DEL SHOFNER: THE FOOTBALL OF MY YOUTH & THE HALL OF FAME

When I was a kid my first favourite pro football player was Ray Berry, the end who was Johnny Unitas' favourite target on the Colts. In fact, that may have gone right back to the 1958 championship game, which I watched with the men at my uncle's house, while the kids played elsewhere. Perhaps I knew then I was fated to be an end. It lasted long enough so that, when I was elevated to the varsity in high school, I somehow managed to get Berry's number, 82, to wear.

But by that time, 1965, my favourite receiver was someone from the AFL, Lance Alworth.We didn't see many AFL games, especially not from San Diego, but it didn't take many views to make you a fan of Bambi. We did, however, get the Giants' games out of New York, and in that interregnum between Berry and Alworth, I became a huge fan of the Giants' Del Shofner, who died a couple of weeks ago. His death didn't receive as much attention, not even in New York, as I would have expected, but that reflects a strange phenomenon: Shofner, who was one of the two starting receivers on the NFL's official all-decade team for the Sixties, has been consistently passed over by Hall of Fame voters, just as he was by obituary writers almost everywhere except the New York Times. And this is something I find hard to understand, as I think he is the most compelling candidate at end from the pre-passing era.

Delbert Shofner was a quiet star, and perhaps that's part of why he didn't attract more attention. Listed at 6-3 185 he was what you would call lanky (his teammates called him 'Slim' or 'Blade'), and he was handsome in a very Texas way; he came from Center, Texas and you could have cast him as a bit player in Hud, or Junior Bonner, and he would have fit right in. He looked a bit like the country singer Jimmy Dean. In fact, as the NFL moved to the forefront of the TV sports world, the New York ad men who were fixated on players in New York (or do you think it a coincidence that stars Frank Gifford and Kyle Rote and kicker Pat Summerall were early entries into broadcasting, with the networks centered in New York?) chose Shofner to be one of the models for the Marlboro Man cigarette ads, although his teammate Charley Conerly got more of them in the end. But though high-profile helps your HoF chances, there's more to it than that.

Shofner played halfback at Baylor, like many other future NFL receivers. As the rules dictated in the Fifties, he played both ways. He also played basketball, baseball and ran track, where he was a conference champion sprinter. In the 1957 Sugar Bowl, Baylor, 8-2 and ranked 11^th in the country, upset second-ranked and undefeated Tennessee 13-7, in the final New Year's Day game. Shofner's 54 yard run set up Baylor's first score; he was named the game's MVP of the biggest upset of the year.

The Rams drafted him with the 11^th pick of the first round, and as a rookie he played cornerback, starting most of the season. In 1958, he was moved to flanker (listed as a halfback, but generally playing what we now call the Z spot), and in 12 games, with Billy Wade the primary quarterback in Sid Gillman's offense, he caught 51 passes for 1,097 yards, 21.5 per catch, and 8 TDs. This was a Big Thing; Don Hutson had registered the NFL's first 1,000 yard receiving season in 1942, and only 12 others had done it before Shofner. He was voted first team All-Pro and went to the Pro Bowl.

The Rams' big star in 1958 was halfback 'Jaguar' Jon Arnett, from USC,another of my early favourites, who ran for 683 yards and had 494 more receiving, as well as 554 more on kick returns. BTW Shofner also did the punting, averaging 41.2 yards. The Rams went 8-4, their best year under Gillman (who would go on to coach Alworth and the Chargers in the AFL), and you might argue that Shofner's success was as important to Sid's ideas as anything that went on with the Clark Shaugnessy Rams in the early Fifties. It may also have had something to do with Shofner's style. He rank with a jerky sort of sprinter's motion, a little like Crazy Legs Hirsch, which made it look like he was always going to go into a cut. He could catch over the middle, but once he'd got a step on a defender deep, he turned into an elegant catcher of the long ball, extending arms and making over the shoulder catches which, watching on tape now, remind me of Randy Moss.

In 1959 Shofner fell 64 yards short of recording a second 1,000 yard season, but he again was first-team All-Pro. In 1960 he was held back by leg injuries and ulcers. He played only a couple of games at receiver and corner, but continued as the punter. Something about the nature of the injuries put off the Rams, or maybe it was the switch to Bob Waterfield as head coach (with ex Rams' coach Hamp Pool and end Tom Fears as his offensive assistants) but they basically gave up on him. Interestingly, in 1960, Waterfield's former co-QB on the Rams, Norm Van Brocklin, led the Eagles to the NFL title.

