The Games That Changed the Game

by Ron Jaworski

  I began making a mental list of the game’s most important tacticians. My first version was pretty long, because so many coaches have devised strategic twists over the years. Eventually I was able to put a handful of men into a group of the game’s most creative thinkers. They were really astute guys who conceptualized the game as a series of puzzles to be solved; visionaries who had the intelligence and the courage to go against standard conventions.

  At the end of this exercise, I arrived at a list of seven coaches. I’m sure fans and football writers could come up with more candidates of their own, but here are the people I believe have done the most to influence the way the modern game is played: Sid Gillman, Bud Carson, Don Coryell, Bill Walsh, Buddy Ryan, Dick LeBeau, and Bill Belichick.

  Their ideas seemed radical at the time of their inception but are now commonplace throughout the league. The concepts they devised weren’t created by spontaneous combustion; in virtually every case, it took months or even years for these ideas to fully blossom, and these guys likely got input and advice from their own coaching staffs and peers around the league. All of them owe a huge debt to the coaching legends who laid the NFL’s foundations: George Halas, Curly Lambeau, and Paul Brown, among others. And many of the approaches crafted by my group of seven are being expanded and tweaked today by a new generation of coaches who’ve copied the basics, then added touches of their own. After all, like I said: Pro football is a game that changes constantly.

  While it took time for these ideas to fully develop, they gained credibility and wider recognition in signature games, the effects of which had lasting influence far beyond the final score. Studying each of these games can help fans better understand the profound impact that these coaches have had on today’s pro football. I had three criteria for making my selections:

  They introduced schemes that were surprising and innovative at the time.

  They used the scheme to dominate a highly regarded opponent.

  Their innovation had long-term and leaguewide impact.

  These were games that alerted everyone to the fact that something different and exciting was happening on the field. Seen in historical hindsight, these seven coaches—and the significant moments of these seven games—have had a lasting influence in shaping the modern NFL.

  have always been an inquisitive guy. From the time I was a kid, I always asked “Why?” I liked learning about how things worked—a bicycle, a clock, an engine. I couldn’t take these things apart and repair them if my life depended on it; I’m certainly not Mr. Fixit! But I have always had a deep interest in breaking things down, and understanding the nuts and bolts. I am going to apply that natural curiosity, along with my football experience, to helping you understand what happened in these seven games and why they’ve become so important to pro football’s development.

  I am fortunate that coaching tape still exists for virtually all of my game selections, because the All-22 look is still the most accurate way to evaluate what happens on the field. Through comprehensive film sessions, I will attempt to explain the strategic and historic developments that occurred in each game. I will break down drives and individual plays to illustrate what coaching innovations were taking place and how the opponent reacted to them. I’m also going to pick the brains of former players and current and retired coaches to get their views about these games and the schemes that made them significant. And I’ll provide background and context on each coach, his team, and the NFL of that era—crucial elements that created the right conditions for these radical changes.

  As the games are analyzed, patterns will begin to emerge. Strategic concepts will start to connect as the work of one coach influences another. The world of pro football is relatively small—everybody knows everybody. The generational ties and bonded loyalties that are forged go a long way toward explaining how creative football people with open minds find one another and encourage innovation. Those relationships provide the support system that is necessary for ideas to flourish.

  After the final game chapter, I’ll peer into my “crystal football” and make a few predictions about future football trends. I’ll let you know who might become part of the next generation of geniuses. I’ll also venture a guess about trends you could be seeing in the next few years, as today’s coaches continue to react to the game’s infinite fluctuations. This culture of never-ending improvement is what makes the NFL exciting, and it’s a major reason why pro football has become and will continue to be America’s most popular sport.

  Sunday No. 1

  1963 AFL CHAMPIONSHIP

  BOSTON PATRIOTS VS. SAN DIEGO CHARGERS

  Balboa Stadium, San Diego, California —January 5, 1964

  ick Vermeil was my coach with the Philadelphia Eagles for six years. He is the most influential person in my football life. Dick believed in me when others did not. He taught me how to be a leader, how to do things right, how to be tough enough to survive in the brutal world of the NFL.

