Play by Play

by Verne Lundquist

  The culmination of our reunion season was to be assigned to our first playoff game together. The Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Bears were squaring off in Soldier Field. The main story line that everyone got their hooks into was Buddy Ryan returning to Chicago to lead his Eagles against Mike Ditka and the Bears. Buddy had been the defensive coordinator for the Bears and its record-breaking and headline-grabbing defense that tore up the league in 1985. He innovated the famed 4-6 defense that wreaked havoc on the New England Patriots in winning the Super Bowl title that season.

  The scuttlebutt was that Ditka did not appreciate how much attention Ryan received. He didn’t like how loyal those defensive players were to his subordinate. Ryan didn’t have much good to say about his former boss. Things festered and by the time New Year’s Eve in 1988 rolled around, those two old acquaintances would have loved to be able to forget each other. No one was going to let them do that.

  The Bears came into the game tied with the Bengals and Bills for the best regular season mark at 12-4. The Eagles were only 10-6. They won the division in a tiebreaker over the Giants. The “Punky QB” Jim McMahon had been injured and split duties that year with Mike Tomczack and Jim Harbaugh. Walter Payton had retired, but Neal Anderson had a 1,000-yard season. The defense was still outstanding. Philadelphia’s Randall Cunningham, a remarkable athlete and underrated quarterback, would face them. No one had any sense that another opponent would figure largely in the game’s outcome.

  New Year’s Eve began in atypical fashion for Chicago in late December. Blue skies, temperatures hovering around the freezing mark, and the real rarity—no wind along the lakefront. That all changed with 2:21 remaining in the first half. Mike Tomczak had started for the Bears, and he led them to a touchdown on their first possession, throwing a long touchdown pass. The teams traded turnovers and field goals, with the Bears taking a 17–9 lead. Just before the two-minute warning the fog rolled in. We’d had our eye on some weather phenomenon, or perhaps we speculated that it was smoke from a fire. The dense fog rolled in and enshrouded Soldier Field.

  The rest is a mystery.

  Terry and I could see no more than six feet in front of us. We had no idea how the game could continue, but it did. The NFL was monitoring events, of course, but never postponed or delayed the game. I didn’t know how the players were dealing with the fog, and many voiced their displeasure later, but somehow Cunningham managed to throw for more than 400 yards that day. The Bears’ defense managed to keep the Eagles’ offense out of the end zone.

  Terry and I saw none of that, really.

  David Michaels made the call to put our two minicam operators on the field in between plays. They could show the huddle and the spot of the ball but little else. They had to leave the field when a play was run. For much of the second half, I removed the left side of my headset. I could hear a voice giving the down, distance, and time on the clock. I presumed it was the public address announcer, who had moved to the sidelines to make those calls. I later learned that it was the referee, Jim Tunney, who was keeping those in attendance up to date. Viewers at home, much like they had when tuning in to our Swedish black screen, were treated to gray and little else. Our NFL Today hosts, Brent Musburger and Irv Cross, were on hand, standing fifty feet from the end zone in one of the tunnels. NFL rules at the time prohibited sideline reporters, so they were helpless.

  Terry later told me that he was more frustrated by this situation than any he’d faced as a player. He wished that he had gone down to field level with a microphone, taken a position on the sideline, and reported what he could see from there. He’d deal with the rule and Mr. Rozelle later.

  We learned the oddest thing. We assumed that the entire Chicago area had been socked in by fog. As we drove along Lake Shore Drive, we had no reason to think otherwise. Once we headed away from the lake and west toward the airport, the skies cleared and it was back to that lovely day. It was as if we’d been in a tiny snow globe. The fog only covered a tiny portion of the city. We got to the airport and back home in time to celebrate the new year.

  Several months later, in August 1989, I stood up in front of a packed house in Canton, Ohio, to introduce my friend Terry Bradshaw as an inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. An estimated twelve thousand fans were gathered in front of the hall, most in black and gold. In addition to Terry, his teammate Mel Blount was also being honored. Joining the two Steelers were Green Bay’s Willie Wood and Oakland’s Art Shell. I’d labored over my remarks, wrote and rewrote, rehearsed and memorized. I spent five minutes extolling the personal and professional virtues of Terry.

