telluride
09-20-2008, 10:58 AM
A little reading for you while we wait for tomorrow's game. This is author Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down) writing about the 1958 Championship Game, and breaking down film with Andy Reid. It's an amazing piece, full of insights about the old game and the current game. I'll post a few passages, but go read the whole thing yourself (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810/nfl-eagles/).
[The game ] also lacked many of the refined mechanical and tactical innovations that are commonplace in modern football. For instance, Reid was surprised to note that wide receivers assumed a three-point stance before the snap of the ball—today they stand upright, which allows them a broader view of the defensive backfield. The pass defenders, meanwhile, stood upright on the old film, with one foot forward, one back, and then just backpedaled to stay with the receivers. In the modern NFL, backfield defenders poise in a forward crouch with their weight evenly balanced on both legs, and retreat by taking short stutter-steps backward, ready to bolt in either direction and avoiding the crossover step, a potentially costly mistake that can offer a receiver the split-second advantage he needs to break away.
Basic positioning along the line of scrimmage has changed as well. A few plays in, Reid noted that the Giants defensive tackles, Dick Modzelewski and Rosey Grier, were “flexed back off the ball”—that is, set up more than a yard away from the Colts linemen. “That’s probably for the run game,” Reid said, explaining that by hanging back from the line of scrimmage, the defenders could get a better look at the direction of the play before attacking.
I asked, “Why wouldn’t you do that today?”
“Well, you give those big guys a head start on you,” Reid said. “At that time I would imagine that the linemen were fairly equal athletically, and now the offensive linemen are so big and the defensive linemen are relatively smaller.” If you’re a defender today, he went on, and you spot a 300-plus-pound blocker a two-step running start, he’ll knock you “right on your ass.”
For instance, he was struck, early in the game, by how close behind the line of scrimmage the Giants safeties, Emlen Tunnell and Jimmy Patton, were setting up. Safeties ordinarily play five to 10 yards back. Tunnell and Patton were just three or four yards back. “First time I saw those safeties that tight,” said Reid, “I’d take the tight end up the seam,” referring to the hash marks that line the field to the right and left of the center.
As if hearing Reid’s advice, that’s what Unitas did two plays later. First, he felt out the defense: facing second down and long, the quarterback handed the ball to Dupre, who plunged into the left side of the Giants’ defense, where he was hit by Tunnell.
“‘Okay,’ the Colts are saying, ‘this guy, number 45 [Tunnell], is getting tight, and he was very aggressive on the last play, so we’ll sell a hard fake,’” Reid speculated. The Colts would set up as if they were going with another running play, he predicted, with the tight end, Jim Mutscheller, “coming up and out like he is going to crack” Tunnell with a block, but instead going past him up the field. “Then they should try and get [a pass] over the top to Mutscheller.”
On third down, Mutscheller moved just as Reid had suggested, faking a block on Tunnell and racing up the hash marks. Unitas faked the handoff and dropped back, looking downfield toward his tight end.
“But this guy [Tunnell] sniffs it out!” Reid said, impressed, watching as the safety turned and matched the tight end stride for stride. Unitas, harried suddenly by the Giants’ blitzing right cornerback, instead hurried a throw to Moore—“his safety valve,” said Reid—that was almost intercepted.
Because the ploy failed, most spectators, myself included, would not have recognized Baltimore’s intent, or understood why it failed. Reid saw the reason. He froze the play and noted the fullback, Ameche, missing his block on the Giants cornerback, forcing the quarterback to hurry his throw. Players are forever screwing up the coach’s perfect plans.
And my favorite part:
Time after time, watching the vaunted Giants defense in action, Reid remarked how much he wished he could play against it. Landry’s squad lined up in the same formation, with the same personnel, on almost every down.
“Very seldom do you see the same formation in a game anymore,” he said. “That’s just the way it is today. But this was just a part-time job for these guys. They didn’t have the time to be in the building [for classroom study] all day.”
Again, Reid was right. Most pro players in the 1950s held down full-time jobs off the field. Huff was a salesman for the textile company J. P. Stevens. Unitas and many of his teammates worked at Bethlehem Steel. Art Donovan, the Colts’ hilarious defensive tackle known as Fatso, was a liquor salesman. Most of the men earned less than $10,000 a year playing football. The highest-paid stars made between $15,000 and $20,000—enough to support a middle-class lifestyle in 1958, but nothing like today’s hefty paychecks. Players who took off from their full-time jobs to play were often expected to make up the time by working long hours in the off-season. This made them better prepared for life after football than many of their modern counterparts are, but it also meant that they were less prepared for Sunday’s action.