That title's signature moment came against the New York Giants, in the game where Chuck Bednarik put Frank Gifford out of the game with a crunching tackle. You've seen the photo, I'm sure. Gifford was forced to miss the 1961, and the Giants, under new head coach Allie Sherman, were looking to upgrade their offense. They had already traded tackle Lou Cordileone to the 49ers for QB Y.A. Tittle, and Tittle recommended they pick up Shofner. They sent two draft picks to the Rams, and Shofner and Tittle clicked immediately.

In 1961, with the season expanded to 14 games, Shofner caught 68 passes for 1,125 yards and 11 TDs. In 1962, with Gifford back at flanker and Shofner as split end (the X position) he caught fewer passes (53) for more yards (1,133) and 12 scores. And in 1963 it was 64/1181/9. The Giants went to the championship game each year, losing to the Packers in 61 and 62 and the Bears in 63—all in games with less than ideal passing conditions. It's interesting to note here than Shofner became the first player to register 1,000 yard seasons three years in a row; but many of his obits said 1961's 1,125 made him the first tO ever have two 1,000 yard seasons. Which is odd, because I believe Fears did it in '49 and '50 with the Rams, and Harlon Hill in '54 and '55 with the Bears. Art Powell with Oakland and Alworth would do three in a row in the AFL (Alworth would crack the barrier seven times in the Sixties) but not until Charlie Joiner in the late 70s and James Lofton in the 80s would anyone else do three in a row in the NFL.

In 1964 it all fell apart for the Giants and Shofner. The team was aging; Tittle was 38, Gifford 34, Alex Webster 33; on defense Andy Robustelli was 39 and they'd traded away star MLB Sam Huff. Shofner's ulcers and leg problems returned. He played four more seasons, but managed only 21 starts and 54 catches. Homer Jones became the Giants' designated deep threat, but after Tittle's retirement, Gary Wood, Earl Morrall, Tom Kennedy and finally Fran Tarkenton couldn't make the most of what they had. Shofner retired after the 1967 season.

As I said, he was voted to the All-Decade team, but although the other first-team receiver, Charlie Taylor is in the Hall, he's barely had a look. I think a few things are to blame for that. He was always a quiet star, even in the high-profile atmosphere of New York. His three great years with the Giants resulted in no titles. And as time went on the AFL tended to provide the idea of glamour receivers from that decade, and the second-team all-decade choices from the NFL were Gary Collins and Boyd Dowler. Both were tall flankers, typical of the run-first decade, and I get the sense Shofner is lumped in with them (not that either was a slouch). But you have Alworth and another typical Texan Don Maynard (oddly, apart from being Joe Namath's favourite) in the Hall and I'd take Shofner over Maynard in a Texas minute.

But two factors apply. One was Shofner's best years straddling the decades, and coming with different teams. I believe Hall of Fame voters don't even remember his years in LA. The more crucial factor may be the shortness of Shofner's peak. One year as a DB, a full season lost to, and his last four year curtailed greatly by, injuries. That leaves him with only five quality years. But what quality! Four 1,000 yard seasons and one over 900, at a time when that was still rare. In his three great years with the Giants he had 32 TD catches to go with 1,100 plus yards per season. And most important, he was a Pro Bowler and first-team All-Pro all five seasons. It is first team All-Pro that stands out. Yes there were fewer teams, yes some receivers were in the AFL, but compare with some of the guys we talk about all the time today, some who were never first-team All Pro.

In the last round of Hall of Fame voting, Issac Bruce was elected. Bruce had really two big years. Was never a first-team all-pro, was voted to four Pro Bowls (which nowadays means a lot less than it did). His running mate Torry Holt didn't get in: Holt has 1 All Pro and seven pro bowls, which indicates a longer run of effectiveness. In the veterans Hallaganza last season Mac Speedie was voted in (3 all pros in the AAFC and five pro bowls, two of those in the first three years the NFL had an all-star game). I like Speedie because he stood up to Paul Brown, went to Canada and had two fine years with Saskatchewan in the WIFU (think CFL). Harold Carmichael never was All-Pro, went to only four Pro Bowls. Drew Pearson (3/3) didn't get in.

I understand that Shofner's effective career was relatively short, but a 5/5 mark in All-Pro/Pro Bowl matches up pretty damn well with receivers who had longer careers, and as we've seen with guys like Terrell Davis, a short career with a very high peak no longer is a detriment like it had been. A good comparison might be Tony Boselli (3/5), Le Roy Butler (4/4), Reggie Wayne (1/6), or Bryant Young (1/4) from the latest Hall finalists. I don't have a vote, but I do have the advantage of having seen Shofner play when he did play, which I think helps me put him into context, but may also make me a little biased in his favour.

