The '63 Steelers Read online

  With Johnson hobbling, Parker’s decision to go with Theron Sapp as his lone fullback constituted his riskiest move since he opened the ’62 season with only one spare offensive lineman. But Parker was keen on Sapp. “He has a lot of speed and a lot of spirit,” the coach said. “A fullback can go a long way with those.”25

  The immediate challenge Sapp faced was finding a hole in the Washington defense, which had given up only thirty-seven first downs and 719 yards rushing in five games. The Redskins were scuffling at 2–3, but they had arguably the finest defensive line in the league, composed of ends John Paluck and Andy Stynchula, and tackles Bob Toneff and Joe Rutgens. “If there is a brace of more violent creatures in the land, it is not employed on one line,” wrote Pat Livingston. Toneff, an eleven-year vet, was a gladiator in the Ernie Stautner mold. Rutgens was only twenty-four but was already earning praise as one of the best tackles in the NFL. A magazine feature on him before his senior year at Illinois was titled “Big Daddy of the Big Ten” and called him “a notable smearer of passers.” Paluck was just plain scary, even to someone who had a reputation for being a brutal defensive player himself. “‘Mean John,’ we called him,” said Sam Huff, who became a teammate after being traded from the Giants in ’64. “He played tough. In fact, he’s one of the few guys I played with I actually was scared of. No one ever messed with Mean John.”26

  But for opponents, the scariest player the Redskins had was Bobby Mitchell, a 9.7 sprinter with more moves than a belly dancer. Mitchell had played in the same backfield with Jim Brown in Cleveland but had been converted to flanker and also returned kickoffs. He had good hands and was a threat to turn a 12-yard catch into a 60-yard touchdown at any time. Even Jim Brown marveled at Mitchell’s skills in the open field. “As a long-gain threat I am not even in the same class with Bobby Mitchell,” Brown stated. “To my mind he is the greatest breakaway threat in football.”27

  While the Steelers worked out at South Park on Wednesday, John Henry Johnson spent his day at Divine Providence Hospital, undergoing tests with the team physician, John Best, but it appeared doubtful that he would return to action against the Redskins. Days later, Parker would deny that he had “banished” John Henry from practice until the fullback made up his mind to play. “I just told him to go and get some treatment on his leg and not to come back until he was able to run,” Parker said.28

  The night before Johnson’s trip to the hospital, the New York Mirror, the tabloid that had been started by William Randolph Hearst and ranked second in circulation in the nation to the New York News, “published its own obituary.” The Mirror ceased publication because of circumstances that “have necessitated the discontinuance of so many other good newspapers all over the country.”29 Radio and television, along with dramatic growth in the suburbs, had changed readership in the sixties. Twelve big cities, including Pittsburgh, had cut back to two daily newspapers since World War II, and circulation had dipped, while the number of suburban dailies in fifteen major metropolitan areas rose slightly and their circulation jumped 87 percent.30

  Even though news of the Mirror’s demise made front-page news in the Post-Gazette, the death of the paper would have little or no immediate impact on the daily lives of Pittsburghers. But one item in the Mirror’s final edition had the potential to do to the Steelers what a spark could do to the parched woods in the countryside.

  The Mirror reported that John Henry Johnson was in Parker’s doghouse, a charge to which the coach replied, “This is news to me. All I know is that Johnson hurt his ankle in the St. Louis game in Forbes Field several weeks ago and hasn’t run since then. John Henry, and I’ve known him a long time, is the slowest healing person I’ve ever seen. He just doesn’t bounce back like some players. But if he is in my doghouse, as that paper says, he better let me know. The nights are getting cold out our way.”31

  Even with Johnson questionable, the Steelers were ten-point favorites against Washington. And fans were responding to the Steelers as if this year were special, as if this were the team that Parker had at last constructed into a winner. The ticket office, so slow in August when Art Rooney wondered where the fans were, was busier than it had been in years, selling tickets for all the remaining games.32 Among the shirt-sleeved crowd of 41,987 that turned up at Pitt Stadium on an 80-degree afternoon were a thousand nuns from the Pittsburgh diocese, as guests of Rooney. “Spiritual help, it has been said, sometimes is greater than physical support,” reporter Jimmy Miller wrote. “And the Steelers can do with an extra helping of both.”33

  It looked as if both were working on the first series as Red Mack caught a pass for 16 yards, Theron Sapp ran off right tackle for 13, and Dick Hoak burst off left tackle for 11 before getting tackled at the Washington 39. But Sapp fumbled on the next play, and Mean John Paluck recovered at the 36. The Steelers forced a punt, and Haley returned it 5 yards to his 41.

