Fourth and Long: Rivers of Courage

Back in 2007 and 2008, I wrote a weekly online pro football column dubbed “Fourth and Long” for the late Football for Breakfast website.  One hopes the gentle reader will enjoy this blast from 1/23/08…

As long-time readers can attest, I’ve been a harsh critic of the San Diego Chargers ever since they dumped Marty Schottenheimer last February.

But one thing about the Chargers I can’t criticize is Phillip Rivers’ courage.

You can criticize his mouthing off at fans and at opposing teams. You can criticize his bad games earlier in the season. But you can’t criticize his heart.

Philip Rivers could barely walk Saturday night and yet he managed to courageously quarterback his team through the AFC championship against the juggernaut New England Patriots. And it has since been revealed that Rivers played the game with a completely detached ACL.

An entire game without the benefit of an ACL in his right knee.

Gone.

And if that wasn’t valiant enough, it turns out he had double-secret arthroscopic surgery on his knee to scope out loose cartilage only six days before the game. Philip Rivers has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he has a heart of a lion, finishing the game 19 of 37 for 211 yards on only one leg.

Which is unfortunate for running back LaDainian Tomlinson who could only manage to play two series in the same game with a sprained MCL.

Unfortunate because L.T. looks pretty bad in comparison.

Especially with all the talking L.T. has done this year.

L.T. used to be the class of the league. Only last year during his MVP season when he scored a record 31 touchdowns, he was famous for simply handing the ball to the referee after every score and following the Vince Lombardi dictate, “Act like you’ve been there before.”

But this season he had to add a touchdown celebration and yap. And yap some more.

Yet when his team needed him the most. When his quarterback gamely played on one leg, L.T. was sitting on the bench.

Okay, so you can’t make those cuts, you can’t explode anymore. But being on the field gives the entire team a boost.

Antonio Gates was on the field with a dislocated toe.

Philip Rivers gallantly played an entire game without an ACL.

In that situation, in that championship game, I think you have to be on the field. If you can walk, you gut it out. Even as a decoy.

This was a game the Chargers lost by only 9 points with four trips to the red zone resulting in four field goals.

A two point game at the start of the fourth quarter.

Imagine if L.T. could have given Rivers the opportunity for one effective play-action pass on any of those drives.

Convert one of those trips into a touchdown and suddenly you have a shot at glory. A shot at immortality.

Two wounded lions triumphing over the greatest team in NFL history.

But, alas, the Chargers never got that opportunity. Because while one of those lions was on the field, the other, during the biggest game of his career, was hiding on the bench under his cloak and his helmet and his mirrored visor.

‘Larry King’ Ramblings

In a news conference following their loss to the New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys’ head coach Wade Phillips opined, “After looking at the tape, I feel like the best team lost the game.”

I’m not sure what the point of that assertion was meant to be.

Was Phillips suggesting, We were the better team, but I didn’t prepare us well enough.

Maybe, the Giants’ victory will be forever tarnished because we didn’t win.

Or more likely, since Wade found himself on the losing end of the Music City Miracle, Don’t look at me, the football gods hate me.

I can understand the sour grapes and frustration from Wade Phillips. But this tendency of claiming that somehow the wrong team advanced in the playoffs is slowly and disturbingly permeating the NFC post-season landscape.

This week, Mike Vandermause of the Green Bay Gazette asserted, “Misguided football purists claim the Giants were the better team and won because they were more physical and dominated the line of scrimmage. While the Giants controlled the clock and the stat sheet, the most talented team lost on Sunday at Lambeau Field … if the Packers were physically inferior, why didn’t it show on the scoreboard?”

Um… Mike? Did you look at the scoreboard at the end of the game? I think it read, Giants 23 Packers 20.

And remember the Giants won the game despite missing two fourth-quarter field goals.

Oh, and I might add that the Packers were playing at home and got the ball first in overtime.

Why is it that no one seems capable of accepting that the New York Giants went on the road and earned consecutive playoff victories over the NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the #1 seed Dallas Cowboys and #2 seed Green Bay Packers?

What will happen if those pesky Giants pull off the impossible and beat the unquestionably more talented New England Patriots, quite possibly best team of all-time?

I think it’s safe to assume that a columnist from Boston will pontificate that the better team lost.

Maybe they’ll have to put an asterisk on the Giants’ Lombardi Trophy.

‘Heidi’ Chronicles

Football fans certainly warmed up to the sub-zero New York Giants-Green Bay Packers NFC championship game Sunday night giving the riveting telecast a 31.7 overnight rating.

To put that in perspective, it made for the most watched NFC championship game since 1996 (when the Cowboys defeated the Packers 38-27) and the most-watched football game since last year’s Super Bowl.

With two of the larger market teams and the most compelling storyline in decades, one has to wonder if this year’s Super Bowl matchup will generate the best Super Bowl ratings in television history.

And that’s saying something since 10 of the top 20 television broadcasts of all-time are Super Bowl telecasts.