  When Terry stood and approached the microphone, the crowd erupted. I could see that he was deeply touched but that big grin of his didn’t waver. Terry launched into his speech with no note cards, paper, teleprompter, just his natural gift for speaking. I thought I was in the presence of a Baptist minister of the fiery type. Terry plucked at each emotional string, weaving those notes into a joyful, funny, and tender song. The place went up for grabs when he said, almost shouting, “Do I miss it? Of course I do. What I wouldn’t give to have my hands under Mike Webster’s butt just one more time.”

  Better his than mine, I thought at the time—words that would come back to haunt me later.

  Terry was a hit and I can see why he’s much in demand as a motivational speaker to this day. Heck, he almost had me wanting to put on a set of pads and go out there to capture some gridiron glory for myself. As many people have pointed out, Terry’s good-old-boy persona was mostly an act. He did have southern roots, of course, but the not being able to spell cat if he was spotted the c and the t was not Terry at all. He was an intelligent man, had a keen understanding of football, and was very competitive. All of those contributed to some of his frustrations with his role on CBS. Pat and John were number one in the network’s mind and there wasn’t much that could be done to dissuade them. That didn’t stop Terry from trying. If John had his telestrator, a high-tech gizmo at the time but a ubiquitous part of broadcasts now, Terry went old school, and we carted around a blackboard—a real blackboard, the kind found in schools and in locker rooms. Terry would pick up his chalk and his eraser and diagram plays. His X-and-O show was the antitelestrator.

  One Sunday in Minnesota, Terry decided to put to use the actual football that he always insisted should be in our booth. The Vikings offensive center was Kirk Lowdermilk. Tall and high-waisted with the length of an NBA center, Kirk presented problems for a quarterback. Terry related that he had a hard time with tall centers. He also had a problem with more diminutive centers—like his pal Mike Webster. We went to break and I had in mind a kind of Goldilocks scenario of discovering someone who was just right. When we came back after the 2:40, we were in the on camera position. Terry had that huge grin splitting his face. I stood there with the ball in my hand looking serious.

  “Okay,” Terry said. “Now you’re going to be Mike Webster. Squat like a frog and snap the ball to me on two.”

  I did as instructed, my forty-something-year-old butt as close to the ground as I could manage. Terry had to practically get down on his knees in order to receive the snap. Next, he asked me to Lowdermilk. I kept my legs as straight as possible while bending at the waist. Show-and-tell was over. The lesson delivered. I’m still hoping that at some point on Fox’s NFL Sunday, Terry will erupt and say, “What I wouldn’t give to put my hands under Verne Lundquist’s butt just one more time.”

  As a colleague and friend, I had only one gripe about him. He lacked “courage.” That failing came into sharp focus during the famous Bounty Game of 1989 in Philadelphia, when we came under fire and Bradshaw was nowhere to be seen.

  The Bounty Game will stick in most people’s memories because Buddy Ryan, while coaching the Eagles, put out a bounty on the Cowboys’ kicker Luis Zendejas. Now, Zendejas was no bigger than I—a media-guide five feet, nine inches tall. Luis had made the mistake earlier in the season of going low on a block of an offensive lineman on a kick return. He
took him down and injured him. Buddy offered five thousand dollars to any of his players who could teach Zendejas one of the unwritten rules of the game.

  In my memory, the game is more famous for another incident. The game was played in Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium. It was one of the worst facilities in the league, one of those dual-sport monstrosities favored in the 1970s. Philadelphia fans take great pride in having booed Santa Claus. In this last game of the season, there wasn’t much on the line for either team—except for the health and well-being of Luis Zendejas. A foot of snow had fallen overnight. Crews got the field ready, but there wasn’t enough time left to clear all the snow from the stands. As sometimes happens, fans began lobbing snowballs on the field, targeting players and officials.

