The '63 Steelers (10 page)

Griffing completed three of eleven passes for 102 yards. It was to be the only NFL season for the college star who had entered the pros to such glowing praise.

From a Giants perspective, wrote Gene Ward of the
New York Daily News
, “It was a dreadful thing to see, the disintegration of what, only a Sunday ago, had been rated one of the NFL's strongest teams and top favorite in the Eastern Division.”
⁵⁴

The day after the loss, Sherman didn't quite see the game as a disaster. He wasn't so much generous in his praise of the victors as he was critical of his own team. “It was bad, real bad,” he said in the Giants' midtown Manhattan offices. “We made everyone on their side look good—Baker, Cordileone, Michaels, all of them.” Rather than concede that there was a shift in power in the division, Sherman dismissed the defeat as simply a bad day. “I'm going to take this game and throw it right out this 16th-floor window,” he said. “We're going to forget it and get ready for the Eagles just like we do every other team.”
⁵⁵

But not everybody was going to dismiss the drubbing. Just as the Steelers weren't about to forget the whipping the Lions gave them in the '62 opener, the Giants would hang on to the memory of the 31–0 shutout. The last game on their schedule was at home against Pittsburgh, but at least they could look forward to having Tittle back for the rematch … if the game meant anything by then.

“You had to convince yourself pretty hard that 31–0 was just a fluke,” Tittle conceded. But with his characteristic modesty, he added, “On the other hand, it's pretty hard to convince yourself that I'm that valuable— thirty-one points, gosh.”
⁵⁶

There was a familiar show of power—old and new—elsewhere in the league. Jimmy Brown had TD runs of 71 and 62 yards and rolled up a total of 232 yards in Cleveland's 41–24 win in Dallas, and twenty-four-year-old Charley Johnson—“undoubtedly the brightest young quarterback prospect in the NFL,” according to UPI—threw three touchdown passes in rallying St. Louis, Pittsburgh's next opponent, to a 28–24 victory over Philly.
⁵⁷

After just two weeks, the Eastern Conference race shaped up as a mad scramble, and the Steelers gave every indication that they were going to fight like crazy to win it.

Andy Russell's NFL career was a fluke, a misunderstanding, a mistake. He never should have wound up playing football for a living. Never should have been in position to make seven Pro Bowl appearances and make tackles and sack quarterbacks across a dozen seasons. And he never should have been around to collect two Super Bowl rings.

Not that he didn't have the talent to play in the pros, the proper coaching, the dedication, or the work ethic. He had good speed, size, and athletic gifts. He was an all-state high school player and went on to play at Missouri for Dan Devine, a strict disciplinarian, powerful motivator, and shrewd coach. “I'd never have been a pro if I'd gone somewhere else,” Russell later said.
¹

Russell's Missouri teams went 25–4–3 over three years and played in two bowl games at a time when there was no room for mediocre squads in postseason. It was also an era in which college players were still going both ways. Russell started at linebacker and was a backup at fullback his sophomore year, when Missouri earned a berth in the Orange Bowl and beat Navy, 21–14, before 71,218 fans, including President-elect John F. Kennedy. Twice when Navy reached the Missouri 30, Russell intercepted a pass. As a junior, he went both ways and led the team in rushing. He was primarily a linebacker in his senior year and led the team with six interceptions as the Tigers earned a berth against Georgia Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl, where he picked off two passes. Russell disparaged his blocking ability as a fullback, but he was credited with a key block on the 77-yard TD run by teammate Bill Tobin that gave Missouri a 14–10 victory over the Yellow Jackets.

Russell didn't make All-America; he didn't even make all-conference. Even though he later faulted himself for making too many mistakes and not enough big plays as a collegian, he was a legitimate NFL prospect—except in his family's eyes. His father was a senior executive for the Monsanto Company, and work took the family from New York and Detroit before they settled in St. Louis, Monsanto's headquarters. Russell's parents then moved to Brussels, where his father was to head up the overseas operation of the company.