The estimable Pro Football reference site does a Hall of Fame Monitor. It's based on Bill James' work in his landmark book on baseball's Hall of Fame, originally titled The Politics Of Glory (now Whatever Happened to The Hall Of Fame). The Monitor does not measure performance per se, but rather how closely performance tallies with the things Hall voters have traditionally looked for, which means things like championships and leading the league in stat categories get extra importance. It's starting point is PFR's Approximate Value, which attempts to put a value on each player's every season.

Shofner's career AV is low at 49, less than half of Michael Irvin's 106. Yet Shofner ranks 20^th in Hall of Fame monitor points with 92.25, just behind Berry (94.89), Irvin (93.31) and Andre Johnson (92.26). The good news is Shofner is ahead of Maynard, Art Monk, Andre Reed, Joiner, Fred Biletnikoff, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth (69.96), and way ahead of his contemporaries Bobby Mitchell, Bob Hayes and Tommy MacDonald, who are all in. 

The bad news is the cut off (the average of those in the hall) is 107. Charlie Taylor has 102.83, Paul Warfield 100.56, and Bruce 99.81. Holt, by the way, stands at 104.27 and Wayne at 107.21, the highest totals for non-active players not in the Hall. Now I think the average is weighted a little high by Jerry Rice's 311.81 (Moss is second at 149.69), maybe we ought to use the median? BTW, Alworth is seventh at 124.84.

To me twentieth on the list ought to be good enough for the Hall, considering all those members who rank below him. I'm not so much disappointed Shofner's not in as I am by the fact that he never seemed to even enter the discussion, which seems very much short-sighted and unfair. And now he is gone. He died the day before my birthday, though it didn't become public until the next week. And when it did it transported me back to those Giants' teams, to people traveling up to Connecticut on Sundays to beat the NFL's TV blackout, and the Tittle to Shofner magic that to me bridges the gap between those early Fifties Rams and the birth of the modern passing game. He was a joy to watch, and he was a great football player. RIP.

JIM TAYLOR: FULLBACK, PACKER

When the news came that the Packers' great Jim Taylor had died aged 83, the first message I got was from a Philadelphia friend of mine. 'You can get up now Jim, the game's over,' it read. That was a reference to the 1960 NFL championship game, the only playoff game Vince Lombardi ever lost. The Packers were driving, but with about 20 seconds left Bart Starr couldn't find a receiver in the end zone, and dumped the ball off to Taylor, who broke a couple of tackles but was then wrapped up by Chuck Bednarik and Bobby Jackson. Bednarik sat on him for 12 seconds until the clock ran out, then gave Taylor the famous quote.

Jim Taylor was a winner and Jim Taylor was tough. Those two things defined him and I'd put the second one first. His face looked like it was chiseled out of stone: a crew cut topped rectangle with a flat nose and powerful jaw. He was a huge college star at LSU. I can remember seeing Billy Cannon star for them when I was young, in his Heisman winning season, but in 1957 when Cannon and Taylor shared the running duties, it was Taylor who was the focus of opposing defenses. He was drafted by the Packers, but didn't come into his own until Lombardi took over the team, and paired him and Paul Hornung, another Heisman winner. When you think of the power sweep you think of Hornung (or Donny Anderson or Elijah Pitts) running behind the two guards, Fuzzy Thurston (63) and Jerry Kramer (64) and Taylor, but the Pack also ran it the other way, with Taylor the ball carrier. He was also a receiving threat out of the backfield, a hard guy to tackle one on one in the open field.

His good fortune was to be a part of that Packer dynasty, whose greatest ability was to be able to separate themselves from good teams like the Colts or Giants or later the Cowboys when it mattered most. They had talent, but the talent grew because they fit and played Lombardi's system to perfection. In a sense, the idea that players on great teams tend to get overvalued (see all the Packers from that era in the Hall of Fame) also means they get undervalued as individuals as time moves on, and the numbers of that era get lost in the bigger shinier numbers of the present day.

