Football: Professional

FOOTBALL: PROFESSIONAL

Futility

Few would have thought that when the Los Angeles Raiders defeated the Washington Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII on 22 January 1984 the game would signal the end of the era of American Football Conference (AFC) dominance. The mighty Pittsburgh Steeler dynasty last won the title in the 1980 Super Bowl and the nucleus of players that made up their championship teams had retired by 1984, but the future was apparently bright for the AFC. Marcus Allen, the Raiders' catalyst that January evening, had run wild, including a breath-taking change-of-direction touchdown gallop of 74 yards that seemed like a bit of playground mischief. Mean-while, the pretenders to the Raiders' AFC crown had armed themselves with a cluster of strong-armed and strong-willed quarterbacks in the 1983 National Football League (NFL) draft. Yet the rest of the 1980s and half of the 1990s would pass without an AFC victory in the title game; moreover, the National Football Conference (NFC) representative typically won with remarkable ease (a 26-point average margin of victory from 1985 to 1990), thus turning every season's anticipated spectacle into a predictable, often unwatchable, affair. San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, and the New York Giants, each bolstered by an aggressive defense and methodical, ball-control offense, showcased their talents by crushing their AFC rivals before millions of television viewers. But perhaps it was the Denver Broncos who best epitomized AFC futility during the latter half of the decade. Led by their young and confident quarterback, John Elway, the Broncos won the AFC championship in 1987, 1988, and 1990, only to lose three Super Bowls by a combined score of 136-40. Having already stumbled in a title game in 1977, the hapless Broncos tied an NFL record for most losses in the Super Bowl (held by the NFC's Minnesota Vikings and later equaled by the AFC's Buffalo Bills in the 1990s).

Year of the Quarterback

On 26 April 1983 the AFC began building for the future. That year's senior class was considered one of the deepest talent pools in college football history, so when the NFL draft rolled around, many of the league's weaker teams sought an immediate change of fortune. Scouts were particularly intrigued by the wealth of fine quarterbacks available, and six signal-callers were selected in the first round, all of them by AFC squads. Beginning in 1985, four of those six—Stanford's John Elway, Miami's Jim Kelly, Illinois's Tony Eason, and Pittsburgh's Dan Marino—would go on to quarterback the AFC's Super Bowl representative in nine of the next ten title games. They would, however, lose every one of them. The number one pick of the draft was Elway, a big, strong-armed gunslinger who thrived in Stanford's pro-style offense. He refused to come to terms with the Baltimore Colts, who selected him with the first overall pick in the draft despite Elway's repeated warnings that he would play only for a West Coast franchise or a championship contender. The woeful Colts fit neither description. On 2 May the Denver Broncos acquired Elway in a trade with Baltimore, and he proceeded to lead the Broncos through the 1980s and beyond. But it was the last quarterback selected in the first round, Marino, who outshone them all. Chosen by the Miami Dolphins with the twenty-seventh pick, Marino exploded into the league, earning Rookie of the Year honors and a Pro Bowl invitation in his first season. Marino shattered long-standing league records in his sophomore campaign, passing for a phenomenal 5,084 yards and 48 touch-downs. Possessing a powerful arm, a lightning-quick release, and the ability to see opportunity amid defensive chaos, Marino soon established himself as one of the game's all-time greats. The careers of Elway, Marino, and Kelly—who took the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowls in the 1990s after a three-year tenure in the ill-fated United States Football League (USFL)—symbolized the AFC's accomplishments and its disappointments.

