September 2024 - Page 3 of 3 - Adamsonmedia.com

Breaking up the band

Fifty years ago today, the National Football League wrapped up its exhibition slate in preparation for a September 15 start to the 1974 season.

On the plus side, it had survived a strike that lasted from July 1 to August 10, losing only the College All-Star Game to the work stoppage. However, the labor dispute opened the door for the fledgling World Football League, which began its inaugural season on July 10.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Threads @sladamson1960 and Adamsonmedia on Facebook.**

And while the WFL was starting to look shaky by September, it had already shaken up the senior circuit by signing Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kiick to 1975 contracts.

That trio helped the Miami Dolphins log a perfect season in 1972, and win a second consecutive Super Bowl in 1973. But they’d be lame ducks as Miami tried for a three-peat, lured away to the Memphis Southmen for 1975.

Actually, they were signed by the Toronto Northmen on March 31, 1974. The franchise, owned by Canadian businessman John Bassett, moved to Tennessee just over a month later. Bassett received pushback from some of that country’s government offcials – who wanted to protect the Canadian Football League – and opted to take his team south of the border.

The three-year, $3.86-million deal (Csonka got $1.4 million) was far and away the WFL’s biggest splash.

“I’m not a kid coming out of college anymore,” Csonka told the Tampa Bay Times for a September 8, 1974 story. “I’m not leaving a million dollars on the table. My dad didn’t raise any stupid kids.”

The contracts, as you might expect, were a hot topic of conversation among the Dolphins as they entered their final season before the band broke up.

“We are professionals,” Csonka said. “We will play like professionals no matter what city we’re in. We’re extremely anxious to leave the Dolphins and NFL winners.”

Csonka, at 28, was the NFL’s top fullback and coming off his second consecutive 1,000-yard season. He was named MVP of Super Bowl VIII, scoring two touchdowns and racking up 145 yards in Miami’s 24-7 victory over Minnesota.

Warfield wasn’t targeted a lot due to the Dolphins’ run-heavy attack in 1973, but he made his catches count. He closed the year with 29 receptions for 514 yards and 11 touchdowns.

Kiick was entering his sixth season with Don Shula’s juggernaut, and had added incentive to jump leagues after playing behind Mercury Morris for much of 1973. The result was a career-low 257 yards on 76 carries and no regular season touchdowns.

Yet, a sampling of other Dolphins suggested there were no hard feelings.

“There isn’t a player in professional football who wouldn’t jump to the new league for the kind of money they got,” safety Dick Anderson told the Times. “I can’t blame them. You can only play this game so long. And if you take a beating like Csonka does every game, you’d understand.”

Added guard Larry Little, “I’m glad for them. It’s an opportunity. I’m just sorry I’m not going up there with them.”

Shula, for his part, seemed unconcerned about any short-timers attitude, especially from his workhorse.

“I had a long talk with Larry after he got back from Toronto and he said he was going to give it everything he had to win a third Super Bowl,” he said.

While it had to be tough for Miami faithful to know the three would be gone once the season ended, they obviously gave their best to their future former team.

Csonka played in 12 games with 11 starts in 1974, picking up 749 yards and scoring nine touchdowns. Those stats are even more impressive considering he had to deal with shoulder and foot injuries.

Warfield, meanwhile, earned Pro Bowl honors, snagging 27 passes for 536 yards and two touchdowns.

Kiick finished with 274 ground yards and scored once, bettering his numbers from the previous campaign.

In their final game before becoming Bassett’s employees – a 28-26 loss to the homestanding Oakland Raiders in the AFC playoffs – Csonka rumbled for 114 yards, while Warfield had three catches for 47 yards and a TD.

“Until I get back to Miami, I’m still very much a Dolphin,” Csonka told the Miami Herald after the game. “I think we had the best football dynasty ever and they’ll be chasing that one for a long time. See this ring on my finger? Nobody can take that from me.

“But football is a ‘now’ game. The past means a lot to individuals, but to the fans it’s next week that’s important. The Miami fans are a great group … I sure hate to leave them.”

Alas, there would be no repeat in the Dolphins’ swan song.

In fact, the franchise hasn’t won a Super Bowl since.

As for Csonka, Warfield and Kiick’s WFL days, they were short (the league folded after 12 games) and hardly dazzling from a statistical standpoint.

Kiick was the second leading rusher on the Southmen with 462 yards on 121 carries and nine touchdowns; Csonka was third with 421 yards on 99 totes and one score; and Warfield had 25 catches for 422 yards and three TDs.

