seattle, Houston and the new Browns. Generally the expansion teams not from Dallas have had a hard time winning Super Bowls.  

So, let's recount the 15 year drought between wins by the Old School.  

AFL teams namely the Jets, Chiefs and (transplanted) Colts won Super Bowls III through V.   The next teams that won were the expansion Cowboys (twice), and the AFL Dolphins (also twice). The Steelers won four times in the 1970s, and the Raiders won twice. They were followed by the 49ers winning the first of their four championships, before Washington finally managed to win Super Bowl XVII.

A case could be made that the Old School had become stodgy and complacent.  The new, hungrier teams from the AFL as well as the new expansion teams (especially the highly innovative Dallas Cowboys) created a superior brand of football.  

The NFC had a comeback of sorts, winning 13 straight between 1985 and 1997.  But even  that was not so much the Old Guard reasserting itself, but the continuing success of the Cowboys (Expansion) and 49ers (Transplants), both of whom were among the dominant teams.  In all, the Old School won the Super Bowl only 11 times after its dominant 2-0 start. That's fewer than either the transplant teams or the AFL teams. 

Dallas skews the results among Expansion Teams with 5 wins, while Tampa Bay, Seattle and the Saints are the other Expansion Teams to have turned in a win.

Old School                            13 wins

Transplanted AFL +AAC       16 wins

NFL Expansion Teams           8  wins

AFL Teams                           15 wins.

Once the script changed in Super Bowl 3, the football world was changed forever, and the Old Guard never fully recovered.  

Super Bowl III was not a Fluke. Why the AFL beat a Superior Team

     Super Bowl III, considered by many sports historians was not a fluke in my opinion. The New York Jets were 18 point underdogs, and yet they spanked the Colts 16-7, and it wasn't that close.  New York led 16-0 and gave up a fourth quarter touchdown after Baltimore pulled quarterback Earl Morrall in favor of Johnny Unitas, who had been injured all year. 
      This was a case of a superior game plan defeating a team with superior athletes.  The Colts never saw it coming, just as Goliath never thought about the need to defend against a 120 mile an hour stone until a split second before his death. 
      I've been interested in this literally for decades, but I really learned a lot from corresponding with sports historian and author Bob Lederer, who collected great information for his new book, Beyond Broadway Joe--The Super Bowl Team That Changed Football.
     In Super Bowl III, the poor Colts defenders wondered why it was that quarterback Joe Namath always seemed to have the right play called to defeat their hitherto invincible Blitz. How could Joe know that the blitz was coming?  Well, the answer is that Joe didn't know. Bob was able to confirm for me that the Jets knew how to change the play after the snap via the "hot read," and the Baltimore Colts did not.  The Jets actually changed the play when the Blitz came, AFTER the snap. The "hot receiver" would shorten his route so that Namath could dump it off quickly.  The Colts had no such play, meaning that they had to guess whether the Blitz was coming BEFORE the snap, and they were basically stuck running the play that was called. If it was the wrong play, they just had to live with the results. So no wonder Namath always had the answer for the Baltimore Blitz.  He could adapt in the middle of the play, whereas Baltimore could not.  They just couldn't figure it out.  

      Bob Lederer confirmed that for me, after I had wondered about that for years. Try as I might, I couldn't find a reference on the internet explaining the origin of the "hot read."  I once met Browns star running back Greg Pruitt at a Browns Backers affair at Tuty's in Beavercreek Ohio, and asked him that question.  Greg came along a few years later (1973) and wasn't completely sure when the hot read came along, but did say that the Browns implemented a form of that for him.  His job changed depending on who he was supposed to block.  If it was a linebacker, it was his job to pass block.  But if it was a defensive lineman, then he was to head out in the flat for a short pass. 
     Bob also reminded me that in 1968, many quarterbacks did not even have the option of creating an audible.  The strategy varied from team to team, but play calls were sent in from the sideline when a substitute player would enter the game on every play; i.e., a "messenger guard" or "messenger tight end."  They knew how to use the audible, but not all quarterbacks had permission under most circumstances. 
    On the other hand, Namath was allowed to call an audible at the line of scrimmage based on what he was seeing from the defense.   If Joe wanted to change the play call, he could, and then if the blitz came, there was yet another change in the middle of the play.   That was one of the strategic advantages that the Jets had. 
    Another huge advantage was the way that the quarterback dropped back to pass.  Earl Morrall backpedaled with short steps, facing forward to see the entire field all the time.  It was like dink dink dink dink dink dink dink clunk clunk bloop.    Namath, on the other hand, turned sideways and glided back about 12 yards in his seven step drop and threw a noticeably faster ball.  It was like swoosh swoosh swoosh kapow.  Hence he had much more time to throw.  
     Namath's Jets won with  ball control, dink and dunk offense that avoided turnovers and sacks.  The Jets also had a sophisticated defense, using zone coverage and the "bump and run."  These tactics were evolved in the AFL.  The Colts were one of the first teams in the NFL to use the zone defense, but that was old hat for the Jets.    
       Defensive lineman Gerry Philbin made me laugh in some interviews many years later. Do you know the old adage that defensive linemen hate ALL quarterbacks, including the quarterback of their OWN team?   Well, it's probably true.  Gerry seemed to be really frustrated by Joe's tendency to be erratic at times. His viewpoint seemed to be that the defense was going to win the game as long as Namath didn't screw it up.  Maybe he was right.  
     In that same vein, Curt Gowdy mentions during the Super Bowl III telecast that the Colts used to refer to star halfback Tom Matte (a converted quarterback) as the "Garbage Can."  Gowdy explains that that Matte always gains a lot of yards "without really looking like it."  But that's not it at all. That nickname was applied by defensive lineman Alex Karras, who scornfully implied that Matte padded his stats by getting supposedly easy yards in non-key situations, rather than the "tough yards."  Matte, it must be understood, was handsome like a quarterback, dressed well and spoke well.  That was enough to earn him the same type of flak normally reserved for the quarterback. Matte's teammates thought it was funny, and the nickname stuck.   
     But no matter.  Although Joe Namath was unquestionably the most sensational star of the AFL that's not the only story.  There's also the AFL tactics that gave them a major advantage.  Then, just to prove it was no fluke, the Kansas City Chiefs beat up the Minnesota Vikings, the Purple People Eater team that was even better than Baltimore, so they said.    

Bob Lederer's book is not out yet, but I have already ordered mine from Amazon.com.