  A holding call set the Steelers back, but Brown hit Dial with a 33-yard pass, down to the Washington 35. The Steelers’ offensive line—Dan James, Mike Sandusky, Buzz Nutter, Ray Lemek, and Charlie Bradshaw—was opening big holes. Sapp ran off right tackle for 14 yards, then went left for 11, making it first-and-goal at the 5. Two more carries brought him within inches of the goal line, and on fourth down, Parker defied the Redskins’ defensive line and turned from his conservative play-calling, electing to go for it. Ed Brown, benefiting more from the physical support of his offensive line than from spiritual aid, burrowed through to give Pittsburgh a 7–0 lead.

  After Frank Budd returned the kickoff 27 yards to his 36, Snead got the Redskins in Steeler territory with an 18-yard pass to Billy Barnes. On third-and-8 from the 33, Ernie Stautner barreled through and dropped Snead for a 9-yard loss, forcing the Redskins to settle for a 49-yard field goal by Ed Khayat to make it 7–3 with 2:38 left in the period.

  Brady Keys, who broke big punt returns in the first two weeks, took the ensuing kickoff on the 13 and raced 58 yards to the Washington 28. Brown hit Mack crossing over the middle for 14 yards and then found Hoak on the left sideline for a gain of 13, giving Pittsburgh first-and-goal at the 3 as the quarter ended.

  Sandusky, the left guard, had been obtained by Parker, along with quarterback Earl Morrall, in a 1957 trade with the 49ers for linebacker Marv Matuszak and two No. 1 draft picks. Public relations director Ed Kiely wrote a brief feature on Sandusky titled “A Man Nobody Knows” for a 1961 game program. Evidently that reference was applicable to some of his teammates as well, because former Steeler end Goose McClairen once referred to the six-foot, 230-pound guard as “Mike Salsbury.” Kiely characterized Sandusky as “exceedingly shy,” but he was also as tough as his counterparts on the defensive line.34 In a December 1959 game against the Bears, Sandusky sustained what was feared to be a fractured cheekbone early in the second quarter yet didn’t come out of the game. (X-rays were negative.) Two weeks after the loss to the Browns, the Steelers’ futility at the Cleveland goal line had to feel almost fresh in their minds. But after Pittsburgh was called for backfield in motion, Sandusky simultaneously blocked defensive back Jim Steffen and linebacker Bob Pellegrini to give Hoak a clear path for an 8-yard TD that made it 14–3 on the second play of the second quarter.

  The speedy Budd took Michaels’s kickoff and returned it to the 37, but he fumbled and Mack recovered. Sapp gained 14 yards over the left side, and Mack made a leaping catch for another 14, giving the Steelers first-and-goal at the 7. Two Sapp carries put the ball on the 1, but again the Steelers were called for backfield in motion, and Hoak could only gain four yards on third down. Faced with fourth-and-2, Parker sent in Michaels to kick a 9-yard field goal for a 17–3 lead with 4:10 elapsed in the quarter. Everything was working smoothly for Pittsburgh, but for the rest of the afternoon, the Steelers had “to root like a pack of hungry hogs” to score.35

  A two-touchdown lead can disappear even quicker than the 20–3 advantage the Steelers held in St. Louis. The Redskins realized that too, having blown a seventeen-point lead themselves to
Philly the week before. Parker knew that despite Snead’s struggles, he was too good a quarterback to keep straying off target. “He’s going to explode one of these afternoons,” the coach had warned during the week. “When he does, I hope it isn’t against us.”36

  Fullback Jim Cunningham took Michaels’s short kickoff and returned it 23 yards to his 43. Parker was about to witness the realization of his fears. On first down, Snead hit Mitchell on the Steeler 20, and he sprinted into the end zone with what appeared to be a 57-yard touchdown. The play was called back because of a holding penalty, but it was only a fleeting reprieve for Pittsburgh. As troublesome as Tommy McDonald and Bobby Joe Conrad had been during the first five games, Mitchell was going to give the Steelers fits.