  Terry and I were in the broadcast booth for most of the game. However, because of how long and narrow the booth was, anytime we did something on-air, we had to turn our sides to the field. Any military strategist will tell you to avoid being pinned down without escape routes. It’s also not a good idea to turn your side on said enemy. Terry and I were forced to do both. Snowballs whizzed past us, hitting the wall and revealing rocks at their center.

  To their discredit, the snowball throwers weren’t very smart. They stood and laughed and pointed at us, making it very easy for anyone to point them out as the offenders. Police came and hauled them away. With about four minutes left in the game, however, the barrage resumed. I don’t know if it was the same four, but Philadelphia at one point had a jail and judge located inside the stadium to speed processing offenders, but the effects were the same.

  One of my lasting memories of my time with Terry is of him crouching below the low ledge that ran along the front of the broadcast booth. An assistant had placed his monitor down there so that he could view the action. He did those last four minutes on his hands and knees. Tough place, that City of Brotherly Love.

  In the spring of 1990, Terry and I were asked to represent CBS Sports at the NFL Spring Meetings in Orlando. While we were there, we had a thoughtful discussion about his continued frustration at being second string behind Madden. He told me he was going to ask to be moved into the studio to join Greg Gumbel on the pregame, halftime, and postgame shows. I told him I thought he would have greater impact in that role than he would as an analyst. To truly appreciate all that Terry brought to commentating, he had to be seen. His nods, his winks, his laugh, his whole larger-than-life persona worked so much better when he was on camera. Clearly I wasn’t alone in that assessment. He left the booth for the studio and he and Greg enjoyed a terrific four-year run.

  After that stint, he headed for the different pastures of Fox, and truthfully, because Terry was at Fox and I remained at CBS, we traveled in somewhat different circles for a while. We reunited in 2003 when Terry was named the third recipient of the Davey O’Brien Legends Award. Roger Staubach and Bart Starr preceded him. I was asked to present the award to him at the annual dinner held in Fort Worth. I could hardly believe that fourteen years had passed since that afternoon in Canton. It was a great evening honoring a great man.

  Fast-forward another thirteen years. In the midst of the 2016 college football season, my final year helping CBS cover the SEC, Nancy and I were enjoying what had become a ritual for us. We ate our lunch at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Here’s my unsolicited recommendation: great food, generous portions, but expect a bit of a wait on a Sunday. This particular visit was on a Thursday and we were somewhere between Atlanta, our SEC home base, and Birmingham. My cell phone rang.

  “Hey, Bubba. How you doin’? This is Terry.”

  He was visiting the new Cowboys headquarters being constructed north of Dallas in the city of Frisco. His tour guide was Brad Sham, my dear friend and radio partner who had replaced me in 1983. They were chatting about the good old days and my name crept into the conversation. Terry wondered how to reach me, and Brad obliged. For the next five minutes, somewhere just off Interstate 20, Terry and I talked and laughed. He asked to speak to Nancy and she beamed and nearly blushed. It was almost as if Terry had made the intervening years collapse and we were back in Chicago simply trying to see our way through the fog.

  Chapter 9

  The Gang’s All Here

  As is true of any relationship, chemistry and communication are the keys to success. Communication without chemistry is like, well, a lecture on organic chemistry—a bit dry. Chemistry without communication can be fun but not very enlightening. As football broadcasters, our job was to entertain and inform. The pictures could tell only some of the story. With Terry, I knew my role and enjoyed it. He was great at being both entertaining and informative.

  Sad thing is, over time I would rely more and more on the monitor to watch the action. My poor eyesight, even aided by corrective laser surgery and then cataract removal procedures, couldn’t keep up. I began this book by talking about getting the names right, and one of the other lasting memories I have of my time in the NFL is of doing a Vikings game and misidentifying Jake Reed as the receiver who had gotten loose behind the secondary to haul in a long pass. To my chagrin, it was actually No. 88 and not No. 86 who made that reception. I tossed and turned all night over my failure to adhere to one of broadcasting’s cardinal rules. I was the play-by-play guy, after all, and it was incumbent upon me to get the facts straight.

