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                                                   1964 NFL champion Cleveland Browns  

                                                  1964 AFL champion Buffalo Bills                      

The passing of Buffalo Bills’ legendary fullback Cookie Gilchrist this week got me to reminiscing about the championship team that he played on in 1964. I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if the Super Bowl had been played between the NFL and AFL champions right from the outset, from the AFL’s inaugural season in 1960. In 1960, the matchup would’ve been the Houston Oilers, who, like all of the other AFL teams that year, amounted to an expansion team, against the one-year wonder Philadelphia Eagles, a veteran team with a lot of experience. I’d have to say that wily old NFL vets like Norm Van Brocklin and Chuck Bednarik, coming off a hard-fought win over Vince Lombardi’s Packers, would have won easily. Green Bay won the next 2 NFL titles, and would’ve faced Houston and then the Dallas Texans, in the “Super Bowl”. They would’ve beaten both. The Texans became the Kansas City Chiefs and a few years later in the actual first Super Bowl, Green Bay handled them quite easily. The matchup in 1963 would have been intriguing, pitting the Monsters of The Midway, the bruising Chicago Bears, with a take-no-prisoners defense, against Sid Gillman’s high-flying San Diego Chargers, who destroyed the Boston Patriots 51-10 in the AFL title game. I see this game playing out this way – the Chargers were shut down a year later by Buffalo in the AFL title game, and a 1963 Super Bowl probably would have turned out similarly, with the Bears winning. The Bills won in 1965 with defense and a battered team that was riddled with injuries, and would have had to face Lombardi’s Packers in the Super Bowl, so they likely would’ve lost. I think the matchup that would’ve occurred in ’64, when my 2 favorite teams at the time, the Bills and Cleveland Browns, were champs of their respective leagues, is the game that would have been a great one. The 2 teams, on paper, matched up well. On offense, both were led by cerebral quarterbacks – Cleveland’s Dr. Frank Ryan, and Buffalo’s Jack Kemp. Jim Brown led the Cleveland rushing attack, but the Bills had a similar weapon in Gilchrist, who only played for Buffalo 3 seasons but was dominant in ’64. Cleveland had an underrated defense – not great but good enough to shut out the highly favored Baltimore Colts, 27-0, in the NFL title game. They would have entered the Super Bowl riding a wave of momentum. Buffalo’s defense, however, was dominant, and especially adept at stopping the run. It would’ve been great to see how they fared in trying to stop Brown. If I had to guess how I think this game would have played out, I’d say that it would have been a highly competitive match, with little scoring. Buffalo’s defense would have slowed Brown down, and lockdown corner Booker Edgerson’s job would’ve been to cover Gary Collins, who torched the Colt secondary in the NFL title game. Edgerson would definitely have risen to the occasion, but somewhere late in the game, Ryan would have found a way to single up his other receiver, flanker Paul Warfield, on the Bills’ other corner, talented rookie Butch Byrd, and hit the fleet Warfield with a big play pass, most likely on Warfield’s signature route – the stop and go pattern – and Cleveland would’ve eked out a hard-fought win. On the other hand, maybe the game would’ve come down to a last second field goal, and Buffalo had a distinct advantage there – with pro football’s first soccer-style kicker, Pete Gogolak. There’s no way the football gods would’ve allowed the unspeakable in that situation, is there? The unspeakable being the “original” wide right? All this is speculation , of course, and filled with shoulda, woulda, coulda arguments. I’m betting the players on both teams to this day are confident that they would have been victorious.

First of all, Marshawn Lynch deserves congratulations for his fantastic touchdown run against New Orleans on Saturday in the NFC Wild Card game, which was the play that basically buried the defending champions in what has to be one of the most stunning upsets in NFL playoff history. The Seahawks won the weak NFC West division with a 7-9 record, and are the first team in league history to qualify for the playoffs with a losing record. After a week of ridicule from the national media, with the general message being that they didn’t belong in the tournament, Pete Carroll’s underdog Hawks played an inspired game and pulled out a shocking win at home. I’m really happy for Lynch’s success, and it’s good that his “Beast Mode” style of running, which never surfaced in Buffalo, came out in full force on that one play, but in my mind the play is another glaring example of what I feel is the biggest problem with the NFL today – poor tackling and on some teams – even supposed contenders – the almost total lack of basic defensive fundamentals when it comes to tackling. Watch a highlight of Lynch’s run, and you’ll see numerous examples of Saints’ players standing around, and quitting on the play when it appears that their teammates have Lynch contained, only to wind up flat-footed and embarrassed when Lynch winds up breaking the tackle. The Saints won the Super Bowl last season because their defense was able to create turnovers in bunches, but they have never been a physical defense, and were unmasked on Saturday by a much weaker opponent. In the game that ended the New York Giants’ playoff hopes – the shocking comeback win by the Eagles in which DeSean Jackson returned a punt for a touchdown – there was a Giant player who was close enough to catch Jackson near the goal line on the play, but that player quit on the play, and as a result, Jackson hot-dogged his way completely across the field before crossing the goal line, an antic that in my mind should have been flagged as an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The attitude of a lot of today’s players can be summed up by this statement, attributed to Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel: “They pay me to intercept passes, not to make tackles.” Oh, really? A defensive player saying he isn’t responsible for making tackles? No wonder Bill Belichick got rid of him years ago, even though he was supposedly a Pro Bowl caliber player. One playoff game I’m looking forward to this weekend is the Ravens – Steelers matchup in Pittsburgh. When they played in the postseason in 2008, it was one of the most physical, bruising defensive games, by both teams, I remember watching in a long time. It’s a game that shapes up as a highlight reel defensive game – the type coaches around the league should be required to show their own players as an example of how the game is supposed to be played on the defensive side of the ball.

The final week of the NFL regular season was unpredictable as expected, and once again my record was a mediocre 8-8, which means I fell short of my goal to keep the “wrong” side of the ledger out of triple digits. The final record was a respectable 152 right and 103 wrong. Here are the picks for this weekend’s Wild Card playoff games:

New York Jets at Indianapolis – traditionally, the Colts do better in the postseason when they struggle to get in than they do when they wrap up their spot early, but on a hunch I’m going to pick the Jets to pull an upset and avenge last year’s AFC Championship game loss to the Colts.

New Orleans at Seattle – the Seahawks became the first team in NFL history to make the playoffs with a losing record, winning the pathetic NFC West crown at 7-9. They should be defeated soundly by the defending Super Bowl champion Saints, but with nothing to lose and playing at home, will probably keep the game close. The Saints should pull out a win eventually though.

Baltimore at Kansas City – the Chiefs have home field advantage, but not much playoff experience, while the Ravens are playoff tested and have a track record of being playoff road warriors. I’ll go with Baltimore to win a close, low-scoring game.

Green Bay at Philadelphia – Mike Vick was the comeback player of the year this season, but teams began figuring out how to stop him late in the year – by pressuring him. Green Bay has the horses on defense, led by Clay Matthews, to force him into mistakes. I have a hunch that Aaron Rodgers is going to outplay him, and that the Packers will win a tough road game.