The Hogs

The Washington Redskins, who were the last NFC team to lose a Super Bowl, were nonetheless one of the great teams of the decade. What set the Redskins skins apart from other successful franchises was the versatility displayed in their two championship seasons (1982-1983 and 1987-1988), Although both teams were coached by the dignified and cerebral Joe Gibbs, they attained their laurels with dissimilar quarterbacks—Joe Theismann and Doug Williams—and with contrasting offensive styles. The 1982-1983 team, in the words of Paul Zimmerman, "grabbed modern NFL football by the scruff of the neck and tossed it back a few decades into a simpler era—a big guy running behind bigger guys blocking." The "big guy running" was the incomparable John Riggins, a human sledgehammer with startling speed; the "bigger guys blocking" were known simply and fondly as the Hogs. The 27-17 victory over Miami in the title game was definitive Redskins football: Riggins shouldered the load, carrying 38 times for a then-record 166 yards, including a rumbling 43-yard touchdown run on fourth and one that put the Redskins on top for good. Gibbs occasionally threw in a bit of trickery to keep the Dolphins' defense from keying on his star, including an offensive set called the "Explode Package" in which all five eligible receivers scramble and shift places before the snap. The formation, used sparingly, resulted in two short touchdown passes from Theismann. Where the 1983 titlists ground out victories with brutal and methodical ease, the 1988 Super Bowl champions were an explosive bunch and saved their most electrifying moments for the championship game itself Trailing the Denver Broncos 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, the Redskins scored 35 unanswered points before halftime. The quarter resulted in some astonishing statistics: five possessions resulting in five touchdowns and 356 yards of offense. Williams completed nine of eleven passes, including throws of 80, 27, 50, and 8 yards for touchdowns, all in one quarter. By the end of the 42-10 Redskin romp, rookie halfback Timmy Smith, who had totaled only 126 yards rushing during the entire season, had gained 204 yards on the ground.

Strikes

The NFL suffered through two significant labor disputes during the decade, both of which resulted in the suspension of play. In 1982 a fifty-seven-day strike resulted in the cancellation of seven weeks of play. The strike occurred after the league signed a five-year, $2.1 billion contract with the three major television networks; the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) responded by demanding a larger cut of the guarantees, 55 percent of the league's gross revenues. NFL team owners kept camps closed throughout the strike in the fear that a series of makeshift games conducted with replacement players might irredeemably tarnish the league's image. After weeks of unproductive bargaining sessions a mediator was finally brought in, and the NFLPA agreed to a contract in which the team owners guaranteed to spend $1.6 billion over four years on players' salaries, including $60 million in "money now" bonuses for ending the strike. The settlement was, many observed, a far cry from the union's initial demands. "The strike was a complete failure," one player representative noted afterward. "If we'd kept the old agreement, we would have been better off" Two games into the 1987-1988 season a second work stoppage of play occurred, but this time franchises reloaded their rosters with replacement players immediately, and the league determined that any games played during the strike would count in the final league standings. While free agency was not the principal motivating factor in the earlier strike, the NFLPA in 1987 initially demanded unlimited free agency; they later proposed freedom of movement after a four-year tenure in the league. Despite the fact that the average NFL career is less than the four-year minimum proposed, the owners rejected the condition outright. Failing to reach a new collective bargaining agreement, the players, union ended the strike after twenty-four days and three weeks of "replacement" games. The conflict was a study in obstinacy and futility. Law professor John Weistart found the owners' stubbornness to be particularly troubling when compared with comparable labor disputes in other sports: "Management was surprisingly intransigent in its position on free agency, more so than in past contract talks. Their position was harsh in light of the fact that the increase in free agency hasn't led to the demise of baseball and basketball. It was tough economic posturing, a flat refusal to bargain, which is the definition of bad-faith bargaining. There was no evidence of give-and-take." The owners did pay for their unyielding position, at least in the short term, by forsaking $104 million in potential revenue due to the suspension of play, but in the long run they maintained significant leverage in the constant battle over player autonomy.

