The '63 Steelers (26 page)

Taylor finished with 141 yards rushing on thirty carries, and Moore added 88 yards. Except for Ballman's kickoff dash, there was nothing positive for Pittsburgh to take from the loss. Hoak had 77 hard-earned yards on nineteen carries. John Henry Johnson gained only 17 yards on seven attempts and carried the ball only once in the second half. Sapp rushed six times for 29 yards. The Steelers gave up the ball five times: twice on interceptions, three times on fumbles.

“It was as convincing a thrashing as any one pro team could apply to another and left the Steelers all but dead for the 31st year in their quest for an Eastern Conference title,”
Post-Gazette
columnist Al Abrams wrote. The “Steelers still have a chance, but one would have to be some kind of nut to bet Confederate money or a 1904 calendar on their chances of reaching the top now.”
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Despite the win, Lombardi called his team “a little flat” but “fairly bubbled” about Taylor's performance and praised Roach's work.
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Hoak wasn't too impressed with the defending champs. “I didn't think they were that tough,” he said. “All we had to do was hold the ball and we would have beat 'em. We had too many fumbles and interceptions. All you've got to do is hold the ball.”
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But the Steelers couldn't do that, nor could they take advantage of Starr's incapacitation. They were manhandled by Lombardi football.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Brown, the man the Steelers had to face next, rushed for 223 yards, including a 62-yard touchdown on the fourth play of the game, to lead Cleveland to a 23–17 win over the Eagles, keeping the Browns in first place at 7–1. One could only imagine how eager he would be to get his hands on the ball in Pittsburgh once he saw films of the holes opened up for Taylor.

The Giants dropped the Cards, 38–21, leaving New York alone in second place at 6–2 and St. Louis in third at 5–3. The Steelers trailed in fourth
place at 4–3–1, their obituary written by Abrams, and seconded by Green Bay sportswriter Lee Remmel, who couldn't track down Buddy Parker afterward. The coach had reportedly left the dressing room immediately for the team bus outside the stadium, “presumably to brood over the defeat which all but obliterated Pittsburgh's Eastern Division title hopes,” Remmel speculated.
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Reporter Pat Livingston of the
Press
did catch up with Parker, who “gloomily” assessed the damage: “We were moving better against them than anybody moved on them all season. But we blew everything with those fumbles and interceptions.”
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Hoak, the last player to leave the Steeler locker room, was asked whether Parker said anything before he left. “He hasn't said anything yet,” Hoak replied, “but I expect him to say something.”
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The day after a fullback supposedly past his prime ran for 141 yards against the Steelers, Buddy Parker and his staff began preparing to face a player who was being hailed as the greatest runner in NFL history. After only eight games, Cleveland's Jimmy Brown was “on his way to establishing a mark which in NFL circles may be regarded with as much awe in future years as Babe Ruth's career home run record.”
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With 223 yards against Philly, Brown had upped his league-leading rushing total to 1,194 yards, on 163 carries—an average of 7.3 yards per carry—and had scored nine of his twelve touchdowns on the ground. Brown was a sure bet to top his career season rushing total of 1,527 yards, set in his second year in the league, 1958 (in a twelve-game schedule), and he had a good shot at reaching the unheard-of total of 2,000 yards. Brown—“230 pounds of rippling muscle”—was averaging 149 yards a game, and he could hit 2,000 by averaging 135 in the last six games.
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“If the homelings have finally fallen apart, up front,” the
Pittsburgh Courier
said of Buddy Parker's team, “then the worst thing that could happen to them would be Jim Brown running like a madman.”
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Brown's yardage total was nearly twice that of the No. 2 rusher, Jim Taylor, who had 639 yards on only seven fewer carries than Brown. Dick Hoak was third with 498 yards on 158 carries, a workload that Parker feared was wearing down his smaller, lighter halfback. John Henry Johnson, who had finished second in the league to Taylor the year before with a career-best 1,141 yards, had gained only 226 on fifty-nine attempts because of the playing time he had missed. Like a heavyweight boxing champion who
went unchallenged, Jimmy Brown ruled the NFL as its premier ball carrier.
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“In an era of passers, line-smashing Jimmy is the idol of the hour,” wrote Steve Snider of UPI.
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And if Taylor could blister the Steeler defense the way he did, who or what was about to stop Jimmy Brown? “Let's face it,” said Giant linebacker Sam Huff, a nemesis of both Brown and Taylor, “there's no linebacker in the league who can stop Jimmy Brown man to man.”
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In their futile efforts to stop Taylor on Sunday, “The Steelers could have used five Huffs,” the
Press
's Pat Livingston wrote.
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How many would it take to stop Brown?

