It’s not a team logo, but the logo of the 2011 Grey Cup Championship game, the Canadian Football League equivalent of the Super Bowl. The iconic title game will celebrate it’s 100th anniversary when it’s played in 2012 in Toronto. Toronto has hosted the most Grey Cups, 45, and the hometown Argonauts have won 15 titles, most of any CFL franchise. Some notable players who’ve won the game’s MVP award are Doug Flutie, Warren Moon, Tom Clements, Rocket Ismail, Jeff Garcia and Tom Cousineau.
1966 Topps football card of former New York Jet fullback Matt Snell, who was a star runner for the team for 9 seasons. Although Joe Namath gets the lion’s share of credit for the Jets’ collossal upset win over the Colts in Super Bowl III, mostly due to delivering on his guarantee of a victory, it was Snell who was the major offensive factor in the win. The Jets played a ball control offense that day, mixing in play action passes by Namath with a good running game, keyed by Snell’s 121 yards rushing. He also scored the Jets’ only touchdown in the game on a four yard run. After retiring, he appeared in the first Miller Lite beer commercial, and currently owns a restaurant in New York City.
Each year as the Super Bowl approaches, the television sports programs spend a lot of time reminiscing about the heroes of past games, players like Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, and even Tom Brady. But over the next couple of days during this Super Bowl week, I’m going to salute some of the players who battled in losing causes for their teams in pro football’s biggest game. Most of the time, there’s a fine line that separates the winning teams from the losers, maybe a turnover or a lucky break somewhere during the game, and the effort that players on the losing side put forth get lost in oblivion as time passes. In the early years of the Super Bowl, no team suffered the agony of defeat like the Minnesota Vikings did.
Joe Kapp
The Vikings hold the distinction of having lost 4 of the first 11 Super Bowls, but the teams they sent to the big game were memorable. They were a dominant force in the NFC in the late 1960s and on into the mid-’70s. Bud Grant, who coached the franchise for all four of those losses, was a solid, well-respected football man. Their defense was the pride of the NFL, led by the “Purple People Eaters” front four. But on the team that lost the first of the four Super Bowls, the heart and soul of the club was a castoff former Canadian League quarterback who revived his pro career when he joined the Vikings – Joe Kapp. He was an unselfish leader who directed the Minnesota attack to an amazing regular season, when the club went 12-2 and scored over 50 points in three different games. In the Super Bowl against the Chiefs, however, Kapp was sub-par, throwing 2 costly interceptions as his team was not only upset, but looked totally overmatched.
Fran Tarkenton
Three more times in the 1970s, Grant led the Vikings back to the Super Bowl, this time led by the greatest scrambling QB in league history, Fran Tarkenton. Unfortunately, the Vikings ran into perhaps the three most dominant teams of the decade in those games, losing to Miami, Pittsburgh and Oakland. Tarkenton, a Hall of Famer, was the NFL’s Don Quixote chasing windmills in those games, the ultimate warrior battered and defeated but never giving up. He didn’t play particularly well in any of the games, and took a lot of criticism, but history shows that the defenses the Vikings faced in those games – Miami’s “No Name” defense, Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain” and the always brutal Raider defense, were three of the best in the history of the league.
Sammy White, floored by Jack Tatum
Against Oakland, another forgotten player, Viking receiver Sammy White, took a hit on a pass over the middle from the Raiders’ Jack Tatum that is probably the most wicked blow delivered in the long history of the game. The hit was so hard that White’s helmet flew off and he was momentarily dazed, but he stayed in the game and wound up with 5 catches for 77 yards and a touchdown.
This is an “alternate” logo of the Buffalo Bills football team, first used in the 1965 season, when the club won its’ second consecutive American Football League championship. It was the last year the AFL title was won before the winner advanced to the Super Bowl, and although the Bills returned to the title game the following year, they were soundly beaten by the Kansas City Chiefs, who represented the league against Green Bay in the inaugural Super Bowl. Contrary to the wide open image the AFL had at the time, the Bills dominated the league with a smothering defense in their 2 championship seasons of 1964 and ’65, led by players like Tom Sestak, Booker Edgerson, Mike Stratton and George Saimes.
1986 Topps football card of a player who was a member of one of the most memorable Super Bowl teams of all time, former Chicago Bear defensive lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry. An immediate fan favorite when he joined the Bears, Perry played defensive tackle and also was used at fullback, to lead block for Walter Payton and occasionally to carry the ball. He even scored a touchdown in the Bears’ Super Bowl win over the Patriots. That Bears team, coached by Mike Ditka, was full of characters, led by Perry and rebel quarterback Jim McMahon. They even released the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video before they qualified for the game. Perry wound up playing 10 seasons in the NFL, and has the distinction of having the largest Super Bowl ring of any player in history to win one.