Moving

The NFL was a bit unsettled in the 1980s, largely due to the efforts of the Oakland Raiders' managing general partner, Al Davis. A shrewd and somewhat eccentric figure within the league's corridors of power, Davis decided to move the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles for the start of the 1982 football season, despite twelve straight years of capacity crowds in the Bay Area, because Los Angeles offered a larger venue and the opportunity to operate in one of the country's media capitals. Davis's decision represented a conscious violation of the league constitution, which required the approval of three-quarters of the league's owners before a franchise could relocate. Davis, the Raiders, and the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission sued the NFL for $213 million on the grounds that the league was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act when they tried to block the Raiders' move. Following a five-week trial, a jury ruled in favor of the Raiders, a judgment which prompted commissioner Pete Rozelle to lament that the NFL's "basic structure and stability" was under attack. He warned that the ruling might result "in the relocation of clubs under auction-type conditions." Many speculated that Rozelle's anxiety was heightened because Davis was depriving the NFL of a chance to sell L.A.'s "territorial rights" to a new franchise for an extravagant expansion fee. Nevertheless, the Oakland Raiders became the Los Angeles Raiders and went on to win the 1984 Super Bowl under their new name (they would, ironically, move back to Oakland during the summer of 1995). Davis's legal triumph opened the way for further movement. In the early morning of 29 March, Baltimore Colts owner Robert Irsay stealthily moved all of the Colts' possessions to Indiana with a fleet of moving vans, thus establishing the Indianapolis Colts in a sleek new domed stadium. Despite the strangeness of Irsay's machinations, the league, according to Pete Axthelm, "had no stomach for a fight with an owner who wanted to sneak out of town" after the Davis fiasco. The abandonment of Baltimore left a sour taste in the mouths of true Colts fans. Frank Deford wrote, "A man who could screw up professional football in Baltimore would foul the water at Lourdes or flatten the beer in Munich." Finally, in 1988 the St. Louis Cardinals moved to Phoenix, thanks to the efforts of team owner Bill Bidwill. St. Louis, long acknowledged as a "baseball town," consistently had trouble attracting a substantial football crowd. For star quarterback Neil Lomax, therefore, the move to Phoenix was convenient: "We won't have to apologize anymore because we don't play baseball." After the Davis challenge and the Irsay covert operation, some observers were relieved that at least the Cardinals' Bidwill went through the proper channels before abandoning St. Louis.

A Special Case

The desire to expand the professional game inspired in part the formation of the United States Football League (USFL). Initially the foundling league set out to avoid direct competition with the NFL by structuring their eighteen-game season for the spring and early summer months when the older league was dormant. The USFL gained considerable legitimacy by luring veterans such as Greg Landry, Stan White, and Raymond Chester, as well as college stars such as North Carolina's Kelvin Bryant and Michigan's Anthony Carter, away from the NFL. But the coup de grace was the New Jersey Generals' signing of running back Herschel Walker, a junior at Georgia and the 1980 Heisman Trophy winner. Even though both leagues possessed a man-date prohibiting the signing of undergraduates, USFL commissioner Chet Simmons, obviously eager to add a marketable name to the fold, conceded that he personally approved of the negotiations and argued that Walker was such an exceptional athlete that he represented a one-time "special case." The Generals sold seven thousand season tickets within hours of Walker's signing. On 6 March 1983 the league began play with twelve teams in three divisions. By summer it had crowned its first champion, the Michigan Panthers, who defeated the Philadelphia Stars 24-22 before 50,906 fans at Denver's Mile High Stadium. To its credit the league featured a host of experimental offensive schemes and saw many young players hone their considerable talents, but it was soon doomed by the team owners' collective frenzy to obtain the services of football's next generation of superstars. Steve Young, Mike Rozier, Marcus Dupree, Jim Kelly, Doug Flutie, and many others signed multimillion-dollar contracts, even while their franchises were struggling to stay afloat financially. Donald Trump, who purchased the New Jersey team after its disappointing inaugural year, still imagined the USFL eventually challenging the hegemony of the senior league: "Institutions are sometimes the most vulnerable elements of our society, and the NFL is very vulnerable." Despite Trump's confidence the league oversaw frequent franchise moves and mergers. When the USFL planned to compete head-on with the NFL in the fall of 1986, it could not negotiate a network television contract. After only three seasons of competition and nearing bankruptcy, the USFL filed a $1.69 billion antitrust suit against the NFL, charging that the senior league constituted a monopoly. In a curious decision a jury, after thirty-one hours of contentious deliberation, allowed the USFL's claim to stand, but awarded the league only one dollar in damages. Needing an estimated $300 million to proceed, the USFL suspended its upcoming fall schedule on 4 August 1986, never to resume play. Most of the league's stars went on to sign with NFL franchises.

