Not a team logo, but the logo of the National Football League used from the first season as the NFL, in 1921, until 1929. The league was known as the American Professional Football Association when it organized into a single league and began play in 1920, and became the NFL in 1922. Teams came and went in the early years, but some lasted until today, including the Chicago Staleys, who became the Bears, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Cardinals, who currently reside in Arizona.
1963 Topps football card of former pro football defensive back Eddie Meador, who played 12 seasons in the NFL for the Los Angeles Rams. He was a six-time Pro Bowler and was named to the NFL’s All Decade team for the 1960s. He split his career between cornerback and safety, and excelled at both spots. Ram teammate Merlin Olsen once called him “the best defensive back I have ever seen.” He still holds the Rams’ career record for interceptions with 46, for blocked kicks with 10 and for fumble recoveries with 18. He served as the Players’ Association president for 2 years prior to retiring, and is considered to be a player who has been overlooked for Hall of Fame consideration.
For one of this week’s NFL 100 features, we’ll look at a character who left a long and lasting legacy in the league as a player, coach and studio analyst, Mike Ditka. When he joined the Chicago Bears as a rookie tight end in 1961, he proceeded to redefine the position from what was always a blocker, almost an extra lineman next to the tackle, to a legitimate receiving threat. In that rookie year, he caught 58 passes and scored 12 touchdowns, a Bears’ rookie record, and was named NFL Rookie of The Year. He played 5 total seasons with Chicago and was a Pro Bowler in all of them. His rugged style of play earned him the nickname “Iron Mike”, as he not only changed the tight end position with his receiving ability but also was known for his yardage gained after the catch, regularly trucking defensive backs and linebackers on his way to picking up extra yards. A contract dispute with owner George Halas got Ditka traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in 1967. He played there for 2 years and then was traded to Dallas where he played his final 4 seasons. The highlight of his Cowboy days came in 1971 in Super Bowl VI when he scored a touchdown to help the team defeat the Miami Dolphins 24-3 to give legendary coach Tom Landry his first championship.
Mike Ditka, All Pro Bears’ tight end
Ditka retired in 1972 and was immediately hired to join Landry’s coaching staff in Dallas. He spent 9 years there, learning from the best. The Cowboys made the playoffs in 8 of those seasons and won the Super Bowl again in 1977. While serving as an assistant on Landry’s staff, Ditka wrote a letter to Halas, who he had a strained relationship with, saying he would like to return to Chicago as the Bears’ head coach when he was ready. Halas took him up on that request in 1982 when he went out on a limb and hired his old tight end to lead the Bears. Ditka held a team meeting upon taking the job and promised the players that if they stuck with him he would have them “in the dance” within 3 years. By 1985 he delivered. His ’85 Bears club reached “the dance”, the Super Bowl, and demolished the New England Patriots 46-10 in the game. Although it was the only title Ditka would win in Chicago, that ’85 Bears team is considered one of the greatest of all time, especially the defense. They had swagger, led by coach Ditka, his flamboyant quarterback, Jim McMahon, Walter Payton and William “The Refrigerator” Perry and even put together a video, the “Super Bowl Shuffle”, before they had qualified to play in the game. They were a confident bunch.
Tom Landry, Ditka’s coaching mentor
During the 1988 season Ditka suffered a heart attack and was expected to not be available for most of the season. However, he was back on the sideline as an advisor the next game and returned to his full time duties as head coach the following week. A couple of losing seasons in the early 1990s led to his firing in Chicago in 1992. He went on to coach the New Orleans Saints for 3 years, beginning in 1997, but that stint was largely forgettable and was “highlighted” by an ill-fated move in which Ditka traded his entire stock of draft picks to Washington for the rights to running back Rickey Williams, who never panned out in the Crescent City. Overall, it’s hard to think of the NFL’s 100 year history without mentioning Ditka. He and Tom Flores are the only 2 people who won championships as a player, assistant coach and head coach in league history, and Ditka was the first to achieve this. Today he is an icon in Chicago. He owns a chain of restaurants and regularly is on sports talk radio shows in the Windy City. He was a regular football studio analyst on ESPN for years before being dropped for voicing political opinions. Saturday Night Live had a running skit for years featuring Bill Swerski’s Superfans, a group of mythical Bears fans, including George Wendt, who worshipped “Coach Dikka”. Ditka, in 1988, was honored to be the first tight end inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.