Jim Taylor was also hampered by being only the second-best Jim to play fullback in his era, behind Jim Brown. But look what happened in 1962, when Hornung was suspended for the season for associating with gamblers. Taylor ran for 1,474 yards and19 touchdowns (in 14 games) and that was Brown's only season not leading the NFL in rushing. The Pack beat the Giants 16-7 in the NFL championship game on a frozen Yankee Stadium surface with the temperature at 17 degrees F (-8 C) and the winds at 40-50 mph. Green Bay's D ( led by game MVP Ray Nitschke) forced five fumbles.Taylor ran 31 times for only 85 yards, scoring the only TD (guard Jerry Kramer, subbing for an injured Hornung, kicked three field goals). Taylor, who it turned out was suffering from hepatitis and had lost 15 pounds in the week before the game, took a beating, mostly from Giants' MLB Sam Huff. He bit through his tongue and required six stiches on his elbow. Steve Sabol, whose father Ed had bought the film rights (a key step to becoming NFL Films) recalled the intense violence and profane trash talk between Taylor and Huff. Watching the game on black and white TV as a kid, I can recall it and a 60 Minutes segment called 'The Violent World Of Sam Huff as if they were one thing.

Fullbacks were not just blockers in those days. I recall, besides Brown and Taylor, John Henry Johnson, Nick Pietrosante (a local guy from my area), Johnny Olszewski, Jim Nance, Cookie Gilchrist and the likes: guys operating from two-back sets who did a bit of everything—think Larry Csonka as maybe the last great example of the genre.

Taylor was known as the kind of runner who would seek out potential tacklers and run through them, rather than try to avoid them. 'Jim Brown will give you a leg and take it away,' Lombardi said. 'Jim Taylor will give you a leg and ram it through your chest.' He was old school all the way, exactly what we thought of football players being when I was a kid. It makes me remember why I hesitated for an instant as a 13 year old high school freshman about which sport I was going to be given the kit for. But only for an instant.

Taylor played one best-forgotten season for the Saints in his adopted home town of New Orleans, then ran a business on the docks there. He didn't place much store in the modern game, which probably won't surprise you. As he said to Bob McCullough in My Greatest Day In Football, “Forget all that talk, I like action. Today’s athletes, they’re just full of so much conversation instead of keep your mouth shut and just do your job. I don’t even watch a game.” I would watch a Jim Taylor game any time.

Note: This feature also appears as a bonus at my football site: patreon.com/mikecarlsonfmte, where I preview all the week's games as well as write the occasional feature.  If you're interested in football, check it out...

IN MEMORIAM CHUCK BEDNARIK: MY NFLUK COLUMN

In the NFL offseason my NFLUK Friday Morning Tight End column becomes Friday Monthly Tight End, and this month's, which is up at the nfluk.com website (you can link to it here) was dedicated to Chuck Bednarik, who died last Saturday. Here's what I wrote:

REMEMBERING CONCRETE CHARLIE

If you've been reading my columns for any length of time you'll know I'm an apostate American in the sense of not believing more is always better, and I've been critical of many moves the NFL has made in the direction of more. But I have to say honestly that I admire the way in which they have turned the off-season into a non-stop attention-getter. I still would prefer to see the draft come in the next few weeks, but after the most fascinating free-agency period I can remember, and the creation of the 'veterans combine' (which falls way short of the return of a development league, but is a good step, and ought to be called the 'veterans pro day') I appreciate what the league has done to stay in the spotlight since the Super Bowl. If it gets any busier, I'm going to need my weekly column back in the off-season!

Iron Mike is, however, at heart old school, so this month's column won't be about any of the issues and moves that have filled your consciousness for the past few weeks. Instead, it's about Chuck Bednarik, because they didn't come any more old-school than Concrete Charlie.

You probably know he was the last of the full-time both-ways players, at center and linebacker. EJ Holub might have challenged his mark, but Holub, who played for the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs had nine knee surgeries, and played one or the other, mostly at linebacker until his knees forced the move back to center. In fact he started Super Bowl II at linebacker, and Super Bowl IV at center; no one else has ever done that.

But they couldn't keep Bednarik from playing both ways. In 1960, when the Eagles won the NFL title, he was 35 years old, and exclusively a center until Bob Pellegrini was injured in week five. Bednarik, formerly the middle backer, assumed his spot on the outside, which is where he was when he leveled Frank Gifford at Yankee Stadium. The hit put Gifford out of the game for a year and a half, with concussion symptoms, and was immortalised in John Zimerman's photo of Bednarik celebrating over Gifford's prostrate form. But when you watch the film you realise that Bednarik wasn't celebrating the hit, that the photo has been misinterpreted for half a century.

On film the hit looks like a body slam. I worked with Frank at ABC, and I recall his talking about it only once, in Kitzbuehel, Austria, where we were covering the skiing. He said it looked worse than it was, that it was the impact with the hard infield surface of Yankee Stadium that had done the real damage. He emphasized that the hit was perfectly legal (Giants' fans like to insist it was a clothesline) but came from his blindside. In fact, you see Bednarik do a great job of playing the scrambling quarterback, George Shaw, then chasing down Gifford after the catch.

