By Paul Casey Gotham
****Remember, try this without research. Release your inner James Joyce and show us your stream of consciousness as you try to decipher the answer.
My name might get bandied about this week if it hasn’t already. I am in a category all by myself when it comes to the Super Bowl. Some might think it a less-than-flattering category. Doesn’t matter to me. I wonder if they’ll compare me to Aaron Rodgers. They should. We have something in common beyond the position we played on the field. I started playing professional football when there were two drafts. I was taken fifth overall in the N.F.L. draft and 75th overall in the A.F.L. version. I chose the The League. I got eighteen years out of that choice and made 145 starts with three different clubs. Early in my career I led the league in yards per completion and attempt. Led the league twice in those categories. By the end of my career, I led the league in sacks and yards lost by sack. I made Drew Bledsoe look mobile. But that’s not exactly what I am known for. Early in my career I made it to the last Sunday of the season. Squared off with a team that had a legend under center. Years before, he handed off to Alan Ameche. They had another guy they also used as QB on that day. My team came out on the short end of the score that day. Few years and two teams later I returned to that game and played against my original team. I had as many interceptions as completions in that game. I said I was in a category that some might consider less-than-flattering. That’s all right. I got there.
Who am I?
I’ll thank Strat-O-Matic Football for my knowledge of this. The guy who handed off to Alan Ameche was Johnny Unitas for the ’58 Colts in “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
Their opponent on that day: the New York Giants.
The Giants’ quarterback: Charlie Conerley.
Oh…but, that’s not the answer…
One name sticks in my mind given all the clues … long career, good passer but not mobile … two Super Bowls … one was a loss, the other it doesn’t say. The era must’ve been the ’60s due to the AFL-NFL dynamics discussed. So I’m thinking it’s Lenny Dawson of the KC Chiefs …. he played in to SBs … a loss to The Packers and Bart Starr in SB I and then a win over the Minn Vikings a couple years later. I’m not positive that this is the answer, but I think it could be Len Dawson.
Well, I did not think I had any idea, but I am going to think this one through only because I do not think it is Lenny Dawson. He was KC only if I recall, and WAI is 3 teams, right? On the other hand, thanks Chas for the memories. I did not know you were a SOM guy. I used to love to replay ’58 Giants-Colts with my SOM cards. 7 years old at the time of the actual game. We had a TV that swiveled from living room to dining room. I left the dinner table and swiveled the TV to the other side and then soon cried my eyes out as Ameche scored the winning TD to beat my beloved Giants. Conerly, Rote, Summerall, Lynch, Katcavage, the 2 Rosie’s, and my 2 football equivalents to Mantle, Huff and Gifford, my idols. How could they lose? Oh, well. Off to WAI thinking.
Right now I’m thinking Earl Morrall. but all the facts aren’t clicking. In fact, he might be the “other QB” behind Unitas.Compare to Aaron Rodgers; is this a Cal alum? Was Steve Bartkowski a Cal man? Still working this one.
How about George Blanda? He could have been a 5 draft in NFL and a 75 in AFL. Played with Houston, Oakland and maybe one other team. But you know what? I’m going with Bartkowski: final answer.
Now off to google to see how wrong I am.
Who was the “legend under center” in this QB’s first Super Bowl that was his opponent? Unitas? Bart Starr? Namath? Fran Tarkenton?
Blanda played a lot more than 18 years, didn’t he? And mostly as a kicker.
Pretty sure Bartkowski never played in the Super bowl (Atlanta).
Pete – my next door neighbor bought SOM football in the late ’70s, then I purchased SOM baseball the following year. We were both pretty obsessed.
In football, we had all the ’77 teams, I think (the year Denver went to the Super Bowl), and we also bought a bunch of older teams: ’58 Colts and Giants, ’62 Packers, ’65 Browns and a couple others.
Every Thanksgiving, we replayed the ’58 Colts-Giants. Since it was his game, he got to coach the Giants, but I’m a little younger than you, so I didn’t have any real attachment to that Giants team, so I fully embraced the Colts. Unitas’s stats that year weren’t all that good, so his card wasn’t that good, to be honest, but Lenny Moore…ohhhhh, Lenny Moore. What a weapon! Not to mention Ameche, Ray Berry, a solid halfback named L.G. Dupre and Jim Mutscheller, who was a pretty good tight end.