  Dick also gave me the greatest gift any quarterback could ever ask for. At a critical point in my career, he brought in Sid Gillman to be my position coach. If there were a Mount Rushmore for pioneering football geniuses, Sid Gillman’s likeness would be on it. Sid, quite simply, is the father of the modern passing game. Every passing guru—from Al Davis and Don Coryell to Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren—owes him a debt of gratitude. Every fan who loves “the bomb” should be grateful to Gillman. I know I was. For two years, I was the lucky recipient of Sid’s incredible knowledge, and I’d equate my experience with him to be the same as a physics student getting daily one-on-one tutoring from Albert Einstein.

  Sound far-fetched? Not really. More than any other coach of his day, Gillman understood the geometry of the game. Sid designed his receivers’ routes to look different, while the distance of the quarterback’s throw remained the same. In Sid’s scheme, receivers positioned themselves by using the hash marks. How much space those receivers left between their own tackle or tight end was critical. It insured that a quarterback’s throw on specific routes would never vary in distance. Sid achieved this by emphasizing alignment and formation. Specific details were drilled over and over until they became second nature to his players. This is an expected element of pro football now, but it wasn’t back when Sid coached the Rams and Chargers during the 1950s and 60s. He reinforced the legitimacy of these concepts by sending assistant coach Tom Bass to consult with a mathematics professor at San Diego State University in the early 1960s. Their mission: to figure out geometrically where players needed to be on every passing route so that the ball would be in the air the same length of time.

  Every passing game concept today stems from Gillman’s understanding of timing, rhythm, and anticipation. It’s keyed by a three-, five-, or seven-step drop by the quarterback, drops whose distances are directly linked to the route depths of his receivers. It may be Sid’s most lasting and critical contribution to pro football: He took this seemingly simple concept and made it a science. Joe Collier, who coached against Gillman with the Patriots, Bills, and Denver Broncos in the American Football League, readily admits, “Everybody had to work like hell to keep up with him. We were forced to be more creative on defense because of Sid.”

  Sid’s passing attack was among the first to use the entire field vertically and horizontally. He divided the field into sections, based on favorable passing angles. He had his split end and flanker (what wide receivers were referred to before 1970, when NFL publicists discarded those terms for the sake of uniformity) line up outside the numbers—the better to stretch the field from sideline to sideline. Sid’s credo was “The field is one hundred yards long and fifty-three yards wide. We’re going to use every damn inch of it and force the other guy to defend all of it.” He advanced a critical concept that all quarterbacks abide by today: the “best-located-safety” principle. By that, he meant a passer should throw the ball to the receiver who is located the farthest from either safety on the field. The principle worked for his Chargers quarterback
s, it worked for me throughout my pro career, and it’s still a cardinal rule for today’s NFL passers.

  It helped that Sid landed in the perfect environment in which to develop these bold concepts. After he was fired by the Rams in the late 1950s, his coaching days appeared to be over. “I was looking at starting a career in stocks and bonds—a new profession that didn’t quite appeal to me,” Sid confessed. But then, beginning in 1960, a group of businessmen formed a rival league to compete with the NFL, and Sid was one of the first coaches hired. The new American Football League was a blank slate, with no precedent, no tradition, no history. Its coaches were handed lumps of wet clay and told to create something exciting. That was all a guy like Sid needed to hear. The NFL was a ground-oriented league in 1960, so the AFL decided that it could attract fans by passing—a lot. As Sid told me on more than one occasion, “People wanted to see us throw the ball. They didn’t give a damn who caught it, but they wanted that ball in the air.” The AFL became a 100-yard laboratory for this pigskin Ph.D. to conduct his football experiments.

  In an era when the prevailing wisdom was “Three things can happen when you pass—and two of them are bad,” Sid ignored that mind-set and passed more often so he could set up his running game. He put backs in motion, threw to backs in the flat—even sent them on “Go” routes up the field and down the middle. Sid asked himself, “Why do we always need our backs and tight end to block, then release? Hell, just let ‘em go right away.” That gave Sid’s teams more receivers downfield than defenses of that era could cover, but it also left fewer pass blockers. Gillman compensated for reduced protection by putting the responsibility on his quarterbacks to throw quickly when pressured (known today as making a “hot read”) to the backs and to the tight end. This concept was pivotal to his philosophy—and unique.

