NFL Leaders in 1997

Just looking at some NFL history. Went back ten years.

In 1997, the overall touchdown leader was a player in his second year in the NFL. I would not have guessed this if you gave me 25 clues. Here they are:

1. He played for the Miami Dolphins.
2. In 1999, he played for the Cleveland Browns.
3. He went to UCLA.
4. He was drafted in the third round of the 1998 draft.
5. He rushed for over 1,000 yards as a rookie in 1998.
6. He shared a name with another standout UCLA athlete, at least in pronounciation, if not spelling.

Give up?

It was Karim Abdul-Jabbar. How soon we forget.

OK, here's another one:

This Oakland Raider running back in 1997 finished fifth in the NFL in rushing with 1,294 yards. Who was he?

1. It was his third year in the NFL.
2. He was a first-round pick by the Raiders in 1995.
3. He went to the University of Washington.
4. He finished ninth in Heisman voting in 1994.
5. He ended up splitting time with Tyrone Wheatley after the '95 season.
6. He shares a first name with a little French dictator of the Nineteenth Century.

Give up?

It was Napolean Kaufmann.

OK. Last one. In 1997, this quarterback lead the NFL with 35 TD passes. I'll give you one clue:

1. In 1997, he played for the Green Bay Packers.

Mr. Briggs Goes to Washington, Perhaps

Lance Briggs, Bears linebacker and all-around unhappy camper, and his agent what's his name are pushing a trade from the Bears to the Washingtons, according to Len Pasquarelli. What's his name and Washington's owner, Daniel Snyder, can agree to a contract, Lenny the P reports.

The thing that is disturbing in this whole scenario is the fact that the players through their association, the Player's Association, agreed to the whole franchise tag system that the NFL teams employ. But Briggs and what's are really just jobbing the system. Briggs said he would sit out the first 10 games and then play the six so that he gets credit for the whole year.

Washington will propose a swap of first-round draft picks in this year's draft -- the Redskins own the sixth overall selection and Chicago has the 31st choice -- in exchange for Briggs.

I don't think this is enough for Briggs. If I were Bears GM Jerry Angelo, I'd look around to see if there is a team or two that they could job the system right back. Unfortunately, the Bears I think have to protect themselves in this situation. So they have to be buyers for the right deal.

But the unhappiness of every player who is franchised (except for kickers) has to be addressed. Each player who gets slapped, so to speak, with the tag is upset.

thankyouverymuch,

OldCleat

Pass Interference Rule Is Looked at By Mike Nolan

The pass interference rule in the NFL has been a source of frustration for years. Mike Nolan, the coach of the Niners and Dick Nolan's son, has stepped up and is being counted. He is asking the competition committee to let the officials have some say as to whether the pass interference call should be a spot foul or a 15-yard penalty.

I think that many of the pass interference calls really hurt the game. I have seen terrible calls getting 50 yards for the offense. I've seen two players go for the ball, and the offense getting an automatic first-and-goal from the one-yard line.

There are other penalties that need to be addressed. I think the 5-yard chuck rule being an automatic first down is a bad rule. There should be a minor roughing the passer rule that is a 5-yard and play over rule, and a major roughing the passer rule that is a 15-yard personal foul. I think the sideline rulings have become bad; many of these players are making football plays, and they get the 15 -yard penalties because the opposing player steps out of bounds nano-seconds before the action happens.

The NFL officials need some more flexibility on these plays.

Cleveland Rocks the Offseason

Say what you want, but to me, it looks like Cleveland is having a helluva offseason. The Browns struck early, bagging Eric Steinbach. Did they overpay? Maybe. But at least they paid for a young, athletic offensive lineman who can swing to tackle (even left tackle) if they need him to. He has the most upside of all the offensive lineman in free agency this year.

Then, they added Jamal Lewis. With the uncertain status of Reuben Droughns, Lewis was a fantastic pickup. He will pound between the tackles. This makes Charlie Frye or Derek Anderson better, makes Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow (who is a warrior!!!) more dangerous. Maybe Lewis won't take it to the house 70 yards away anymore, but he will pound you. I hear that they may cut Droughns. That may not be a bad move, salary cap wise. But if he is on the Browns, that's just ensuring that you have a couple of pounders.

On defense, the Browns signed Kenny Wright, a mediocre corner in a mediocre class, and Antwan Peek. Peek didn't pan out for the Texans as an outside linebacker in the 3-4, but maybe he will for the Browns. Maybe not, but if you run the 3-4, you can never have too many options. Mike Vrabel didn't pan out for the Steelers as a backer in the 3-4, and he's had a pretty good run in New England. Wright, well, what the hey, there aren't too many other options.

What did the Browns lose? Dennis Northcutt. No biggie.

Cleveland hasn't made the moves that Denver has, but the Brownies have improved.

thankyouverymuch,

OldCleat

Hank Stram died on July 4, 2005

Hank Stram died on July 4, 2005.

Just recently, I remember watching an NFL Films documentary called "The Original Six Days to Sunday." Stram of course let NFL Films get complete access to the Saints in 1976 as they prepared for a division game against the Falcons. Stram was fired before they did all the production work on the film, so they let it sit in the vaults for years before finishing it.

It was a great film. It showed Stram working with Bobby Douglass to break down game film and to become a finished product as an NFL quarterback.