Oh yeah…back to the question…
Well, I’m wrong, but my researching skills have failed me so far in finding the right answer. Gabriel and Kapp surfaced in my mind, and Kapp has a Golden bears connection, but other facts do not connect. Still looking.
Wally, I think we’re talking pre-Super Bowl. The “legend under center” is definitely Johnny Unitas.
Or, maybe this story overlaps the pre-Super Bowl and Super Bowl eras. Dawson might be right.
I keep on coming back mentally to Colts and Dolphins as team and former team, but I keep on coming up empty.
OK, let’s break this down…
“Early in my career I made it to the last Sunday of the season. Squared off with a team that had a legend under center. Years before, he handed off to Alan Ameche.”
OK, this guy was a young QB, playing against a veteran Unitas in the NFL championship or the Super Bowl. The Colts were in SB III and V, right? But, they lost III, so we could be talking about V. Is it V, or was it IV. Anyway, the game they beat Dallas on the late field goal.
“They had another guy they also used as QB on that day.”
The other QB would be Earl Morrall. Didn’t he start one of those Colts Super Bowl appearances.
“My team came out on the short end of the score that day. Few years and two teams later I returned to that game and played against my original team.”
Who was the QB for Dallas in Super Bowl V, the one they lost to the Colts? He has to be the answer.
I got it, it’s Craig Morton. He returned to the Super Bowl with Denver vs. the Cowboys.
I just realized that the Super Bowl clue was right in the beginning of the question, so I was wrong in trying to steer this away from the Super Bowl era.
The answer is definitely Morton, the only QB to lose two different Super Bowls with two different teams without ever winning one. I guess that’s his “category all by myself,” since Kurt Warner also lost Super Bowls for two different teams.
Morton and Aaron Rodgers both went to Cal.
I think you nailed it Chas.
That ’58 Colts SOM team is one of the finest ever published, Unitas’ mediocre year notwithstanding. LG (Long Gone) DuPre is one of my all-time favorite sports names. Lenny Moore was considered not too long ago by Joe Pa as the best player he ever had. I had Mutscheller’s name in my head at one point, thinking he was the Giants’ center, but that was Ray Wietecha. Again, thanks for the memories.
Speaking of great SOM teams, have you ever played with the 80s Phillies?
BTW, my other favorite sports nicknames; Dick (Night Train) Lane, DB with Lions, and Elroy (Crazy Legs) Hirsch, RB with Rams.
You have me googling some Colts-Giants names now Chas. I forget (and I mean EVERY time that I run across it) that Mutscheller was ND.
Great work, Chas! Forgot about that Cal connection with Rodgers. Why didn’t Casey say that he lost both SB’s???? That was tricky … I would’ve passed on Dawson then. But of course in hindsight there were other clues that is wasn’t Lenny. I got beat by a better team today … kinda like Penn State at Illinois yesterday 😉
“Why didn’t Casey say that he lost both SB’s????”
I’m guessing that was implied in this statement:
“I said I was in a category that some might consider less-than-flattering. That’s all right. I got there.”
I guess Penn State isn’t quite ready for the prime time…and by prime time, I mean the Pickin’ Splinters top 25.
Pete – I don’t think I ever played with the ’80s Phillies, but I did witness Mike Schmidt’s actual 500th HR when some college buddies and I road tripped to a Phils-Bucs game in Pittsburgh. 🙂
I’ve got the entire football set until they changed format and several years of baseball. We’ll have to get together some time, like the SOM tournaments of yore!
That would be a cool idea, Pete. 🙂
Craig Morton is the answer. Helmet stickers all around for the great discussion.
Chas, sorry for the delayed comment. Awesome to have seen Schmidt’s 500th. I think I have mentioned on the Pine before that I was in Yankee Stadium for Maris’ 61st. Seeing things like that live is always a cherished memory. It is also a reminder to stats people like you and me that SOM is NOT the real thing!
Pete- you might get a bit of a kick out of this: https://left-field.blogspot.com/2011/02/earl-of-snohomish.html
Good reminscing in that article, Chas. Two things: I never mixed drinking with SOM; SOM was too serious a venture. Second, with football I developed a method of playing the game solitaire (because there were never enough people to match strategies with; they were all busy doing things like studying or, in later years, working). My system resulted in fairly consistent-to-reality results. I played out several full seasons and found the standings and even the exact records and player stats to be very close to the actual numbers.