  Few tight ends regularly ran vertical routes before Sid Gillman came along. Gillman believed that the success of any passing game depended on how well it dominated the hash mark areas with a pass-catching tight end. Time and again Sid preached, “You put a real tough tight end with good hands in the hash area, and there won’t be anyone who can cover him. Then you really control the passing game.” This forced defenses to respect the interior of the field, which opened up passing lanes for the other receivers. Sid’s first tight end with the Chargers was Dave Kocourek, a guy who averaged between 16 to 19 yards per catch every year. He was often shadowed by Mike Stratton, a six-time AFL all-star linebacker who played for the Buffalo Bills. “Kocourek was a tall, rangy guy—very good size for a tight end at that time,” said Stratton. “Because the Chargers’ other receivers were so talented, opponents abandoned man-to-man and were forced to play more zone coverage, leaving Kocourek open to run plays down the seam in between everybody. He was almost impossible to stop.”

  The Chargers were also innovative off the field, as they were the first pro team to hire a weight trainer. “We really got the jump on the rest of football back then,” said Ron Mix, the Chargers’ Hall of Fame offensive tackle. “Most coaches discouraged weight lifting because they thought you’d get ‘muscle bound’ and tied up, interfering with your flexibility. Not many players worked out year-round, but, because of Sid, many of the Chargers did, and it gave us a huge strength advantage in games.” More than a few of Gillman’s peers viewed this type of training—and many of his passing schemes—as too radical and irresponsible. As Bill Walsh so accurately noted, “Sid was so far ahead of his time, people couldn’t totally understand what he was doing.”

  I certainly didn’t have that problem. Sid’s brilliance was obvious from the minute I met him. He was almost too smart; a mad professor of sorts. He’d scribble so quickly on the blackboard that I’d have to slow him down. It wasn’t just what he taught—but how he taught it. Before Sid came to the pros in the mid-1950s, most coaches would fire up the film projector and focus on an opponent’s overall strategy. The big picture. Sid ignored that approach. He asked his players to study the details. Where is the linebacker? What’s his depth from the line of scrimmage? Which leg is the strong safety putting his weight on? How are the cornerback’s feet positioned and which way is his head turned? What is he looking at? Other coaches spent their time getting an overview of all eleven defenders. Sid preferred to zero in on one guy at a time to pick up the right clues. If you could crack the code, every player on the field revealed something crucial. Once I was able to apply this knowledge, things really took off for me.

  My first eureka moment with Sid came during an off-season practice. I made my first throw, and Sid bellowed, “Let me see your grip!” I’d been throwing the ball the same way for twelve years. But Sid was going to mold me from the ground up, starting with the basics. “Let’s see your fingertip control. Shit, Ron, your palm’s touching the leather!” We spent the rest of the session working on my throwing mechanics, my drop, and the proper way to stand under the center. It was days before we even started working on play design. Sid wanted his quarterbacks to be fundamentally sound before he’d move on to anything else.

  He was also a demon about repetition. Gillman drilled you and drilled you until you ran a play without even thinking about what you were doing. His passing system was based totally on precision. I had to have that ball out to the receiver at a specific point every time. And my receiver had better snap his head around when the pass was released or he was going to get whacked in the face mask. With the Eagles, I was blessed with one of the best receivers I ever threw to in Harold Carmichael, a four-time Pro Bowler, but Sid pushed him just as hard. By the time he got through with the two of us, I could have gone out to the practice field with Harold and completed those passes blindfolded. That was Sid’s mantra: Do something so many times the exact way each time, and you’ll perform the same in any game situation.

  Nobody could make adjustments on the fly like Sid. When the Eagles walked into the halftime locker room, Sid already had everything we needed on the chalkboard: fronts, coverages, hints, indicators. I believed in him so much that I just knew the changes we made during halftime were going to work. He was unmatched in his ability to figure out the opponent’s game plan and recognize what a team was trying to do to us that day.