  In explaining his repertoire of moves, Mitchell explained, “I fake with every part of my body.”37 The Steelers got a look at him from head to toe. One play later, Snead hit Mitchell again, and the flanker went into action, eluding Haley and Willie Daniel, although he used one too many body parts in his fakes this time. “Like a mischievous goblin, Mitchell did some tricky maneuvering to thoroughly confound the Steeler secondary. He whirled by a couple, eluded a couple more and, in his frenzied hip action dropped the ball as he raced down the sidelines.” Fortunately for his team, Mitchell recovered his fumble at the Steeler 16, a gain of 59 yards.38 Dick James ran 15 yards to the 1, and Snead’s quarterback sneak made it 17–10 halfway through the quarter. Mitchell, clearly, could change the course of a game in a flash.

  Dial wasn’t as fast as Mitchell—practically no one was—but he ran precise routes and had terrific moves of his own. The Steelers marched to their 49, and from there Brown connected with Dial on a 43-yard completion, giving Pittsburgh first-and-goal at the 8. Sapp lost 2 yards on two carries, and Mack’s 6-yard catch left the Steelers with fourth-and-goal at the 4. Parker sent in Michaels to kick a field goal, which he missed. The Redskins were flagged for being offside, however, moving the ball to the 2, although it remained fourth down.

  Maybe Parker was fretting over Michaels’s blown kick, or maybe he was thinking back to the goal line stands in Cleveland, where twice he chose to kick field goals at the 1. Maybe he was encouraged by Brown’s successful quarterback sneak to cap the opening drive this day. Or perhaps he was swayed by the crowd’s boos. He might have been tempted to send in John Henry Johnson, but he didn’t. In any event, Parker pulled Michaels and let his team go for the touchdown.

  Hoak took the handoff and got dumped by linebacker Rod Breedlove for a 4-yard loss. Washington took over, and after James gained a yard, Snead hit Mitchell with a 48-yard pass to put Washington on the Pittsburgh 45.

  James, like Hoak, was an unsung, undersized back at five foot nine and 179 pounds, but he was “a first-class player and when the Redskins send him in motion to the left, away from Mitchell, they have a red hot pass pattern going for them.”39

  On first down at the 36, with 1:45 left in the half, James got loose down the left sideline, caught Snead’s pass at the 15, and went into the end zone untouched. Khayat, trying for his seventy-third consecutive extra point, had his kick bounce off the hands of linebacker Myron Pottios and carom over the crossbar to tie it, 17–17, with 1:37 left before halftime. No one watching in the stadium could have appreciated the trajectory and flight of such a kick more than Michaels. If Steeler assistant Torgy Torgeson was reminded of what he’d said when another deflected ball cost Pittsburgh points in St. Louis—“When they score on plays like that, you’re not about to win”—he probably kept those sentiments to himself.40 The nuns, however, might have been pondering the concept of divine intervention.

  The Steeler defense had held Washington to 27 yards rushing in the half, but on the opening drive of the second half, James carried nine times—as many as he had the entire ’62 season—on a thirteen-play, 77-yard drive, benefited by pass interference and roughing-the-passer penalties, and he picked up the final 5 yards to put Washington ahead for the first time, 24–17. The Redskins had rallied with twenty-one unanswered points.

  The Steelers came back with a 73-yard drive of their own, with a 35-yard pass to Dial giving them first-and-goal at the 4. Three carries left the Steelers a half yard short of the goal line, so, on fourth down, Parker went for broke. Brown’s pass for Dial was knocked down, but interference was called on defensive back Lonnie Sanders, giving the Steelers another set of downs at the 1. Hoak was stuffed twice going off right tackle but then slipped around right end to tie it again, 24–24, with 2:22 to go in the third quarter.

  The fleet Daniel was doing his best to stay with Mitchell. Daniel was as fast as former teammate and cornerback Johnny Sample, but keeping up with Mitchell was a daunting task. “If there’s a faster or a quicker man in football, I’ll have to see him,” Daniel said afterward. “There were a couple times I thought for sure I was going to get an interception, but that guy came out of nowhere either to catch the ball or break up my interception.”41

  Mitchell caught only four passes that day and was kept out of the end zone, but he piled up 173 yards, and 51 came on a catch during the next series that put his team on the Steeler 10. Barnes could pick up only a yard, and two passes went incomplete, setting up a 15-yard field goal by Khayat that pushed Washington ahead, 27–24, twelve seconds into the fourth quarter.