[The game ] also lacked many of the refined mechanical and tactical innovations that are commonplace in modern football. For instance, Reid was surprised to note that wide receivers assumed a three-point stance before the snap of the ball—today they stand upright, which allows them a broader view of the defensive backfield. The pass defenders, meanwhile, stood upright on the old film, with one foot forward, one back, and then just backpedaled to stay with the receivers. In the modern NFL, backfield defenders poise in a forward crouch with their weight evenly balanced on both legs, and retreat by taking short stutter-steps backward, ready to bolt in either direction and avoiding the crossover step, a potentially costly mistake that can offer a receiver the split-second advantage he needs to break away.
Basic positioning along the line of scrimmage has changed as well. A few plays in, Reid noted that the Giants defensive tackles, Dick Modzelewski and Rosey Grier, were “flexed back off the ball”—that is, set up more than a yard away from the Colts linemen. “That’s probably for the run game,” Reid said, explaining that by hanging back from the line of scrimmage, the defenders could get a better look at the direction of the play before attacking.
I asked, “Why wouldn’t you do that today?”
“Well, you give those big guys a head start on you,” Reid said. “At that time I would imagine that the linemen were fairly equal athletically, and now the offensive linemen are so big and the defensive linemen are relatively smaller.” If you’re a defender today, he went on, and you spot a 300-plus-pound blocker a two-step running start, he’ll knock you “right on your ass.”
For instance, he was struck, early in the game, by how close behind the line of scrimmage the Giants safeties, Emlen Tunnell and Jimmy Patton, were setting up. Safeties ordinarily play five to 10 yards back. Tunnell and Patton were just three or four yards back. “First time I saw those safeties that tight,” said Reid, “I’d take the tight end up the seam,” referring to the hash marks that line the field to the right and left of the center.
As if hearing Reid’s advice, that’s what Unitas did two plays later. First, he felt out the defense: facing second down and long, the quarterback handed the ball to Dupre, who plunged into the left side of the Giants’ defense, where he was hit by Tunnell.
“‘Okay,’ the Colts are saying, ‘this guy, number 45 [Tunnell], is getting tight, and he was very aggressive on the last play, so we’ll sell a hard fake,’” Reid speculated. The Colts would set up as if they were going with another running play, he predicted, with the tight end, Jim Mutscheller, “coming up and out like he is going to crack” Tunnell with a block, but instead going past him up the field. “Then they should try and get [a pass] over the top to Mutscheller.”
On third down, Mutscheller moved just as Reid had suggested, faking a block on Tunnell and racing up the hash marks. Unitas faked the handoff and dropped back, looking downfield toward his tight end.
“But this guy [Tunnell] sniffs it out!” Reid said, impressed, watching as the safety turned and matched the tight end stride for stride. Unitas, harried suddenly by the Giants’ blitzing right cornerback, instead hurried a throw to Moore—“his safety valve,” said Reid—that was almost intercepted.
Because the ploy failed, most spectators, myself included, would not have recognized Baltimore’s intent, or understood why it failed. Reid saw the reason. He froze the play and noted the fullback, Ameche, missing his block on the Giants cornerback, forcing the quarterback to hurry his throw. Players are forever screwing up the coach’s perfect plans.
And my favorite part:
Time after time, watching the vaunted Giants defense in action, Reid remarked how much he wished he could play against it. Landry’s squad lined up in the same formation, with the same personnel, on almost every down.
“Very seldom do you see the same formation in a game anymore,” he said. “That’s just the way it is today. But this was just a part-time job for these guys. They didn’t have the time to be in the building [for classroom study] all day.”
Again, Reid was right. Most pro players in the 1950s held down full-time jobs off the field. Huff was a salesman for the textile company J. P. Stevens. Unitas and many of his teammates worked at Bethlehem Steel. Art Donovan, the Colts’ hilarious defensive tackle known as Fatso, was a liquor salesman. Most of the men earned less than $10,000 a year playing football. The highest-paid stars made between $15,000 and $20,000—enough to support a middle-class lifestyle in 1958, but nothing like today’s hefty paychecks. Players who took off from their full-time jobs to play were often expected to make up the time by working long hours in the off-season. This made them better prepared for life after football than many of their modern counterparts are, but it also meant that they were less prepared for Sunday’s action.