Drugs

The USFL's attempt to maneuver into the NFL's competitive markets was hardly the only threat to football's collective peace. Tales of drug and anabolic steroid abuse by NFL players frequently surfaced during the decade, and on occasion the league took action against prominent players. In July 1983 commissioner Pete Rozelle suspended four players—Cincinnati's Ross Browner and Pete Johnson, St. Louis's E. J. Junior, and New Orleans's Greg Stemrick—for the first four games of the 1984 season after Junior and Stemrick were arrested for possession of cocaine and Browner and Johnson confessed to cocaine use during a trial of a suspected drug dealer. Don Reese, a former NFL player, related in a lengthy 1982 Sports Illustrated cover story the harrowing tale of his cocaine addiction. Said Reese, "cocaine is a .38 at the head of every player in the game" and "controls and corrupts the game, because so many players are on it." By the end of the decade the NFL had established large-scale drug-testing measures and had put into place prescribed penalties for each successive positive test result, including a thirty-day suspension for a second infraction and a ban from the league after a player's third violation. Some teams initiated their own drug counseling and rehabilitation programs modeled after the Cleveland Browns' system, "The Inner Circle." But despite disciplinary measures, rehab groups, and plaintive warnings like Reese's, the problem often led to tragedy before abuse was detected. Former defensive lineman Lyle Alzado felt that his twenty-year addiction to steroids and human growth hormone exacerbated the brain cancer that caused his eventual death. In June 1986 Cleveland Browns defensive back Don Rogers overdosed on cocaine and died of heart failure. Rogers, the 1984 AFC Rookie of the Year, was to be married the next day. The tragedy, following closely on the heels of the cocaine-related death of college basketball star Len Bias, prompted Rick Reilly to pronounce, "The Big Lie is over. Sports can't bury its head in the sand anymore; there are too many bodies buried there.…This is not a party anymore. Somebody just called the paramedics."

Sweetness and Joy

In the midst of the various lawsuits, suspensions, tragedies, and covert transactions unfolding off the field, the NFL thrived by virtue of some marvelous performances on it. In particular Chicago's Walter Payton, known as "Sweetness," erased the bitterness of league turmoil with his unique blend of grace, agility, and power. Although a small running back, Payton seemed to enjoy contact. When Payton did not stutter-step a lineman off his feet or beat the linebacker to the corner, he simply flattened an unsuspecting corner-back with a stiff-arm or a lowered shoulder. In 1984 Payton broke Jim Brown's all-time rushing mark of 12,312 yards, and by the time he retired in 1987 he had tacked another 4,000 yards onto the standard. For much of his career Payton was the stellar member of mediocre Chicago teams, but in the mid 1980s head coach Mike Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan assembled an extraordinary squad. With Payton and maverick quarterback Jim McMahon leading a ball-control offense, and Mike Singletary, Wilber Marshall, Richard Dent, and William "Refrigerator" Perry disrupting NFL offenses, the Bears ripped through the 1985 postseason with surprising ease. After shutting out both the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams, Chicago destroyed the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX, 46-10. Ryan's innovative defensive schemes helped limit New England to minus-19 yards of total offense in the first quarter, and the run-oriented Patriots only generated seven yards rushing for the entire game. Perhaps the Bears' enthusiastic defensive play was best summed up by middle linebacker Singletary when he described a devastating hit on running back Eric Dickerson in the NFC championship game: "I don't feel pain from a hit like that. What I feel is joy. Joy for the tackle. Joy for myself. Joy for the other man. You understand me; I understand you. It's football, it's middle-linebacking. It's just…good for everyone."