Csonka played four more NFL seasons in his Hall of Fame career, three with the New York Giants (1976-78) and a last hurrah with Miami.

Warfield – also a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee – suited up for Cleveland in 1976 and 1977, finishing his playing days in the place he started before joining Miami in 1970.

Kiick spent the 1976 season with Denver and played four games with the Broncos in 1977 before being traded to Washington where he appeared in just one game and then retired.

Starting every game with the Dolphins in 1979, Csonka had 837 yards and a career-high 12 touchdowns.

In 2017, Csonka wrote this on his larrycsonka.com blog:

“I do not regret my decision to jump to the WFL. It was a business decision. We all had families and the money offered would help secure our futures after football. None of us wanted to leave Miami but there was too big a gap in salary and (Miami owner Joe) Robbie wouldn’t even consider discussing our current contracts. I am happy Coach Shula and I were able to come to terms in 1979 and I was able to end my career with him and the Miami fans.”

Coachspeak

The field goal would have to travel 64 yards, and kicking it between the goalposts – into a fickle wind – would make the feat all the more difficult. With only one tick remaining on the clock and his final timeout burned, however, Ocean State University coach Miller Faber had little choice.

The chances of a successful Hail Mary were slim – Evergreen Tech had stymied the Sharks’ passing attack all night – and Merrill Quatro regularly booted 60-plus yarders at practice.

No, with his squad down 23-21, the quirky sidewinder was his best option.

“Kicking team!” Faber shouted.

Quatro slipped on his helmet and before taking the field, stopped and looked at his coach.

“Which one am I gonna get, coach?” Quatro asked.

“What are you talking about?” Faber replied, watching as the rest of his team prepared to line up on the Evergreen 47-yard line. “Which what?”

“You know, one of your clichés. I think the first one came at the team meeting my freshman year, about how football is like the game of life. That’s a good one … makes me chuckle.”

Faber was irritated. A berth in the Begonia Bowl was on the line, and winning this game – on the road against more than 50,000 mostly hostile fans – was all Faber was thinking about.

“Son,” Faber snapped. “Right now isn’t the time or the place … I used up all the rah-rah stuff in the locker room and I’m not in a joking mood. Why don’t you just go out there and do what you’ve done a thousand times, OK?”

Quatro took a few steps forward and then turned around.

“It’s just that I’ve had four years to think about it, and it seems too simplistic,” Quatro said. “I understand in football, as in life, we face adversity and have to overcome challenges, so I get where you’re coming from. But every game we know there are going to be four, 15-minute quarters, a 20-minute halftime, and the game will end with a winner and a loser, even if it takes overtime. Life isn’t that cut and dried.”

Faber shook his head.

“Just get out there, dammit!” Faber screamed.

Quatro scampered onto the field behind the holder, took two quick digs into the turf with his right foot, and waited for the snap to the holder.

Before the ball came spiraling out of the hands of the center, though, Tech called a timeout in an effort to ice the kicker.

Quatro headed back to the sideline.

“See,” he said. “That’s a perfect example. “They still had a timeout they could use, but in life sometimes you don’t have a timeout. Sometimes you have no time … and sometimes you have a lot of time. Really, I don’t think life is a game at all. And football? It’s just football. If it’s like anything, it’s like rugby. You know, rugby started at the Rugby School in England back in 1845 …”

Faber vigorously rubbed his forehead with his left hand, and pulled his cap off with his right.

“Merrill,” he said. “For the love of all that’s holy, will you just please kick the ball? As a favor … to me. Hit it, miss it, I don’t even care at this point. Let’s just end this conversation, and then you can end the game.”

Quatro winked and double-timed back to his spot.

There were no more timeouts to be called, so the ball was snapped, placed down by the holder, and quickly met with the thunderous thud of his instep.

Quatro watched the ball break slightly to the right before curving back to the left, easily splitting the posts and clearing the crossbar with plenty of room to spare.

The few hundred Ocean State fans on hand erupted in cheers, while the rest of the fans sat in stunned silence as their team had lost on one of the longest field goals ever kicked in college football.

The holder – a backup quarterback – lifted Quatro into the air, and many of his teammates joined in the celebration. Quatro glanced at Faber, who was smiling and shaking his head.

As a philosophy major, the kicker was often engaging his mentor in conversations that had little to do with sports, and the coach ribbed him about his high mindedness – sometimes with a touch of exasperation. Faber usually countered by pulling an old chestnut from his bag of coachspeak.

