Tomlinson set to retire as a Charger on Monday.
We’re hours away from the retirement of a future Hall of Famer when Tomlinson takes the podium. In the history of the NFL, Tomlinson is an evolutionary link to great runners of the past. Ernie Nevers, Steve Van Buren, Jim Brown, OJ Simpson Continue reading
Larry Wilson – Just looks like a football player
In an era gone by the St Louis Cardinals were a football team that had little success in the 1960s and early 70s. For the most part the cupboard was bare when it came to talent on their roster. However amidst the mediocrity there were two standouts that played for them: Hall of Fame members TE Jackie Smith and FS Larry Wilson. Sometimes great champions don’t come from championship teams.
As a safety he played with reckless abandon although he was a ball hawk. When you think of hard-hitting defensive backs you rarely think of them making interceptions. Over his career he intercepted 52 passes which is still a Cardinal record and returned them for five touchdowns. He was a tough as nails player who in 1965, once played with two broken hands with each in a cast. Think about that for a second… His job is to come up and take on runners in the open field or defend the pass and he was playing with broken hands?? That is wanting to play football!!
Early on in his career, he was a pioneer when it came to the safety blitz. A tactic not seen before in the NFL. He registered many sacks although it wasn’t a recorded statistic until 1982. Wilson was everywhere…deep one play, shadowing a TE the next, blitzing the quarterback, or coming up to take on enemy runners. He did not shy away from contact and earned the ultimate respect of his peers. He was voted to (at the time) a record 8 Pro Bowls, made All Pro 8 times, and was the only player selected to the All Decade Team for the 1960s and 1970s. The Cardinals retired his #8 and he was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As for his hitting we present to you exhibit A
When we look back at NFL history, we know one of the greatest teams was the Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s. Lombardi’s teams were tough teams that played simple football on offense. Defensively they ran the traditional 4-3 and may have had the best set of cornerbacks in Bob Jeter and Herb Adderley. The Packers were always ahead in games and pressure was on the secondary to shut down an opponents passing attack and along with Hall of Fame safety Willie Wood, they performed that task perfectly.
Adderley was one of the best athletes of his era and could blanket receivers and was an aggressive tackler. At 6’0 205 lbs he could run in the open field with the tallest and fastest receivers and compete for the ball. He was the Deion Sanders, the Hanford Dixon, or the Lester Hayes of his day. Or we could call him the Charles Haley of his day. Do you realize he played on 6 NFL championship teams?? Had Jim O’Brien missed a late game field goal in Super Bowl V, it could have been 7!!
In the 1960s, cornerbacks played a more physical game than they do now. Not only were they able to hit or chuck a receiver all over the field before the ball was thrown, they had to be better tacklers in a run oriented NFL. As you’ll see in the video, Adderley was a hitter. Yet when Packers opponents took to the air Adderley was ready. In his second season (1962) he exploded onto the scene with 7 interceptions in which he returned 132 yards and 1TD. It was the first of his four All Pro selections in Green Bay. Was All Pro 5 times for his career. However he had an even better season in 1965. He picked off 6 passes returning them for 175 yards and 3 touchdowns as the Packers dethroned the Cleveland Browns to become NFL Champions…again. His 3 touchdowns on interception returns was a league record that stood until 1972.
After the Packers championship years the team had aged and Adderley was traded to the Dallas Cowboys and helped that team get over the hump. They lost Super Bowl V yet came back the following year and won it all. For his career he intercepted 48 passes and returned 7 for touchdowns, the most famous, being a 60 yard interception return in Super Bowl II against the Oakland Raiders. He played in 4 of the first 6 Super Bowls. He was a member of the 60’s All Decade team and made the Pro Bowl 5 times. If ever there was a Hall of Fame resume for a career, it was Adderley’s. For all his championships even in his last season in Dallas, they made it to the 1972 NFC Championship Game.
With his speed, instincts, and physicality, Adderley is the one corner that could have played in any era in NFL history.
Herb Adderley was a 6 time world champion. Hall of Fame cornerback who could have played in any era. What would he have looked like in the modern NFL with today’s training methods and equipment??
Prologue: One spoil of war that sits in the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame inside Lambeau Field is this football.
During the first 4 Super Bowls each team used footballs from their league when on offense. Wilson NFL footballs for Green Bay and Spalding AFL footballs for the Chiefs and Raiders in I & II. When Adderley returned a pass intended for Fred Biletnikoff 60 yards for the 1st defensive touchdown in Super Bowl history, he carried an AFL football with him. It made it to Green Bay where it is on display forever.