I haven’t done a “list” post in awhile, so to kick off Super Bowl week, I’ll list the 5 most memorable NFL title games from the Super Bowl era. There were lots of great championship games played before the Super Bowl era began following the 1966 season, including the “Greatest Game Ever Played”, the 1958 sudden death overtime game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. Some Super Bowl games were considered for this list but didn’t make the cut, like Super Bowl VII, which was historic since it capped off the Miami Dolphins’ perfect 17-0 season, Super Bowl XLI, when Tony Dungy became the first African American coach to win the game, and Super Bowl XLIII, the classic matchup between the Steelers and Cardinals won by a late Ben Roethlisberger to Santonio Holmes touchdown pass. This list, however, is made up of the games that are most memorable to me. Here it is, in no particular order:
1. Super Bowl I – it wasn’t technically a Super Bowl – it was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, and was played in front of a sparse crowd in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The NFL’s powerhouse champs, Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, dispatched the upstarts from the AFL, the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. The game was carried on 2 television networks, and was considered mostly a curiosity since the NFL was assumed to be a superior league. It probably was at that point, but that perception would change a couple of years later. It’s hard to imagine today, but at the time it was astonishing to see teams from the rival leagues actually lined up against each other on the same field, which is what makes this one very memorable to me.
2. Super Bowl III – it’s pretty much common knowledge that this game changed history. The New York Jets, led by brash young quarterback Joe Namath, stunned the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, 16-7 to give the AFL its’ first win over the established league after a pair of one-sided Green Bay wins. The win by the Jets was amazing for a couple of reasons. First, they probably weren’t even the best team in the AFL that year, but they surprised the Oakland Raiders in the AFL title game to advance to the Super Bowl. Secondly, Namath guaranteed the win ahead of time, despite being 18 point underdogs. Then the Jets went out and backed up the talk with the huge upset.
3. Super Bowl VI – this wasn’t a very exciting game by any means, but it’s memorable to me because it was the first championship won by Dallas Cowboy coach Tom Landry, who had led the organization since its’ inception in 1960 and built it into an NFL powerhouse. However, they developed a reputation as a team that “couldn’t win the big one”, as they continually failed in the playoffs. When they lost an error-filled Super Bowl V the previous year in a game that was clearly there for the taking, the pressure on Landry and his team grew even more intense. The Cowboys totally dominated a young Miami Dolphin team, 24-3, on this day to get the monkey off their back, and the scene of a smiling Landry being carried off the field by his players (pictured above) after the win is one I’ll never forget. Landry was one of the great men who helped build the game into what it is today, and it was satisfying to see him cement his legend that day.
4. Super Bowl XXV – being a Bills’ fan, this game didn’t end the way I hoped it would, but to me it’s still the best Super Bowl game ever played. It’s remembered as the “Wide Right” game, as Scott Norwood missed a 47 yard field goal as time expired, giving the Giants a 20-19 win. It is still the only time in Super Bowl history that the game was won or lost on the game’s last play. New England’s Adam Vinatieri won a couple of title games with field goals, but the games were tied when he made those kicks, so the pressure wasn’t the same. Norwood was put in a bad spot, since his history showed that he had a less than 50% chance of making the kick. In reality, the story of the game was the Giants’ ability to control the clock and keep the Bills’ high-powered offense off the field, just as they had the previous week in the NFC title game against Joe Montana and a powerful 49er team.
5. Super Bowl XLII – this game was historic also, since the Patriots came in with an undefeated 18-0 record and were favored over the New York Giants, who had battled just to qualify for the postseason. The Pats, led by Tom Brady, were an offensive juggernaut throughout the season, but the Giants somehow figured out how to apply pressure on him and succeeded in slowing down the league’s best offense. Unheralded Giant QB Eli Manning led a great fourth quarter drive that resulted in the game-winning touchdown in a shocking 17-14 New York win. That drive included the play pictured above, when little known backup receiver David Tyree made an incredible catch to keep the drive alive, cradling the ball against his helmet as he fell to the ground.
Here is an “unofficial” logo of the team that is a four-time Super Bowl champion, the Green Bay Packers. The Packers earned the nickname of Titletown, USA when they won 5 NFL championships in the 1960s under coach Vince Lombardi, including the first 2 Super Bowls. There can be little argument about whether the small Wisconsin town deserves the name, since they have won the most league titles, 13, of any franchise if you include the pre-Super Bowl era. Green Bay is also the only NFL franchise to win championships in 3 consecutive years, having done it twice, 1929-31 and 1965-67.