This time, Quatro used the off-the-wall banter during the timeout to keep from overthinking his career-defining field goal.

“Helluva boot, Merrill!” said Faber, who nudged his way into the pile of humanity to give the kicker a hug and pat on the helmet. “So, tell me, smartass … which of my words of wisdom did you think about when you made that kick? Was it the one about tough times don’t last but tough people do, or maybe how sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it?”

“Actually coach, this was one time I wasn’t thinking about any of your clichés.”

Quatro held up both hands and rubbed his fingers together.

“I just remember you telling me an NFL kicker makes more than $2 million a year.”

An NFL farm system

A few years ago – following the death of the Alliance of American Football and before the birth of the 2020 XFL and 2022 USFL – I pondered the possibility of a traditional minor league football system for the National Football League.

And when I say “traditional,” I mean something along the lines of Major League Baseball farm clubs and NBA G League teams, franchises that play at the same time of year as the parent clubs.

As a fan of spring pro football, I’m glad the United Football League exists and look forward to its return in 2025. However, it’s an offseason venture, not in-season. And to get the most bang for its buck, an NFL-sponsored circuit would require affiliates that share a similar competition schedule.

I started thinking about this again after my favorite NFL team, the New York Jets, signed Adrian Martinez of the UFL champion Birmingham Stallions.

Martinez earned MVP honors while leading the Stallions to their third consecutive spring football crown, and it’s great that he landed an NFL job. But the job of a practice squad player is just that – to practice. Barring an injury to a QB on the 53-man active roster, he won’t be playing in any actual games.

But an NFL farm team could encompass all of the main club’s practice squad members (up to 17) and put them in actual competitive situations.

As I wrote before, these squads would not only be a good proving ground for rookies, but give playing time to backups and paying jobs to a lot of guys who otherwise would be out of football work after training camp. I’d think it would be relatively easy to put together a 40-man per club developmental league roster.

Each NFL team would have one minor league team, and from a marketing standpoint, those “junior varsity” teams could benefit from big league branding. In other words, the Brooklyn Jets could share colors and similar logos to their big league affiliates who play at MetLife Stadium. Same would be true for the Albany Giants, New Haven Patriots, Des Moines Bears, Raleigh Panthers, etc.

And of course, it would be necessary for the offensive and defensive schemes to replicate those of their NFL counterparts – made easier by the fact that they’d hold joint practices.

In my original NFL “G League” plan, I had it divided into four, eight-team quadrants (North, South, East and West) that played regional slates to keep expenses down.

Teams in each quadrant would meet each other twice over the course of a 14-game regular season, and then the four quadrant champions could advance to a four-team playoff.

And to be a functioning farm system, the season would need to run (mostly) concurrent with the NFL schedule. Start it maybe two weeks after the NFL season begins in order to put rosters together.

If games were played during the week, farmhands would be ready for a “call-up” at any time, so if the New York Jets found themselves in need of a lineman for Sunday’s game they could pluck one from the Brooklyn Jets.

This would be perfect for quarterbacks – and not just guys like Martinez.

In most cases, a second-string NFL QB will see very little action during the season and the third-string signal caller won’t see any at all.

Build a developmental team, and the understudies could receive meaningful minutes in actual games, while players coming back from injury could get reconditioned.

Additionally, it would make for a great laboratory in terms of testing safety features, new rules, in-game technology, etc.

I think it’s a great idea, if I do say so myself.

But …

It would most likely be a money-losing proposition. And even though the average value of an NFL team is $5.7 billion, owners would still want to see a positive return on their “D-League” investment.

The reason the USFL and XFL were able to morph into the UFL – and why this brand of football is expected to return for its fourth consecutive season in 2025 – is because it attracts eyeballs. Other than St. Louis in-game fan support is pretty weak, but If you’re passionate about watching football from the comfort of your couch (yet the calendar says April), this Triple-A organization gives you a fix.

But where would the minors fit in during the fall season? That’s when fans already have an embarrassment of riches with the NFL, college and high school football. And thanks to ESPN, you can catch a game virtually any night of the week.

Would fans tune in to see the Spokane Seahawks play the San Jose 49ers on a Wednesday night? I would, but I’m not confident there’d be a huge appetite for it.

And with Power Five college football now NFL Lite, the sport’s biggest league already has a feeder system it doesn’t have to pay for.

While many sports have longstanding minor league pipelines, football has gotten along rather well with just the college-to-pro model.

I don’t really expect that to change. However, if it does, I promise to watch – especially when those Brooklyn Jets hit the gridiron.