9. Quarterback Troubles

THE DEFENSIVE BACKS

Throughout my long passing career, there has been at least one group of opponents for whom I have held the utmost respect. They are the de­fensive halfbacks, the quarterback's arch-enemies. Without good defen­sive halfbacks, no team can succeed. In fact, if a team is deficient in the secondary, the chances are it will languish in the cellar, no matter how brilliant the rest of its array.

The ideal defensive halfback, to my way of thinking, was Jack Christian­sen, who starred for many years with the Detroit Lions and who is now an assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers.

Jack, a terrific offensive back at the University of Colorado, was con­verted into a defensive back by Buddy Parker, then the Lions' coach. Jack was tailor-made for defense, 6 feet 2 inches tall, 195 pounds, and a 9.8 sprinter. He was tremendous when free to play the ball, a sort of football centerfielder of the Willie Mays type.

I certainly never will forget Christiansen's debut with the Lions in 1951. Besides playing defensive halfback, he teamed with Doak Walker on punt returns. Walker at the time was leading the league in punt re­turns. Just before a punt situation, Coach Joe Stydahar summoned me to the sidelines and whispered:

"Be sure you don't kick to Walker.   Kick to that big, skinny kid."

I kicked to Christiansen, the big, skinny kid. He took the ball over his ear and ran 70 yards for a touchdown.

Later in the game another punting situation came up. Stydahar, who apparently thought Christiansen's first run was something of an accident, called me over and said:

"Remember what I told you. Don't kick to Walker. Kick to that big, skinny kid."

I kicked to Christiansen, the big skinny kid. This time he took the ball in front of him and ran 50 yards for a touchdown. They were the only scores that the Lions made.

Other quarterbacks have asked me, "Well, what do you do against a genius type like Christiansen?"   I tell them that they have to keep his kind occupied all the time. By that, I mean keeping a receiver in front of him so that he has to play the receiver and not the ball. And above all, never hang the ball up there. Whenever Christiansen was in the area, it was a wide-open invitation to an interception.

Another splendid defensive halfback, even when he was 35 years old, was Emlen Tunnell, who played 12 years with the Giants then started a "new" career with the Green Bay Packers.

Tunnell played real "loose." By that I mean, you could throw 18-to 20-yard hooks all day against him, but when you tried the long and de­cisive ball, he was there to take it away from the intended receiver. A long ball near Tunnell was actually "suicide"—for the passer, I mean.

He was a gambler, too, a real smart gambler. For instance, I've seen him gamble when the other team needed ten yards for a first down. Tun­nell would cut across and grab the ball from under the receiver's nose.

Any coach will tell you that the hardest type of player to find is a good corner defensive halfback. The corner man has to be tough to meet run­ning plays that are going at full power, and he has to "take" the guard or tackle, who are big, strong men, on wide sweeps, and turn the sweep in.

At the same time, the corner back has to have great speed to cover fast ends and backs like Harlon Hill, Ray Renfro, Del Shofner, and Tommy McDonald.

Two of the best corner men I've seen are Tom Brookshier, of the Eagles, and the Lions' Jim David. Brookshier is an utterly fearless tackier and a good pass coverer. David is great on sideline passes and hooks, but he could be beaten inside because of his over-aggressiveness. Christiansen helped David a lot on inside passes.

A corner man needs intelligence because he has to "read" the op­ponents' plays quickly and must have tremendous reactions to go with the intelligence. He also has to have a thick skin. If he makes a mistake on pass defense, half the country knows it. But, if a big lineman moves the wrong way, and leaves a hole that leads to a score, the only one who knows it is the coach. And he probably doesn't know it until he looks at the movies of the game three days later.

What are the faults of the average defensive halfback? Off-hand, I would say over-aggressiveness, gambling to get his name in the headlines by picking off a pass. This is the kind of fellow a quarterback sets up for the long, "cheap" scoring throw.

In addition to Christiansen, Brookshier, and David, other talented de­fensive halfbacks I have tried to fool are Don Paul, Otto Schnellbacher, Jim Patton, Jack Butler, and Dick "Night Train" Lane.

At this point, let me get in my own "cheap shot." The Chicago Bears don't play pass defense. Instead, they tackle, trip, and pull your uniform off.   They've been getting away with it for years.

INTERCEPTIONS

The bane of a passer's existence is, of course, the interception. It's like the double play in baseball. It can cut your throat and crush the most promising rally.   It can also have a psychological effect on both teams.

I remember a game the Eagles played against the Giants in Yankee Stadium in November of 1959. We had walloped these same Giants in the first game earlier in the season. We figured that if we could do it once, we could do it again.

We had gotten one touchdown in the second game and were on our way to another when I threw a swing pass to our fullback, Clarence Peaks. Suddenly, out of nowhere came Harland Svare, the Giants' corner linebacker. He picked off my pass with a leaping grab and ran unmolested for about 65 yards. The Eagles went dead after that, the Giants found new life, and we lost by a couple of touchdowns. If only that swing pass had connected, I think we would have won the second game as easily as we did the first.

Interceptions are bound to plague even the best of quarterbacks, al­though I notice that one thing that has helped Unitas constantly is the fact he manages to keep his interceptions to a minimum.

What causes interceptions? Well, the most common cause is releasing the ball before you have to; that is, being panicked by the rush, or actually having to throw too soon because of the effectiveness of the rush.