  The 1980 season was my finest in the NFL. I posted my best stats, was named Player of the Year, and got the Eagles to their first Super Bowl. None of this would have been possible without Sid Gillman. To this day, I still hear his voice in my head when I think about the core principles of the passing game.

  And to think that there once was a time I couldn’t stand the guy! Of course, that was years ago when I was a kid growing up in Lackawanna, New York—deep in the heart of Buffalo Bills country, where the team that everyone hated (but also grudgingly admired) was Sid’s San Diego Chargers—the most glamorous team in the early years of the AFL.

  ven back in the 1960s, I was a football nut, and my team was the Bills. I lived and died with their every move. When I was twelve, I worked a paper route for the Buffalo Courier-Express to earn enough money to buy a season ticket to home games at War Memorial Stadium. In 1963 a season package for one seat cost $21, and I threw a lot of papers at a lot of front porches to raise the dough. Every Sunday when the Bills were at home, I took a bus by myself into town, transferred to another bus that dropped me off at Jefferson Avenue, then walked the rest of the way to “the Rockpile,” as the stadium was affectionately known. I sat in the end zone—section 23, row 13, seat 3. I rarely missed a game from 1963 until the time I went to college in 1969.

  In the AFL’s early years, every team had a home and away game with all the other clubs, so even though Gillman’s Chargers were in the Western Division, they came to Buffalo once a year. You couldn’t miss Sid on the sidelines. On warm days, he wore these cool sunglasses, and even on dreary afternoons in Buffalo it seemed like Sid always had a nice tan. But what stood out most was his trademark bow tie. I don’t think I ever saw Sid in a necktie, even after he retired. But his sharp wardrobe didn’t keep him from arguing with refs or yelling
at a player for making a mistake. Frankly, I’m not sure what he was so upset about, because the Chargers won most of the time in Buffalo, at least early on. The first Bills-Chargers game I ever saw was another San Diego victory, a 1963 game where fullback Keith Lincoln and receiver Lance Alworth scored touchdowns. Those guys were so good—I hated them! And San Diego had other great players too: a terrific offensive line led by Mix, high-stepping halfback Paul Lowe, and two giant defensive linemen in Earl Faison and Ernie Ladd, who always seemed to be sacking our quarterback Jack Kemp for big losses.

  Ironically, Kemp had played for Sid during the Chargers’ first three seasons, taking them to league championships in 1960, when the franchise was in Los Angeles, and in 1961, its first year in San Diego, both of which they lost. He ended up in Buffalo midway through the ‘62 season when Sid tried to sneak Jack through waivers after an injury, and the Bills scooped up Kemp because of a loophole in the rules. Lucky for me—and for Buffalo. Jack eventually led the Bills to league championships in ‘64 and ‘65, beating Sid’s Chargers in both title games. How’s that for payback?

  After Kemp retired in 1970, he ran for Congress in our Erie County district and represented us for eighteen years. When I was selected in the second round by the Rams in the 1973 draft, one of the first phone calls I made was to Jack’s congressional office to seek his advice. He was extremely helpful and gave me great suggestions about adapting to pro football. That was the beginning of a long friendship that lasted until his passing in the spring of 2009.

  Jack loved to tell stories, and I heard more than a few from him about Gillman. The ones that really stuck with me related to his dealings with racial prejudice, and they explained a lot about the kind of person Sid was. He graduated from Ohio State in the mid-1930s and always dreamed of becoming a head coach in the Big Ten. But according to Jack, three different Big Ten schools turned down Sid’s applications because he was Jewish. Because of that, Jack said, Sid was very sensitive to any type of discrimination. That’s probably why Gillman was one of the first pro coaches to actively scout historically black colleges, sign those athletes in significant numbers, and assign them roommates by position, not by race. This was in 1960, when teams like the Washington Redskins didn’t have any black players. Sid’s early Charger teams probably had more African American athletes on their roster than any other pro team—in any sport.