Hopefully, the NFL Network or ESPN Classic will replay the film in the next few days or weeks.

Here are some other interesting things I found out about Coach Stram.

Stram won the 1948 Big Ten Medal for combining athletics and academics.

From some additional research, I found out that John Wooden won the award at Purdue in 1932.

I've linked to some of the better obits that I've found. And I pulled some quotes that interested me. I will say that I've read several columns by Jerry Magee and I love his stuff.

Stram also has a reputation of being a innovator. There are three that I would like to investigate further. The full-time conditioning coach was credited to Stram in some of the obits. The use of the zone defense in the AFL, at least, if not the zone defense itself was credited to Stram. And, Lenny Dawson said that the Chiefs were running the West Coast offense before the West Coast offense. I don't know if these are accurate or not, but I'd like to find out.

Below please find the interesting quotes.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/nfl/20050705-9999-_1s5stram.html

By Jerry Magee
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
July 5, 2005

Two
coaches arguably had more to do with American Football League teams achieving
permanence than any others. One was the Chargers' Sid Gillman, the other Stram.
Gillman, who died in January 2003 at age 91, respected Stram. "Good plays,"
Gillman would say. But he also felt he could read Stram. One of Gillman's
deductions was that when a Stram team would get behind, it would begin blitzing.

Joe Horrigan noted that under Stram, the Chiefs were among the first
professional teams to recognize the talent pool contained in historically black
schools.

Henry Louis Stram was the son of a professional wrestler from
Gary, Ind. At Purdue, he was a running back in 1942 and in 1946-47.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3252592

By MICKEY HERSKOWITZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Stram fought
the battle of Dallas, where the Cowboys and Texans both drew so poorly that a
playoff was suggested, with the winning team getting to leave town.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/football/nfl/kansas_city_chiefs/12057041.htm

By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star

Stram was born Jan. 2, 1923, in
Chicago and grew up in Gary, Ind., where his Polish-born father was a tailor and
professional wrestler named Henry Wilszek, who performed for the Barnum &
Bailey circus. The circus changed his surname to Stram.

Although his
parents discouraged him from playing football, Hank Stram became a star athlete
in football, baseball, basketball and track at Lew Wallace High in Gary, earning
all-state honors as a halfback.

Stram enrolled at Purdue University on a
football scholarship in 1941 and enlisted in the Army reserve in 1943. He
remained in the service for three years, returning to Purdue in 1946 and earning
his degree in 1948. He lettered in football and baseball at Purdue, and as a
senior he received the Big Ten Medal, awarded to the conference athlete who best
combines athletics with academics.

Stram spent the next 12 seasons as an
assistant at Purdue, SMU, Notre Dame and Miami (Fla.) before Hunt hired him as
the head coach of the Dallas Texans of the fledgling AFL.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/12053348.htm

By RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star

"I don't know if there is
anything ever new in football, but we were doing things in the `60s that teams
are doing now," said Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson. "Hank came up with so
many new twists and doesn't get the credit he deserves.

"He wasn't
afraid to try things. Back in those days, guys didn't try anything. They pretty
much stayed with what the Green Bay Packers or New York Giants were doing. Well,
Hank decided let's do some things different. We were playing the West Coast
offense before it was the West Coast offense."

And Stram deployed zone
defenses in the early 1960s as a way to combat the wide-open passing games of
the AFL when teams were loath to defend receivers in anything but man-to-man
coverage.

Stram attributed that defense to the Texans' intercepting five
passes in the 1962 AFL championship win over Houston.

http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-19/1120543067262410.xml

The Times-Picayune
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Peter Finney

What
befell Coach Stram at the end of a long career, a two-year pit stop for John
Mecom's Saints, did nothing to tarnish the résumé of the most successful coach
in the history of the AFL.

Without a doubt, Hank's finest hour with the
Saints had more to do with the owner who fired him in Kansas City, Lamar Hunt,
than the man who brought him to the Big Easy.

Perhaps old-timers will
remember.

All the Saints had to do to sew up a 20-17 victory at
Arrowhead Stadium in 1976 was run out the clock. They were near the Kansas City
end zone with the final seconds ticking down when Stram called time. He told a
surprised Bobby Scott, his quarterback, "now we're going to shove it to 'em."

Scott threw a touchdown pass to tight end Henry Childs to make it 27-17.

"I wanted that last one," Hank said afterward. "Maybe these people will
learn to do their talking after the game, not before."

During the week,
Chiefs coach Paul Wiggin was quoted as saying, "I'd like to kick Stram's butt."
After the game, as Stram was being carried from the field, running back Chuck
Muncie ran over to Wiggin and handed him a poster-sized reproduction of his
words.

All and all, it was a strange setting. Stram had been best man at
Lamar Hunt's wedding. And that's not all. At the time, the coach and his former
boss were in the courts, trying to settle Hank's contract with Kansas City, a
10-year, $100,000-a-year deal terminated with seven years remaining.

So
it made for a memorable postgame scene, the Strams leaving Arrowhead Stadium
linked arm-in-arm, Hank, wife Phyllis, two sons, two daughters, all of them
singing, "When the Saints . . ."

It was right out of Dorothy and
friends, in the "Wizard of Oz," walking the Yellow Brick Road.

Hank had
found his Saints rainbow.

thankyouverymuch,

Old Cleat