Coach Ditka Halloween costumes were once popular in Chicago
Has anyone ever seen the 1963 alternate Chicago Bears’ logo and their former coach, Mike Ditka, in the same room together? Many people say they resemble each other. All joking aside, Ditka not only was a star tight end for the ’63 Bears, who won the NFL Championship, but also went on to coach them to a Super Bowl title following the 1985 season. Other than founder/owner/coach George “Papa Bear” Halas, Ditka may be the man most closely associated with the franchise.
1977 Topps “All Pro” football card of the late Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs in pro football history. Nicknamed “Sweetness”, he played for 13 seasons in the NFL for the Chicago Bears and is second on the list of career rushing leaders behind Emmitt Smith. Payton was a nine-time Pro Bowler and helped the Bears win the Super Bowl in 1985. He was named to the NFL’s All Decade teams for both the 1970s and 1980s. Payton was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993, and an award in his name is given to an NFL player each year for excellence on the field combined with volunteer and charity work. He passed away in 1999.
With the NFL season entering week 7, there is a game scheduled, between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs, which makes for a perfect Throwback Thursday feature for the NFL’s celebration of its’ 100 year history. That game was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and it was a historic event as it was to become the first ever Super Bowl game. The game was retroactively called “Super Bowl I” but in reality at the time it was simply called the AFL/NFL Championship Game, and was considered an afterthought, especially by the members of the established NFL. The game wasn’t sold out, but NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle made sure it received maximum coverage as the networks who aired each league’s games, NBC and CBS, were both allowed to broadcast it. One of Rozelle’s many attributes as commissioner was his ability to recognize how much media coverage had grown the game. The Packers were a powerhouse at the time, dominating their NFL competition, and were considered huge favorites in this game over the Chiefs, who had beaten the two-time AFL champion Buffalo Bills to reach this point. NFL people had ridiculed the new league as a “Mickey Mouse” operation made up of NFL rejects. Packer coach Vince Lombardi was extremely nervous about the game and how his team would approach it. He realized that although his club was superior, the Chiefs were well coached by Hank Stram and were made up of players who were also professional and would be highly motivated to prove they belonged on the same field with his team. Most of his players may have considered winning the NFL title as the pinnacle of their season and view this game as nothing more than an exhibition. Lombardi gave his team a short motivational speech prior to the game, telling them they “should be proud of their profession and that they could do a lot for the reputation of the league by playing their best” on this day.
Coaches Stram and Lombardi meet before the game
The game itself was competitive in the first half. The Chiefs may have thought they caught an unexpected break when Packer flanker Boyd Dowler re-aggravated an injury he had suffered in the NFL title game and was forced out. However, his replacement, wily old veteran Max McGee, was ready for the moment, even though some of his teammates claimed he was hung over from partying the night before. He opened the scoring by making a spectacular one-handed grab of a Bart Starr pass and carrying it into the end zone for a 37 yard touchdown. K.C. quarterback Len Dawson engineered a scoring drive early in the second quarter, ending it with a 7 yard toss to his fullback, Curtis McClinton, to tie the game. Jim Taylor scored on a 14 yard run and the Chiefs’ Mike Mercer connected on a field goal and Green Bay went into the half leading 14-10. The halftime show for the game was nothing like the extravaganzas put on today on Super Bowl Sunday, but Rozelle did kick up the entertainment a notch from a regular season game by adding jazz trumpeter Al Hirt, 300 pigeons being released, 10,000 balloons and a couple of guys in jet packs wearing football uniforms flying around the stadium as the bands played.