Huff, as a linebacker at West Virginia, had played against Brown in college before their grudge matches in the NFL. “I hit him so hard I knocked myself out—or he knocked me out. Broke my nose, shattered my teeth,” Huff said. “I woke up in the locker room on the trainer's table.”
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Over the years, practically every position saw the evolution of better players—faster, stronger, bigger, quicker—but for one exception. Defensive back Dick Haley began his role of evaluating talent, joining Art Rooney Jr. in the personnel department, while Brown was still playing, and Haley's observations spanned five decades. “I've been watching football players now for quite a few years,” he said, forty-five years after Brown's stellar season. “They never made one like Jim Brown. Never. I have seen every back that's come out since 1965. We haven't had anybody like that—that big and that fast and that quick and strong. I've seen no one that had all those tools.”
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The Steelers had no counterattack on offense. Parker thought that his team's best bet against the Packers was to control the ball, but if Johnson could pick up only 17 yards against Green Bay, and Theron Sapp could manage only 29, who was going to give Hoak a break and rescue the Steelers' running game?

Beneath his pencil mustache, John Henry Johnson had a gentle smile and the serene look of a man at peace with the world. He didn't smoke and drank sparingly at a time when football players indulged in both. He was nicknamed “Mumbles” for his manner of speaking, and he was capable of the occasional malapropism, such as when a friend was dating a teenager and Johnson commented, “Man, they gonna put you in jail for stationary rape.” Johnson also had a sly sense of humor. Ten days after Lou Michaels kicked a 50-yard field goal but twice failed on the point-after in the opener, Johnson told his teammate, “Next game kick the conversions from the 45-yard line. You can make them from there.”
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Brown was the runner defenses feared, but there was something downright scary about John Henry Johnson, with or without a football, anywhere
on the field. His career began in an era when rules were minimal and unsophisticated. Players went after knockouts the way boxers did, and punishment was as natural to the game as changes in the weather. Brown stoically absorbed cheap shots and dirty play and resisted responding with either words or fists. “That way,” he said, “my opponent never knows if he is getting under my skin.” Taylor went charging right at defenders. “He'd swear at you on the field,” Huff said. “He'd kick you, gouge you, spit at you, whatever it took. It was a street fight.”
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Anytime there was a showdown, Johnson was prepared for all-out war, whether he was outnumbered or going one on one. “He went three ways: offense, defense and to the death,” Bobby Layne said.
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“John Henry was the meanest man I ever saw,” said former Browns defensive end Paul Wiggin.
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“The rougher they get with John Henry, the rougher he gets with them,” one Steeler said. And Johnson wasn't the kind of guy to back down from any confrontation. He was a fearless gladiator any teammate wanted by his side. “If I had to go into a dark alley and I had my pick of one man to go with me,” a Steeler lineman said, “I'd want that man to be John Henry Johnson.”
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Johnson played with a ferocity that stood out even in an era when violence was taken in stride. During a 1955 exhibition against the Chicago Cardinals while he was with the 49ers, Johnson struck Charley Trippi, a member of the Cardinals' “Dream Backfield,” in the face, inflicting career-ending injuries. Walter Wolfner, managing director of the Cardinals, vowed later that his team would never again play an exhibition game against the Niners in San Francisco, partly because of the incident. In mid-October, Trippi was still undergoing treatment for a skull fracture and smashed nose.
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“It was dirty playing because Trippi was standing 30 yards from the play and Johnson punched at him with his fists and forearms while Trippi was completely away from the action,” Wolfner said. Niners coach Norman “Red” Strader reiterated his belief that Johnson executed a “fine, clean block” on Trippi.
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During an October 1961 game at the Los Angeles Coliseum, as a Steeler, Johnson's fury erupted again, and he lashed out at Ram linebacker and captain Les Richter because of what Buddy Parker called “dirty play.”
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Writer Myron Cope recalled that Johnson hit Richter in the face. “Pop, my jaw was broken,” Richter said. After Ram defensive back Ed Meador intercepted a pass, Johnson ran him out of bounds, where four of the Rams accosted the Steeler fullback. Outnumbered, Johnson grabbed the sideline marker and “began bashing it against the helmets of the Rams.”
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“If you remember,” Parker said, “the marker used to be made of wood. Wouldn't you know it? This year they changed to plastic markers. John Henry was whacking Richter with it, and all Les did was stand there and laugh. We couldn't even win when we played dirty.”
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It was a league with no mercy. Crack-back blocks and picks were common, and players like Dick “Night Train” Lane had a reputation for clothes-lining opponents and making “necktie” tackles. The Steelers played hard, but they had no monopoly on rough play.