Second, interceptions occur when a good defensive back is playing against an end or a halfback who runs his patterns poorly.

Third, the quarterback has himself to blame for larceny by the de­fender when he hangs the ball in the air instead of zipping it. It is a common fault of most passers and I've been guilty of hanging the ball myself on several occasions. Even when a passer throws a long ball, he should try not to hang it, but, instead, zip it at a higher trajectory.

Early in my career I analyzed myself, and said, "Dutch, old boy, you can't run any faster than a lame camel, so you had better tuck your arm and hide inside that protective pocket and stick with that resolution." When you stay in that pocket, your protectors know where you are. Lots of young passers forget this cardinal rule of passing.

While I am on the subject of interceptions and the running of poor pass patterns, I think I should mention one of the crying needs in professional football. What the league needs, and that goes for colleges, too, is a supply of good end coaches. Right now, I could count the number of good end coaches in the professional ranks on the fingers of my right hand.

Why are there not many good end coaches? The major reason, I think, is that there aren't many good ends. And good ends, unfortunately, do not always make good teachers.   I have known any number of college ends who came into this league only to be dropped because there was no coach on the premises to teach them how to run pass patterns.

College ends are getting harder to find and harder to teach. The reason, naturally, is the prevalence of the Split T and other formations that neglect an all-around passing attack. A lot of lads are taught how to run only one or two pass patterns. When they come to the big league, they are as green as grass and there is nobody around to mow the lawn. Let's find some good end coaches!

THE RUNNING QUARTERBACK

Ha! I'm just the boy to touch on this topic. As I have said time and again when questioned about my deficiency, "I never run, except from sheer fright."

Well, it's a topic I cannot ignore because the running versus the sta­tionary quarterback has been a real hot subject of debate within recent years. Some unkind people have told me that it was a factor in my being traded from the Rams to the Eagles. This, they said, was the era of the running quarterback, and the only way a coach could get me to move with the ball was to put me on one of those electric caddy carts that octo­genarian golfers use.

When I came into the National Football League there were hardly any running quarterbacks. This was based on the coach's theory that a quarterback was far more valuable throwing the ball than lugging it. And when a quarterback ran with the ball, there was always a chance that some rogue would twist his arm off in a pile-up and then there would be no arm to throw the ball.

Anyway, there are some running quarterbacks around. I would put Georgie Shaw of the Giants at the top of the list, and Van Brocklin of the Eagles at the bottom. But, this is a fact (and I knock wood on it): Shaw has been injured a lot more than Van Brocklin has. I am not drawing any moral from the fact.   I am just mentioning it.

Actually, quarterbacks don't run as much as some people think they do. The people just notice it more when the passer takes off instead of passing.

Bobby Layne, for instance, runs almost exclusively within the 20-yard line, and the Pittsburgh passer's runs are mostly predetermined. His favorite is the quarterback draw.

Inasmuch as I am a nonrunner—a spectator, you might say—-I think I am eminently qualified to advise young quarterbacks who must run, on how they should run. Go straight, young man, go straight. Too many quarterbacks take to the outside, probably on the assumption (their own) that they can turn an end as speedily as the Browns' Bobby Mitchell. Maybe Georgie Shaw can, but the rest of them surely can't.

Watch Unitas when he runs. Does Johnny swing wide to the outside? No. He usually makes for the shortest distance between two points-straight ahead.

How about Otto Graham, you ask? He was no gazelle, yet he managed to save quite a few games for the Browns with his running. The truth is that Otto rarely ever ran of his own volition. Coach Paul Brown picked the shots for Otto, and mostly when the defense was so backed up, or loose, that even Van Brocklin could have made 20 yards on a scamper.

All right, I'm still being nagged about running. Let me just say, in self-defense or no, that being able to run with the ball can get any quarter­back out of a heap of trouble. It was in the Rams-Browns championship game of 1955—or maybe this should be under the heading of "Intercep­tions." I called an audible signal for a four-yard hitch pass to the flanking spread end. The Browns immediately revolved to a zone defense. I threw the ball; Don Paul picked it off and ran 60 yards to the goal line with me chasing him. Halfway there he looked over his shoulder and laughed at me. That's what I mean when I say that running can get a quarterback out of a heap of trouble. Like running into the dressing room after an interception like that!

But, seriously, I firmly believe that a quarterback in the T formation should only run out of sheer necessity after he has exhausted all other re­sources. It was evident during the seasons of 1959 and 1960 that Unitas. a splendid runner, was taking off much more infrequently than when he had Georgie Shaw backing him up, or when he was backing up Shaw. The reason was obvious. Unitas' only replacement was Ray Brown, a de­fensive halfback and a former split-T quarterback at the University of Mississippi.

Brown was given a test of fire by Colts' Coach Weeb Ewbank during the pre-season schedule, and although he did a fair job passing and direct­ing the champions, he was not half as effective as Unitas in moving the team. There was no other way out: Unitas had to be preserved from harm at all costs. Fortunately, he had a big, strong line in front of him with the ability to do the preserving.

That observation reminds me of the instructions I received from my college coach, Jim Aiken, when he indoctrinated me in the T after long service in the single wing. "Don't get out of that pocket," Aiken warned. "The guys in front of you are hired to keep people out of there, and if they don't, we'll get others who can. And those guys behind you, they're hired to run.   Your job is to throw."

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