  “The defense came off and the offense went on, and we’re sitting down and everybody says, ‘Aw, shit, we’re gonna blow it,’” tackle Lou Cordileone recalled. “I said, ‘No, we ain’t gonna lose this game. Don’t worry about it.’”42

  The Steelers were threatening at the Washington 31, thanks to a 23-yard catch by Dial, but Brown fumbled on a pass rush, and though tackle Charlie Bradshaw recovered, the play lost 6 yards. Brown lost 7 more yards when Stynchula sacked him at the 44, forcing a punt that went into the end zone.

  As if Mitchell, in the open field, and James, coming out of the backfield, weren’t big enough threats, Snead had yet another target: imposing rookie tight end Pat Richter, a six-foot-five-and-a-half-inch All-America from Wisconsin. “You can look for Snead to throw to him more often from now on,” coach Bill McPeak had said days before the game.43 “He’s a tough guy to cover,” said the five-foot-ten Haley. “He’s so big there’s not much you can do about it if they get the ball up high enough for him.”44

  Snead was on his way to a 309-yard day. He had finished the ’62 season tied for third in touchdown passes and with the fifth-highest total in interceptions, and he would wind up ’63 as the leader in interceptions thrown, but he had not thrown one on this afternoon. For a third-year quarterback, he had the benefit of a rare kind of experience. He had started every game as a rookie, an unheard-of development in the NFL at the time, when rookie QBs remained on the sideline, holding a clipboard and charting plays. He finished ’62 ranked fifth in both completions and passing yardage, higher than two other rising stars, Fran Tarkenton and Charley Johnson.

  Snead misfired for Barnes, and fullback Don Bosseler was dumped for a 4-yard loss by Pottios, setting up third-and-16 at the Redskin 16. As Snead dropped back, Haley had his eye on the quarterback while Richter was slanting toward the middle. “I don’t know what happened, but Snead seemed to hesitate just a second too long,” Haley said.45 “I was afraid of making my move too soon. But when the ball did come it was a cinch.”46 Haley picked off the pass, evaded a diving Richter, got a key block from Cordileone on Khayat, and beat Snead to the end zone for a 24-yard return that put the Steelers ahead, 31–27, with 3:58 gone in the fourth quarter.

  On the ensuing kickoff, Leroy Jackson fumbled, and Steelers rookie Jim Bradshaw recovered at the 22. Dial, who would finish with six receptions for 155 yards, caught a 4-yard TD to make it 38–27. The Steelers had turned the game around—and maybe their season—by scoring fourteen points in under two minutes.

  Eight straight pass attempts by Snead brought the Redskins to the Steeler 31, and one play later a 16-yard toss to James gave Washington a first down on the 13. But Michaels broke up a pass at the li
ne of scrimmage, and Snead misfired on his next two attempts before Pottios intercepted on fourth down.

  Washington yielded a first down before forcing a punt, but Haley got his second interception on a throw intended for Mitchell, and the Steelers killed the clock. It wasn’t a miracle—only a heavy rainfall would have qualified for that—but it was a good indication that the Steelers had the composure to rally and not fold under pressure. They hadn’t choked; they hadn’t disgraced anyone. They had rebounded from a bad game.

  The Giants, meanwhile, beat the Cowboys, the Steelers’ next opponent, 37–21, as Y. A. Tittle threw four touchdown passes. The Browns stayed unbeaten by whipping the Eagles, 37–7, behind four Frank Ryan TD passes and Jim Brown’s 144 yards rushing. The Packers, the Steelers’ opponent in two weeks, battered Charley Johnson and the Cards, 30–7, leaving St. Louis and New York in a tie for second place at 4–2.

  The Bears showed they weren’t invincible, losing 20–14 to previously winless San Francisco, dropping Chicago into a first-place tie with Green Bay.

  The Steelers, at 3–2–1, trailed three teams in the Eastern Conference, but they had survived another week. They were still in the hunt. No one could say they were snakebitten this week.

  GAME 7

  VERSUS DALLAS COWBOYS

  AT FORBES FIELD

  OCTOBER 27

  Playing football and working in a steel mill used to be two birthrights of a Pittsburgh native. But at one time, brawling probably ranked right alongside them as an inalienable right.

  The North Side—or “Nor’ Side,” as locals pronounced it—where the Rooney family lived, had a long-standing reputation for rowdiness. “North Siders used to meet groups from the other side of the Allegheny and fight in the middle of the bridge, throwing each other off into the water,” Roy Blount Jr. wrote in Three Bricks Shy of a Load.1