Bears defensive end Ed Meadows was involved in a nasty incident on the final regular-season Sunday of 1956, when Parker took his 9–2 Lions to Chicago to face the 8–2–1 Bears in a showdown for the Western Conference title. Tempers erupted from the opening kickoff, with abundant “punching, kneeing, kicking and elbowing.” A berth to the championship game was at stake, but “too often the players appeared intent on maiming one another.” Meadows drilled Bobby Layne, then the Lion quarterback, in the second quarter, knocking him out of the game with a concussion. Meadows insisted it wasn't a dirty play, but Parker said the Bears end “used everything but a blackjack to get Layne.” With Layne out, Chicago won, 38–21, and only the intervention of officials, police, and ushers prevented “a king-sized riot” at game's end.
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Lions owner Edwin J. Anderson urged the NFL to ban Meadows for life and to fine the Bears and their coaches. Parker threatened to quit, citing “a disastrous trend that is making pro football a slugging match.”
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The game wasn't all about winning; it was about surviving, at all costs. As boxers were warned before a fight by the referee, players needed to protect themselves at all times and never turn their backs on an opponent.

Teams seemed to follow the North Side philosophy Red Mack grew up with: “If you won, you fought; if you lost, you fought.”
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In a November 21, 1954, game in which Layne threw two TD passes and ran for a third in Detroit's 21–17 victory in Green Bay, “a midfield melee” erupted at the end, with the Lions' Lee Creekmur and the Packers' Stretch Elliott slugging it out, and “a good share” of the 20,767 fans pouring onto the field.
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If it seemed that Layne was constantly at the epicenter of brawls, it was merely coincidental, although he came to the pros with exposure to the volatile environment of the game. His “sharpshooting passes” led Texas to a 34–14 victory over Oklahoma in October 1947, but there was as much action among the 45,000 fans as there was on the field. “The game was punctuated by fights among the fans and pop-bottle throwing as spectators
vented their anger,” and several thousand rushed onto the field at the end, which ended with the officials needing to be escorted away in a police car.
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It wasn't Layne but quarterbacks—stars, in particular—who were constant targets. If you knock the quarterback out of the game, conventional wisdom said, the better the chance of your team winning. In the same year that Creekmur and Stretch Elliott were punching away, Browns quarterback Otto Graham authored a piece for
Sports Illustrated
titled “Football Is Getting Too Vicious.” The article was illustrated with drawings of dirty tactics that were commonplace in football but looked more appropriate for a viewer's guide to watching villains in pro rasslin' matches. Graham predicted dire consequences for the future of pro football if the mayhem was not curtailed.
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Evidently, Ed Meadows did not read the article or at least did not heed its cautionary message. Neither did Packer defensive back John Symank. Halfway through the Colts' 1958 title season, Johnny Unitas suffered three broken ribs when he was lying facedown on the ground, and Symank, in the words of sportswriter Tex Maule, “plumped down” on Unitas's back with both knees. The Colts, 56–0 winners, did not protest the way the Lions did when Layne was injured, but Maule objected to “an evil which may eventually cost much of the hard-won popularity of the game.”
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