  I don’t know how Terry would have felt about my mistake, but he would have taken it somewhere fun. I can be pretty sure that Dan Fouts, my next partner, would have refrained from saying anything on-air about my eyesight. He would have waited until later to get his digs in. As much as I cherished my relationship with Terry, Dan ranks right up there as a broadcaster and a lifelong friend. One of the reasons why Dan would have given me a pass on that misidentification is that he came to broadcasting with a greater appreciation for the art and craft of it than most. Dan’s father, Bob Fouts, worked in sports television and radio for more than fifty years. For many years he worked in the Bay Area doing 49ers games and local television. I met Bob years before I worked with Dan when I was still doing radio for the Cowboys.

  John Madden was responsible in a way for arranging my first meeting with Dan. As the number one guy, John exerted considerable influence on CBS Sports management. In the off-season before the 1990 frame, John expressed his displeasure with some of CBS Sports activities. He believed that we weren’t focusing enough of our collective resources on pro football. John only did football, of course, and the rest of us play-by-play guys spent the football off-season covering other events. John felt that we needed to have a kind of preseason ourselves. John brought a coach’s mentality to broadcasting. We all needed to be prepared. We all needed to work together toward a specific set of aims and objectives. We needed to have a greater command of the fine points of the game so that we could better teach the American public its nuances. We all needed to attend a summer symposium on football.

  The powers that be agreed and so they flew many of the broadcast teams out to Carmel, California, where all the broadcast teams would meet and share intel and insights about the game we loved. This symposium—and I’m repeating that word because management insisted that we were attending a symposium and not a seminar—would consist of morning presentations and sharing sessions.

  It was really a boondoggle of the highest order. We’d sit around in the morning and try to bluff each other about how much homework we did and then play golf in the afternoon. We did that for five days. I can recall a few of the skulled chip shots I struck but very little of the football talk.

  Dan and I spoke and hit it off. Of course, I had followed his career and done a few of his Chargers games. Famously, Dan was the key pilot in the Chargers offense that came to be known as “Air Corryel.” Offensive coordinator Bill Walsh heavily influenced San Diego’s deep passing attack. That kind of passing game required a quarterback who could stand tall in the pocket to wait for receivers to free themselves or for the tight end to get open. Dan took a pounding, but boy was he prolific. He was the fir
st player to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a season. He did that in 1981 and then repeated that accomplishment the next two seasons as well.

  Dan Fouts attained nearly everything you would want in an NFL career, but he never got to play in the Super Bowl. He came close in 1982. The Chargers squared off in a first-round game against the Dolphins in Miami, a game that entered NFL legends as the Epic in Miami. The Chargers outlasted the Dolphins, 41–38, with Dan throwing for 433 yards while completing 33 of 53 passes. It was one of those hot and humid days in Florida, despite the calendar reading “December.” The following week, in the AFC title game, they lost to the Bengals in Cincinnati. The game-time temperature was 92 degrees lower (accounting for windchill) than it had been in Miami. Thus that game became known as the Freezer Bowl.

  We had no such issues as we strolled the fairways—well, some of us were in them—on Spyglass and Pebble Beach.

  I look back on those days at CBS, which some of you may remember being known as the Tiffany Network, with real fondness. I don’t know if the purse had any strings, but if it did, they untied easily. The following year, John had another brilliant idea. We needed to focus on football. Because the previous year’s intel gathering hadn’t quite gone to plan, like any good coach John devised another scheme. Instead of a large group of forty or fifty going somewhere to “sympose,” we could do small group sessions. Divide and conquer was the idea behind this, I believe.

  After making a smooth transition to working with Dan, who was the consummate professional and a much more straightforward and traditional analyst than Terry, we were going to work together the following season. That meant that, according to Madden’s plan, Dan and I and our producer and director, Mark Wolf and Larry Cavolina, would travel to three NFL training camps. While there, we would interview the head coaches and a few players, observe some practices, and drill down past the usual Xs and Os to what I thought of as the Zs—as in snoring. No matter; duty called. We were assigned to Seattle, Arizona, and Denver.