But what's fascinating is watching Bednarik first go toward the fumbled ball, which the Eagles recovered behind the play. Zimmerman's photo was taken only AFTER Bednarik turned back to Gifford, looking back toward the Eagles' side of the ball, and he was celebrating the fumble recovery that sealed the Eagles' win.

Bednarik's second most-famous tackle came in the NFL championship game that year, when he stopped Jim Taylor on another pass play out of the backfield, Taylor had broken one tackle and slipped another, but Bednarik actually had some help with the stop, at the seven yard line, and with holding Taylor down until time had expired. But his quote remains famous: 'You can get up now, Jim, this game's over'. That game was the only playoff match Vince Lombardi ever lost.

Bednarik made the NFL's all-decade team for the 1950s as a center. He didn't make the 75^th anniversary team, although he probably should've got some recognition for being a two way player. Looking at film, seeing his athleticism down-field and his instincts at the line of scrimmage, I suspect linebacker may have been his better position. But during his career, his only real competition as the NFL's best center was Jim Ringo (Jim Otto in the Sixties AFL has now passed both) or maybe Chicago's Mike Pyle. At middle linebacker you could choose from the Bears' Bill George and Dick Butkus, the Lions' Joe Schmidt, the Packers' Ray Nitschke, or the Giants' Sam Huff.

I wrote Bednarik's obituary for the Daily Telegraph. It was designed for people who didn't know anything about football, but the details of his life are worth repeating. He was the son of Slovak immigrants; his father worked at the hearth (or 'heart', as Bednarik pronounced it) in a steel mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Chuck didn't start speaking English until he went to school, and became a football star at Bethlehem's Liberty High. But with World War II raging, he enlisted before graduation (his mother collected his diploma) and at the age of 18 found himself flying as the waist gunner in a B-24 Liberator. He flew 30 missions, and when he came back after the war his plans had changed. He'd intended to get a job at the mill to help his father; now the GI Bill sent him to the University of Pennsylvania, where he became a three-time All-American and finished third in the 1948 Heisman Trophy voting, playing center and linebacker. He was drafted first overall in 1949 by the Eagles, which meant he didn't even have to change stadiums; the Eagles played at Penn's Franklin Field.

The Eagles were the defending NFL champions, having won the famed 'Snow Bowl' 7-0 on Steve Van Buren's touchdown in 1948. That they had the first pick in the draft was the result of the NFL's 'lottery', which was soon discontinued. Bednarik moved right into the starting lineup, and the Eagles won the NFL title again in 1949. Through the Fifties, however, the Eagles were a team in decline. That changed when Buck Shaw arrived to coach in 1958, and in 1960 traded for quarterback Norm Van Brocklin from the Rams.

Bednarik's nickname reflected his hardness, but came because he was, literally, an industrial concrete salesman. He worked not only in the off-season but in season after the day's practice was over. After all, he had five daughters to support, and in those days even an NFL star's salary couldn't do it. And he didn't live large; all his life was spent between Bethlehem and Philly. He paid the price for his career: look at his snapping hand in that photo with another guy he tackled often, Jim Brown.

He retired after the 1962 season, aged 37, still being forced by circumstance to go both ways. Maxie Baughan, who was drafted to be his replacement at linebacker, and was a great one, called Chuck the best he'd ever seen. Bednarik headed the Pennsylvania state athletic commission, overseeing boxing and wrestling, but he also became one of football's most outspoken and entertaining curmudgeons. He complained about overpaid players and a soft game, and laughed out loud when reporters tried to compare Deion Sanders' occasional forays as a wide receiver to his two-way play. 'He couldn't tackle my wife,' Concrete Charlie laughed. He was a popular speaker, and once, at a charity roast of Frank Gifford, he arranged to have the lights shut off as he took the dias. When the lights came back on after a minute, he told the audience 'now you know how Gifford felt when I hit him.'

His family said he was suffering Alzheimers when he died, aged 85, and attributed that to his football career. Jim Brown called him 'a true gladiator'. For me, Chuck Bednarik symbolises better than almost anyone what football was about when I was young, and wanted to play. It was something you did on your way to being a man. Being a man was defined differently in those days, and in some ways that's for the better now, but Chuck Bednarik's passing reminds me that in many ways it's not, and being a man like Chuck was not a bad aspiration.