Flying jet pack football players at halftime
While the Chiefs had stood proud by keeping the game close for a half, the Packers asserted their dominance in the second half. Starr, who would be named the game’s Most Valuable Player, orchestrated a pair of third quarter scoring drives, the first ending on a 5 yard run by Elijah Pitts and the other on another TD toss to McGee, this time from 13 yards out, to extend the Packer lead to 28-10. McGee, who was used sparingly in the regular season, had a career day, totaling 138 yards and the 2 TDs on 7 catches. The Green Bay defense held Dawson and the Chiefs in check the rest of the day, and Pitts scored again from a yard out to seal the deal for his team at 35-10. One of the “highlights” of the second half came when Chiefs’ safety Fred “The Hammer” Williamson was knocked unconscious when his head collided with the knee of a Packer player. The flamboyant Williamson had boasted of planning to use his famed forearm “hammer” to knock multiple players out of the game, but he wound up on the receiving end of an errant blow instead. The NFL moguls and pundits got what they wanted out of the game as the Packers were dominant in the end. Lombardi even added to the fire, stating afterwards that even though the Chiefs were an excellent, well coached club, he thought there were several NFL teams who were better. It would take a couple of years for the AFL to be able to compete, but by Super Bowl III, when Joe Namath and his New York Jets delivered a “guarantee” and an upset win over the Colts, they gained their measure of pride.
Super Bowl I MVP Bart Starr
A logo from the game that became known as Super Bowl I, played on January 15, 1967 between the NFL champion Green Bay Packers and the NFL’s best, the Kansas City Chiefs. At the time, the title game was a brand new concept, developed as part of an agreed merger of the two leagues, and was named the AFL/NFL Championship Game, only later, before the fifth game of it’s kind, to be called the Super Bowl. The Packers won the game 35-10 and their quarterback, Bart Starr, was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
1968 Topps football card of former quarterback Len Dawson, who played 19 seasons of pro football. After a few seasons struggling as a backup in the NFL with Pittsburgh and Cleveland, he signed with the AFL’s Dallas Texans due to a relationship with a former college coach, Hank Stram. Dawson would then go on to put together a Hall of Fame career with that franchise, which moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. He led the club to 3 AFL championships and a Super Bowl IV upset victory over Minnesota. He was a seven-time All Star and named to the All AFL team for it’s 10 year existence, and was enshrined in Canton in 1987. Dawson became sports director of a local Kansas City television station while still playing for the Chiefs, and continued in sportscasting after his playing days ended in 1975. He worked as a game analyst for NBC’s NFL coverage for 6 years, co-hosted the HBO show Inside The NFL and served as an analyst on Chiefs’ radio broadcasts until 2017.
Our topic today for the NFL 100 post is a look at highly successful defensive coaches, or coordinators as they’ve come to be known today, who never quite succeeded when given their opportunity to become head coaches. Some of the greatest defensive minds went on to make it big as head men, including Tom Landry, Don Shula, Chuck Noll, George Allen and arguably the greatest of all time, Bill Belichick. “The Hoodie” almost made the list of failures after his brief tenure in Cleveland ended disastrously, but he was put in a bad situation there with owner Art Modell announcing he was moving the team to Baltimore. Belichick landed on his feet in New England and to this day is a highly successful head coach. So what coaches who had Hall of Fame worthy careers as defensive assistants never quite made the leap to success as top men? The list is long. We’ll start with Joel Collier. He was a bespectacled, mild mannered assistant under Lou Saban with the AFL’s Buffalo Bills in the 1960s and later guided the Denver Broncos “Orange Crush” defense to a Super Bowl. The Bills won back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and ’65, mostly on the strength of their defense, the best in the AFL’s 10 year existence. He got a shot at the top job in Buffalo after Saban abruptly quit but failed miserably. When Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins were dominating the NFL in the early 1970s, one of the main components of their success was the play of their “No Name” defense, which suffocated opponents and got its’ nickname due to the fact that there were no star players on the unit. The man who coached that stifling defense was Bill Arnsparger. His success earned him the opportunity to be the head coach of the New York Giants, but in three years at the helm there, his teams posted a dismal 7-28 record and after being fired he returned to the Dolphins to work under Shula. He spent the next eight years there overseeing a defense that acquired another nickname, the “Killer B’s” due to many members of that unit having names that began with the letter B.