“You hear about Army brats,” Russell said. “I was a corporate brat. My dad had made me promise I'd never play pro football because it would humiliate the family to have a son playing a game for a living. It was an easy promise to make because I'd gone through ROTC. I figured, well, I can't play pro football anyway. I've got [a commitment to] two years of active duty. And I picked Germany because my parents were overseas and I wanted to see them occasionally.”
²

In the early sixties, the NFL draft was still a primitive procedure, far from the refined science it would evolve into, with its obsessive testing and scouting. There were only twelve teams in the league until the NFL added Dallas in 1960 and Minnesota in 1961, and the number of rounds had been cut to twenty from the thirty-round marathons that existed through 1959. The process was raw and erratic, and Parker's interest in the operation grudging and perfunctory.

“In those days they didn't have any camps where they tried you out like they do today,” Russell said. “If you were a halfway decent college football player you got a questionnaire from virtually every team. First question was, ‘Are you interested in playing pro football?' I wrote, ‘No,' and sent it back. … One team didn't send me one: the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pittsburgh Steelers didn't know I wasn't going to play pro football. So they drafted me in the sixteenth round. They called me and I said, ‘Well, you wasted a draft choice because I've got to go into the service.'”
³

The Steelers didn't have many picks to waste in the 1963 draft; Parker had traded away his first seven choices. In those years the draft was often held in the first week of December, right after the conclusion of the season for many colleges, but while the NFL season was still going. Missouri still had a date with Georgia Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston. “I go down there and figure this is the last game I'll ever play,” Russell said. “I'm OK with that.”
⁴

The first two rounds of the draft on Monday, December 3, 1962, consumed six hours and eight minutes, with fourteen teams selecting, so it was nearly
midnight by the time the Steelers' first pick came around, in round 8.
⁵
By then, Parker and his staff were long gone from the NFL draft headquarters in Chicago. He and his staff had taken a flight home, leaving scout Will Walls in charge. (Art Rooney also remained.) The final pick wasn't made until 3:30 a.m., but Walls had submitted the Steelers' sixteenth-round pick, who was still practicing for a bowl game scheduled three days before Christmas.
⁶

A couple of weeks later, Russell received a phone call in his hotel room in Houston from Walls, a colorful character who had been an end for the New York Giants and an outfielder for the St. Louis Browns and had a bit part in a movie. Walls paid Russell a visit. “Nicest guy,” Russell said. “He's really smooth. He's buttering me up. He's trying to sign me.” Russell explained that he planned to finish the school year and then report for his military commitment the following January. In between, he intended to get an internship in St. Louis. Instead, Walls suggested, “Why don't you play pro football? It's perfect.” The suggestion, Russell said, was “like a lightbulb” going on in his head. He was married but had no money. Walls started to talk contracts and mentioned a signing bonus. “What's a signing bonus?” Russell asked. After Walls explained, Russell asked how much he would get. “A thousand dollars,” Walls replied, and the contract would be for ten grand. Russell, a half year away from receiving his degree in economics, negotiated a deal for $12,000 plus a $3,000 signing bonus. “I joke now,” Russell said, decades after establishing himself as a highly successful businessman, “but that's the richest I've ever felt in my whole life.”
⁷

The odds of Russell being around to collect on that contract looked about as good as the possibility of the Steelers winning the NFL championship, at least from what Buddy Parker indicated at an introductory meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel, where the Steelers used to keep their offices. “He hated rookies,” Russell said. “His first speech to us was incredible. The rookies are sitting there—maybe twenty guys—not just draft choices but walk-ons. He had each one of us get up and say who we were and where we played college ball. And then he gave this little ‘I hate rookies' speech. ‘Rookies lose games. I'm gonna get rid of most of you guys. If it was up to me I wouldn't keep any of you, but the Chief [Art Rooney] wants me to keep a couple of you.' I walked out of that room thinking, ‘Geez, this is scary.'”
⁸

Teams might exercise extra patience with a first-round pick, as the Steelers did with their unproductive No. 1 choice in the '62 draft, Bob Ferguson, but a sixteenth-rounder? Russell was confident that he could make it in the NFL, but he knew that he had a lot to learn and adjustments to make to compete with more experienced pros. And he had limited time to make
an impression. “My athletic skills are better,” he rationalized. “I'm faster, quicker, and so I thought I should be able to play better than them. But they're smarter. They do things that I didn't know you'd be allowed to do—like they'd run around a block and make the tackle for a loss. So, if I can get as smart and be as tough, I can play in this league.”
⁹