L. T

While Chicago had the decade's most stubborn, unyielding defense, the New York Giants possessed the NFL's most ferocious marauder, linebacker Lawrence Taylor. When Taylor entered the league in 1981 as the second player chosen in the draft, Paul Zimmerman likened him to "an emissary from another planet." Indeed, "L. T." redefined the linebacker position. Strong enough to fill holes in the middle of the defense and agile enough to drop back into pass coverage (he once returned an interception 97 yards for a touchdown), Taylor also routinely ran down halfbacks with his breathtaking speed. But L. T. seemed to save his most spectacular brand of menacing for quarterbacks. Spinning around or simply leaping over offensive linemen, Taylor swooped in on unsuspecting quarterbacks before they could even find the laces on the ball, burying them in a one-man avalanche of Giant blue. His defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick, tried to pinpoint the source of Taylor's ferocity: "What makes L. T. so great, what makes him so aggressive, is his total disregard for his body." Stories abound of Taylor's capacity to "play through" his pain. In a 1988 game against New Orleans he tore a deltoid muscle severely and had to play in a shoulder harness but still managed to record ten tackles, two sacks, and two forced fumbles. Early in his career he suffered a concussion during a game against archrival Philadelphia, and the Giants' trainer had to hide Taylor's helmet to keep him from returning to the fray. Taylor had his best year in 1986, recording over twenty sacks during the season and becoming the first defensive player in history to be named consensus league MVP. Not coincidentally, the New York Giants dominated the NFC that season and won their first Super Bowl on 25 January 1987 against the Denver Broncos, 39-20. Mercilessly double- and tripleteamed throughout the game, L. T. was neutralized by the Broncos' offensive scheme—which allowed fellow linebacker Carl Banks to record ten unassisted tackles—but it was the Giants' offense that stole the show. Giant coach Bill Parcells kept the Denver defense off balance by unexpectedly passing on first down and mixing in trick plays (a fake punt, a flea-flicker), and quarterback Phil Simms ran the offense to near perfection, completing a remarkable 22 of 25 passes and earning Super Bowl MVP honors for his efforts. Taylor would get a second Super Bowl ring after the Giants' victory in Super Bowl XXV in 1991. Finally, worn down from a decade of double-teams and his continual struggles to curb his substance abuse, Taylor retired in 1994 as perhaps the most intimidating player of his generation.

SWOOSH!

Although sports in the 1980s were, in Craig Neff's words, "awash in logos, brand names and marketing gimmicks," there is little doubt that Nike led the way. Named after the mythological winged goddess of victory, the Nike athletic footwear company was founded in 1972, but it was not until the 1980s that it became a force in the sports world. Led by founder and chairman Phil Knight, recognized as one of the most powerful men in sports, Nike made its mark through innovative product design and shrewd marketing, especially of superstars such as Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson. Recognizing that "nobody roots for a product," Knight sought to project images of heroism and glory onto gifted athletes. According to writer Donald Katz, "people would come to these heroes and listen to what they had to say, Knight believed, because superior athletic ability speaks to everyone's belief in some primordial capacity for a kind of true greatness that has been obscured over time by expediency and disappointment and the general clutter of contemporary life." Of course the corollary is that people would then want to buy Nike products. To enhance its image further Nike outfitted elite athletes in sports-wear emblazoned with its swoosh icon, which was ubiquitous during the 1980s, Katz reports that by the early 1990s it was estimated that seven times as many athletes had "working agreements with Nike than with any other company. Over half of the NCAA championship basketball teams of the past ten years had worn Nikes, and more than sixty big-time colleges were 'Nike schools'—this, in most cases, because their coaches were Nike coaches. Well over 200 of the 324 NBA players wore Nike shoes, over 80 of them by contract. Two hundred seventy-five pro football players wore Nikes, as did 290 major-league baseball players." Collectively, these associations translated into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. By the end of the decade and beyond, argues Katz, Nike came "to signify status, glamour, competitive edge and the myriad intricacies of cool. Especially for the young, Nike shoes conjure up a yearning and fascination that for much of the century has been inspired by cars." At a time when sports were plagued by a variety of ills Nike promoted the nobility of competition and athletic excellence and in the process significantly shaped the way many Americans thought about sports.