Bill Arnsparger and The Killer B’s
When the Pittsburgh Steelers were dominating the NFL in the 1970s, winning 4 Super Bowls, the one constant that drove that team was it’s defense, aptly known as “The Steel Curtain”. Even though their head coach, Noll, came from a defensive background, it was widely accepted that the man who orchestrated that unit was defensive coordinator Bud Carson. He was the coordinator for the team’s defense for the first 2 of the championships, then moved on to become D-coordinator for the Rams, Colts, Chiefs and Jets, all while waiting patiently for a shot at a top job. His chance finally came when Modell hired him to coach the Browns in 1989. He did well his first year as the Browns advanced to the AFC Championship game, only to lose to the John Elway-led Denver Broncos. Modell didn’t show him any patience, however. Carson was fired midway through the next season after the Browns started out 2-7. Although his overall coaching mark for the year and a half he got was slightly under .500, it’s tough to say that Carson was a failure. Unlike Belichick in the 1990s, he never got the chance to prove himself in another job. We’ll treat our next subject on this topic as a tandem. It’s the father/son duo of Buddy and Rex Ryan. Buddy was the coordinator of one of the most prolific defenses in NFL history, the 1985 Chicago Bears. The success of his “46 defense” got him a job as head man in Philadelphia, where he lasted five seasons. Rex Ryan was coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens defense that was dominant for years and helped win the Super Bowl following the 2000 season. Rex eventually parlayed his performance into head coaching jobs with the Jets and Bills. Unfortunately, neither of the Ryans was ever able to raise his teams above the level of mediocrity when given the chance to run the whole show.
Buddy Ryan was well loved by his Bears’ defensive unit
There is one coach who was recently elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame mainly for his work as a long-time defensive coordinator – Dick LeBeau. Actually, he deserved Hall consideration for his playing career alone, as he played 14 seasons and was a top cornerback. His story is a little different than the men we previously featured. He was defensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2000 but was thrust into the job of interim head coach when Bruce Coslet resigned. He held the job until 2002 but a paltry 12-33 record got him axed. He returned to being a D-coordinator, for the Steelers, and went on to have tremendous success. He never got another shot at being a head coach, but he may have been content to “stay in his lane” as a successful assistant. One name that shouldn’t really be mentioned here is Wade Phillips. He has followed the same path as the others on the list, having “failed” as a head coach but having great success as a defensive coordinator, to this day in fact, as he is currently guiding the Los Angeles Rams’ defense. He has been the head man for 5 different teams in interim and permanent status, but in my mind never really was shown much patience by any of the owners he worked for. His overall record as a head coach is 83-69, a pretty healthy winning percentage. Dom Capers has been a highly successful defensive coach over the years, but hasn’t had success when given a chance to be the head coach. Part of the reason for that is that his only two opportunities came with expansion franchises. Others who have not taken advantage of head coaching opportunities but who excelled as defensive assistants are Romeo Crennel, a Belichick disciple, Rod Marinelli, Jim Schwartz and Gregg Williams. The art of hiring a top head coach is something NFL owners over the years have failed at many times, and in some ways the NFL over 100 years was bound to have more failure than success among its’ teams. The men mentioned in this article, for certain, should be remembered more for the innovation and success they have brought to the game rather than their failure, which is really more of a failure on their owners’ part than theirs.
The original logo of the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins, used from their inaugural season in 1966, when they joined the AFL, until 1973. The franchise was originally owned by Joe Robbie and actor Danny Thomas, and struggled as an expansion team until they hired Don Shula in 1970. They appeared in 3 consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1970s, winning 2 of them. Some of their players from the early era include John Stofa, Willie West, Wahoo McDaniel, Bob Griese, Paul Warfield, Larry Csonka, Larry Little, Bob Kuechenberg, Jake Scott, Nick Buoniconti and Manny Fernandez.