Russell was identified as “linebacker Andy Nelsen” in one story early on at training camp, but he stood out in the intrasquad scrimmage preceding the exhibition season.
¹⁰
It was noted later that the rookie from Missouri “has been a standout from the very start of training camp.”
¹¹
He suffered a broken left thumb in the second preseason game, against the Eagles, when he made a great play, but it wasn't enough to damage his status. The Steelers' group of linebackers had been decimated in '62, and Parker had to fortify the position. Russell made the team.

It was a fortuitous decision by Parker. John Reger was lost indefinitely after his collision in the opener in Philly. When Bob Schmitz injured an ankle early in the Giants game in the second week, George Tarasovic shifted to right linebacker, and Russell, wearing No. 36, came in on the left side. The Giants failed to take advantage of a rookie on defense. And with Schmitz hurting, Parker was going to have to count on Russell against St. Louis.

The Cardinals were installed as six-point underdogs. They had won only four games in '62, but they had a dangerous passing attack, led by twenty-four-year-old quarterback Charley Johnson, who had shown signs he just might tear up the league. In his first start the year before, on October 14, he hit nineteen of thirty-three passes for 285 yards and rallied St. Louis from a 14–3 deficit to a 17–17 tie with Washington. He hit twenty-six of forty-one passes for 365 yards and two touchdowns in a 31–28 loss to the Giants, and he threw five touchdown passes and gained 302 yards in the air in a 52–20 win over Dallas. In the '62 season finale, a 45–35 win over Philadelphia, he threw for 386 yards and two more touchdowns.

Johnson had the luxury of throwing to Ulmo Shannon “Sonny” Randle— “the NFL's closest thing to a human butterfly net”—and Bobby Joe Conrad, a pair that had finished second and third, respectively, among leading receivers in '62. The two had combined for 2,112 yards receiving that season—more than the 2,069 yards the entire Steeler team had gained in receptions.
¹²

There seemed to be no limits to what Johnson might accomplish. Y. A. Tittle, at thirty-seven, reflected after the season on the prospects of the Cardinals quarterback and said, “I wish I was Charley's age. And had his future. Whooee.”
¹³

Johnson had picked right up from his '62 surge, guiding the Cards to a
34–7 win over Dallas in the '63 opener. Johnson hit nineteen of thirty-one passes for 219 yards and three TDs—two to Randle, one to Conrad—in a 28–24 victory over Philly in week 2. Randle and Conrad combined for eleven catches for 175 yards.

The Cards' offensive line was anchored by center Bob DeMarco, “a 240-pound animal from Dayton,” flanked by guard Ken Gray, of whom coach Wally Lemm said, “I wouldn't trade him for any guard in the league.”
¹⁴

But the most important player was Johnson, who appeared “destined to be the cream of the young quarterback crop in the National Football League.”
¹⁵
Born in Big Spring in west Texas, Johnson was ignored by the recruiters, so he attended a junior college, the Schreiner Institute, in his home state. The school dropped its football program after Johnson's first year, so he went to New Mexico State to play basketball. But he took a shot at football, and with the help of a backfield of future pros, Johnson and the team blossomed, earning two consecutive trips to the Sun Bowl, in which Johnson was named MVP both times.

Johnson attained more honors before the start of his third pro season: his master's degree in chemical engineering. His thesis was titled “Expansion of Laminar Jets of Organic Liquids Issuing from Capillary Tubes.” Along with studying his playbook, he was also studying for his PhD.
¹⁶

On defense, the Cards had an aggressive unit reminiscent of the Steelers' crew. At cornerback they had Jimmy Hill, a tackler as vicious as Detroit's Dick “Night Train” Lane and cited by Bobby Layne as one of “Pro Football's 11 Meanest Men.” At safety was Larry Wilson, who would cinch a reputation as one of the game's toughest players by playing a game against the Steelers with casts on both hands and still intercepting a pass.
¹⁷