Sources:

Donald Katz, Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World New York: Random House, 1994);

Craig Neff, "The Selling of Sport," in The Best of Sports Illustrated (New York: Oxraoor House, 1990);

J. B. Strasser and Laurie Becklund, Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991).

Niners

Make no mistake, the dominant team of the 1980s was the San Francisco 49ers. Where the Bears and Giants dictated each game with their ferocious defenses, the Niners demoralized the opposition with a precise, nearly unstoppable offense. Designed by their innovative head coach, Bill Walsh, and mastered by quarterback Joe Montana, the San Francisco system depended on short passes, the "ready" of options by the quarterback and his receivers, and players who could run after they caught the ball. It did not hurt that Walsh coached two of the best players ever to play their positions, Montana and receiver Jerry Rice, but Montana was quick to give Walsh his due, saying "there's no coach I could have played for who would have been better for my career. Absolutely none." What made the Niners offense so potent was its flexibility: in their first Super Bowl in 1982, Walsh implemented an assortment of trick plays and new formations (some designed the day before the championship game) in order to confuse the Cincinnati Bengals early in the game. San Francisco led 20-0 at halftime and won 26-21. In January 1985 Montana simply outgunned the Dolphins' Dan Marino in Super Bowl XIX, hitting on 24 of 35 passes for 331 yards and three touchdowns. Then, after four years of missing the Super Bowl, the 49ers returned in 1989 and 1990 to win the first back-to-back titles since the great Pittsburgh teams of the 1970s. For all of Montana's accomplishments, perhaps it was Rice who best embodied what might be deemed the 49er spirit. Widely regarded as the best receiver ever to snare a pass, Rice appeared to prepare for each game with a continual fear that he would be supplanted from his lofty perch. Dismissing those who said they would love to be in his shoes, Rice sighed, "They don't know what it's like. The pressure. Before games I can't sleep. Before Super Bowl XXIII I woke up at 4 a.m. and just paced. I can't relax. I should be able to enjoy it, but I can't. The table can turn." Perhaps it is such vigilance that makes champions.

A Chapter Closed. The once-proud Dallas Cowboys franchise in 1988 posted the NFL's worst record at an anemic 3-13. On 13 February 1989 Dallas head coach Tom Landry, sixty-four, declared proudly that he intended to guide the club for at least four more years, "because I just don't want to leave the Cowboys when they're down." Landry's loyalty to a sinking ship is understandable when one considers that he was the only head coach the franchise had ever had, and after twenty-nine years of dignified service he refused to reconcile himself to mediocrity, or worse. But less than two weeks later, Cowboy owner H. R. "Bum" Bright sold the team to Jerry Jones, an Arkansas millionaire who summarily fired the stone-faced Landry and replaced him with Jones's close friend, Jimmy Johnson, the coach of the University of Miami. The $140-million business deal and the sudden and seemingly unfeeling dismissal brought recriminations against Jones, but he maintained that the move was both painful and necessary. "This man is like Bear Bryant to me, like Vince Lombardi to me," said Jones. "If you love competitors, Tom Landry's an angel." Yet Jones noted, "I wouldn't have bought the Dallas Cowboys if Jimmy Johnson couldn't be my coach!" While NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and many of Landry's former players treated the news as if it were an obituary, the old coach himself was more philosophical: "I was looking forward to this year. I thought it was going to be a tremendous challenge. But that's over with. It's a chapter closed. This is the worst scenario, I guess, but I'm not bitter." Dallas stumbled to a 1—15 record in Johnson's first year, but through a series of shrewd draft choices and trades the Cowboys rose to prominence again, winning consecutive Super Bowls in 1993 and 1994. The close bond between Jones and Johnson collapsed, however, and after the second championship Johnson was replaced by another of Jones's old friends, former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer.

Sources:

Jim Byrne, The $1 League: The Ri: and Fall of the USFL (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1986);

David Harris, The League: The Rise and Decline of the NFL (New York: Bantam, 1986);

Peter King, Inside the Helmet: A Player's Eye View of the NFL (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993);

Michael LeBlanc, ed., Professional Sports Team Histories: Football (Detroit: Gale Research, 1994);

John Wiebusch and Brian Silverman, eds., A Game of Passion: The NFL Literary Companion (Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1994);

Paul Zimmerman, The New Thinking Mart's Guide to Pro Football (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984),