RIP Sam Huff

Yeah, they did all right for themselves.

I once talked to Pat Summerall, who played offensive and defensive end for the Giants and therefore was in the meetings with both Lombardi and Landry, about the two coaches.

He said when Landry came into the defensive room and started speaking, the players kept on talking and joking around. Landry would have to yell at them to finally get them to stop and pay attention. When Lombardi walked in the room, Summerall said, everyone instantly became silent. "You could hear a pin drop," he said.

 

And I just totally read that quote in his voice.

 

Considering where and when he played - was always surprised Huff wasn't "bigger" in his post-career. I always thought of him as being right there with Nitschke, Butkus and Tommy Nobis.

 

About the piling on at the end of a tackle stuff, if you watch any old YouTube clips of NFL games from the 40s to the early 60s, one thing you will be immediately struck with is the different standard for calling a runner down, certainly as opposed to the present day.
Play after play a runner will clearly get knocked to the ground -- obviously down by defensive contact -- then they get up to their feet and start running again. And the refs just stand there.

It's hard to find any real discussion of the issue, but apparently the standard was that a player had to be put on the ground by defensive action -- PLUS a defensive player had to contact them while they were still on the ground -- before they'd be called down.

So it was also common for defensive players (such as Huff) to come along and dive on top of a player in the process of scrambling back to his feet. In the process plenty of players took tremendous shots so I'd imagine at some point the owners decided to put a stop to it.
Apparently it was in 1962-63 when this rule was changed or clarified to something akin to our normal rule. Even that is very difficult to pin down; I've found a few kind of offhanded references but no explicit statement, "we've decided to change the tackle rule."

 

Apropos of nothing but as time goes on I miss the way the head coaches dressed on the sidelines. Suit, camel hair over coat, men’s hat with brim, leather gloved hand holding a couple pieces of paper with the game plan.

 

I saw this morning he was only a two-time all-pro. With his reputation you'd think he'd have made it more often.

 

Wasn’t Dick Nolan the last HC to wear a sports jacket and tie?

 

I had always thought Tom Landry invented the 4-3 defense in 1950 to combat the Browns passing offense. But in Pro Football Reference I checked the rosters of the NFL teams in 1955 and I only found one team, Washington, that had a middle linebacker listed. But Bill George was listed as a middle guard. Joe Schmidt was moved from left linebacker to middle guard in 1956 and in 1957 was a middle linebacker. I wonder if the position was called middle guard until 1955 or 1956. I am dubious that Landry invented the position for Huff in 1956.

 

I recall his son wanted to emulate him when he took over the 49ers. Our pals at Wikipedia explained it better than I could.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Nolan#Suit_issue

 

IIRC, Tom Landry was the last one to do so consistently (BTW, can any of you picture Uncle Phil or his minions outfitting Landry on the sideline?)
I thought Mike Nolan and Jack Del Rio had Reebok put together some suits for both of them. Can only imagine how they tried to put the vector on that.

 

Steve Owen invented what was called the "Umbrella" defense with the Giants in 1950 (Landry was a defensive back at that time). Essentially, it was a 6-1-4 defense, but the defensive ends, instead of rushing the passer, would drop back into coverage. Landry later tweaked the umbrella to come up with the 4-3 in the mid-50s after he retired as a player and became the Giants' defensive coordinator.