To kick off Super Bowl week, this is a 1969 Topps football card of the only player in Super Bowl history to be named the game’s MVP after playing for the losing team, Dallas Cowboy linebacker Chuck Howley. In Super Bowl V, Howley intercepted 2 passes and recovered a fumble in a losing effort, and was named MVP. In a sign of the way players felt toward their profession at the time, he refused to accept the award, since his team had lost. The Cowboys won the Super Bowl the following year and Howley was again outstanding, but teammate Roger Staubach was the MVP. As for his career, Howley was drafted by the Chicago Bears and played 2 years for them before suffering a major knee injury that forced him to retire. He came out of retirement in 1961 to play for the expansion Cowboys, and it turned out to be a great decision, as he played another 13 seasons for them. He was a six time Pro Bowler, and one of many former players who probably deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but isn’t.
Ken Hitchcock, Larry Robinson, Bob Hartley, Pat Burns, John Tortorella, Peter Laviolette and Randy Carlyle. What’s the significance of the names on this list? They are the names of the NHL coaches who won Stanley Cups and have been fired by the teams they won those Cups with, in the time since Lindy Ruff started as the Buffalo Sabres’ head coach in 1997. Ruff himself took Buffalo to the Cup finals in 1999, where they lost to the Dallas Stars in a series that included the famous foot-in-the-crease “No Goal” game. In addition to the 7 names above, there are 8 other coaches who did what Ruff did, took their teams to the Cup Finals and lost, who have also been fired. That amounts to an extraordinary length of “rope” that has been extended to Ruff during his tenure as Sabres’ coach. When he was hired, Ruff was not a popular choice, and was actually a victim of a lot of fan backlash because the team had fired the extremely popular Ted Nolan, who had made a habit of extracting maximum effort from rosters with minimum talent. Ruff eventually won the fans over, by doing the same thing Nolan did – winning and having playoff success with teams that lacked any stars. Ruff’s teams were routinely referred to as “the hardest working team in hockey”, especially during the Michael Peca, Rob Ray, Brad May, Matt Barnaby era. Ruff has managed to win playoff series against teams that dominated the Sabres in the postseason in their past – teams like Boston and Philadelphia.
But that’s part of the reason why I feel the time has come for new owner Terry Pegula to part ways with Ruff and try to move in a different direction. The bar has been set too low in this city. Pegula, when he bought the team, proclaimed that the sole reason for the Sabres’ existence would be to win the Cup. Consider this statistic – Ruff, in January of 2011, won his 501st game with the Sabres, becoming the winningest coach in NHL history with the same franchise, surpassing former Montreal coach Toe Blake and former New York Islander coach Al Arbour. The glaring difference is that both Blake and Arbour won multiple Cups with their teams, while Ruff has yet to accomplish the feat.
During a recent broadcast on the new NBC Sports Network of a Sabres road game in Chicago, which was a sorry effort by Buffalo, the national announcers mentioned that the Sabre bench was full of players “with thousand yard stares” and intimated that the team seemed to lack effort, a trademark of previous Ruff teams. Remember, these comments came from neutral national announcers, not “homers” Rick Jeanneret, Harry Neale and Mike Robitaille, who tend to look for a positive spin in almost every situation. Those comments seem to imply that Ruff has lost the team, that they’ve stopped listening to him. In a post-game interview, a reporter questioned why young players are routinely punished with less ice time when they make mistakes, while free agent prize Ville Leino was let off the hook for an ill-advised between the legs pass that ended up in a turnover and a Chicago goal. Ruff’s gruff response of “you coach!” tells me that he not only is feeling the pressure of the continuous losing, but has no answers either. I’ve followed sports for a long time and my experience has been that type of response is usually a sign that a coach is on the way out.
If Pegula should decide to make a switch, what options does he have that would be better than Ruff? Bringing in a total outsider wouldn’t work (although Anaheim fired Carlyle, brought in Bruce Boudreau and has righted its’ ship). The team had a couple of outstanding replacements in their system in recent years with Randy Cunneyworth and Kevin Dineen, but they are both coaching, in Montreal and Florida, respectively. The team’s problems have been mostly due to lack of offense, so on the current staff James Patrick and Teppo Numminen, both being former defensemen, don’t seem to be good fits. That leaves Kevyn Adams, who is supposed to be a rising star in the organization but has little coaching experience. If it were my choice, I’d go with him and hope to catch lightning in a bottle. Putting Adams in charge would be a risky, bold move, but let’s face it, this stale organization needs to be shaken up.
Logo of a former professional hockey team that played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association from 1922 until 1926, the Victoria Cougars. In 1925, the Cougars actually won the Stanley Cup, and are the last non-NHL team to win the Cup. Coached by the legendary Lester Patrick, the team defeated the Montreal Canadiens to win that championship. Some of their notable players were Jocko Anderson, Hec Fowler, Frank Foyston, Harry Meeking and Jack Walker.