Bearing in mind that rating represents the percentage of all televisions that are tuned to a specific program and share represents the percentage of all televisions turned on that are tuned to a specific program, here are how the past 41 Super Bowl broadcasts have fared…

	                                       Rating Share
2007	Colts 29	Bears 17	CBS	42.6	64
2006	Steelers 21	Seahawks 10	ABC	41.6	62
2005	Patriots 24	Eagles 21	FOX	41.1	62
2004	Patriots 32	Panthers 29	CBS	41.3	63
2003	Bucs 48 	Raiders 21	ABC	40.7	61
2002	Patriots 20	Rams 17		FOX	40.4	61
2001	Ravens 34	Giants 7	CBS	40.4	61
2000	Rams 23		Titans 16	ABC	43.2	62
1999	Broncos 34	Falcons 19	FOX	40.2	61
1998	Broncos 31	Packers 24	NBC	44.5	67
1997	Packers 35	Patriots 21	FOX	43.3	65
1996	Cowboys 27	Steelers 17	NBC	46.1	72
1995	49ers 49	Chargers 26	ABC	41.3	63
1994	Cowboys 30	Bills 13	NBC	45.4	66
1993	Cowboys 42	Bills 17	NBC	45.1	66
1992	Redskins 27	Bills 24	CBS	40.3	61
1991	Giants 20	Bills 19	ABC	41.8	63
1990	49ers 55	Broncos 10	CBS	39.0	63
1989	49ers 20	Bengals 16	NBC	43.5	68
1988	Redskins 42	Broncos 10	ABC	41.9	62
1987	Giants 39	Broncos 20	CBS	45.8	66
1986	Bears 46	Patriots 10	NBC	48.3	70
1985	49ers 38	Dolphins 16	ABC	46.4	63
1984	Raiders 38	Redskins 9	CBS	46.4	71
1983	Redskins 27	Dolphins 17	NBC	48.6	69
1982	49ers 26	Bengals 21	CBS	49.1	73
1981	Raiders 27	Eagles 10	NBC	44.4	63
1980	Steelers 31	Rams 19		CBS	46.3	67
1979	Steelers 35	Cowboys 31	NBC	47.1	74
1978	Cowboys 27	Broncos 10	CBS	47.2	67
1977	Raiders 32	Vikings 14	NBC	44.4	73
1976	Steelers 21	Cowboys 17	CBS	42.3	78
1975	Steelers 16	Vikings 6	NBC	42.4	72
1974	Dolphins 24	Vikings 7	CBS	41.6	73
1973	Dolphins 14	Redskins 7	NBC	42.7	72
1972	Cowboys 24	Dolphins 3	CBS	44.2	74
1971	Colts 16	Cowboys 13	NBC	39.9	75
1970	Chiefs 23	Vikings 7	CBS	39.4	69
1969	Jets 16		Colts 7		NBC	36.0	71
1968	Packers 33	Raiders 14	CBS	36.8	68
1967	Packers 35	Chiefs 10	NBC/CBS	41.1	79

‘John Madden’ Wayback Machine

18-0.

One win away from the greatest season in NFL history.

Only the second team to reach that sacred summit of perfection in professional football, right?

Wrong.

You might not read about it in any official NFL record books, but there was another professional football team that achieved perfection before the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

And it wasn’t some defunct team from the USFL or WFL.

No, the Cleveland Browns attained the first perfect season in 1948.

Only this was before they played in the NFL. The Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts all competed in a rival league from 1946 to 1949, the All-American Football Conference (AAFC), that surprisingly boasted better average attendance at their games than the National Football League. So popular were the Browns, in fact, that the NFL champion Cleveland Rams fled for Los Angeles before the Cleveland Browns with Ohio legend Paul Brown as coach had played a single game.

And for good reason did they leave. The Cleveland Browns were a juggernaut in the AAFC, winning all four league championships and dominating with an 52-4-3 record over that span, pulling in the largest crowds in professional football history.

In 1948, the Browns finished with a perfect 15-0 record amid a 29-game unbeaten streak. Not that it was all easy. The San Francisco 49ers played them tough that season when both teams were undefeated, losing 14-7 in front of 82,769 fan at Cleveland Municipal Stadium and 31-28 two weeks later in San Francisco. The Browns also survived a special AAFC Thanksgiving promotion that saw them play three games in eight days.

The Browns overcame every obstacle and crushed the Buffalo Bills in the AAFC championship game 49-7 to claim professional football’s first perfect season.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, that’s great, but were they any good?

Well, the Browns went on to win the championship again in 1949 and when it was announced that three teams from the AAFC would merge with the NFL in 1950, the four-time defending AAFC champion Cleveland Browns were matched up against the two-time defending NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles to kick off the season. At Philadelphia Municipal Stadium in front of 71,000 fans, ‘The World Series of Football’ proved to be a mismatch as the Browns, led by quarterback Otto Graham, destroyed the Eagles 35-10.

The Browns would go on to win the NFL championship that year, beating the juggernaut Los Angeles Rams in the title game on a last-second field goal. Afterwards, NFL commissioner Bert Bell called the Cleveland Browns “the greatest team to ever play football.”

The Browns would play in the next five NFL championship games, winning three more. Over a ten year span, the Cleveland Browns and quarterback Otto Graham played in 10 consecutive championship game, winning seven.

So before we crown the 2007 New England Patriots the greatest team of all-time and Tom Brady the greatest quarterback of all-time, perhaps we should look at the teams of pro football past. Especially teams that don’t crow about their success and pop champagne every year to celebrate their greatness.