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As the NFL changed the rules in 1978 to liberate the passing game, many thought the big physical cornerback would give way to smaller quicker men. Those who could turn and run with receivers after the 5 yard “chuck” zone (The Mel Blount Rule) would be highly sought after. Yet one team held steadfast to the belief of not allowing that receiver a free ride off the line of scrimmage.
The Oakland Raiders who in 1977, just one year removed from winning Super Bowl XI, selected Lester Hayes out of Texas A&M. Where the league saw smaller cornerbacks at 175-180 lbs enter the league at that time. Hayes was a converted college safety who stood 6’0 and weighed 200 lbs.
Does he have on enough stickum??
His inclusion into the Raiders organization was at the right time as Hall of Fame cornerback Willie Brown retired and took over as secondary coach. Under his tutelage Hayes became a master of bump and run coverage and with his size, manhandled receivers at the line of scrimmage. Sure a receiver could run free after 5 yards but he had to get there first.
Another retiring Hall of Fame Raider was WR Fred Biletnikoff who went against Hayes in practice. Fred ran crisp routes and was a slower version of Steve Largent or a Charlie Joiner. Going up against he and Cliff Branch, who was the one of the league’s perennial deep threats, honed his skills to that of one of the greatest cornerbacks the game had ever seen. He also borrowed Biletnikoff’s use of stickum and took it to obscene levels. Take a look at the pic on the right if you think we’re joking.
Stickum talk aside, his true coming out party was the 1979 season where he led the team with 7 interceptions, returning 2 for touchdowns in the only losing season for the Raider organization during the 1970’s. John Madden had retired and Tom Flores had taken over as Head Coach and the Raiders were a team in transition.
Most teams make a transition in personnel with a defensive leader being a linebacker or a star defensive lineman being a marquee player yet here was a cornerback just starting to make a name for himself at the helm. However he couldn’t unseat Louis Wright of Denver, Mel Blount of Pittsburgh, or Mike Haynes of New England on the 1979 AFC Pro Bowl roster. Naturally you’ll conclude they had better seasons yet Blount and Haynes made it on reputation with only 3 interceptions each and Wright only had 2. A gross injustice just because Hayes team had slipped that year.
Enter the greatest single season for a cornerback in NFL history and the greatest coaching job in NFL history…the 1980 Oakland Raiders. In the second season for Tom Flores, the Raiders became the first team to win the Super Bowl from a wildcard position. The team had replaced nine defensive starters from a Super Bowl team just four years before.
Lester Hayes intimidating style at cornerback belied his agility to cover the fastest and best route runners in the NFL.For the season, he picked off 13 passes, just one short of the NFL record by “Night Train” Lane in 1951. Not only was that the highest total in 29 years, no cornerback has come within 2 of that performance since then (Everson Walls in 1981). He returned those passes for 273 yards and one touchdown and went on to be the Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He was the first player to receive the award while playing for a team that didn’t finish as a top 10 defense with the Raiders finishing 11th. He did this while facing Hall of Fame WRs Steve Largent in Seattle, Charlie Joiner and Kellen Winslow in San Diego, and the electrifying John Jefferson also of the Chargers with whom he had epic battles with.
During the 1980 season teams kept testing him and coming up snake eyes. If you added his 4 interceptions during the playoffs he finished with 17 interceptions in one season. If you look at that against the year Hall of Famer Deion Sanders won his NFL MVP (1994 with San Francisco) from the same position, 6 interceptions for 303 yards and 3 TDs with 2 more ints. in the postseason, it dwarfs it tremendously. Sanders needed another NINE interceptions just to tie him!!! You would have to add Deion’s next FOUR seasons with Dallas just to tie him with 17!! Tremendous
Oakland went on to win Super Bowl XV and the 80 playoffs began with a wildcard battle against Houston and former quarterback Ken Stabler. The Raiders prevailed 27-7 with the final points scored on Hayes intercepting Stabler and returning it 20 yards hand held high to send the Raiders to Cleveland and the divisional round.
He intercepted Stabler twice then intercepted 1980 NFL MVP Brian Sipe twice in the 14-12 upset of the Browns. In the AFC Championship against the Chargers and the Super Bowl with the Eagles, Dan Fouts and Ron Jaworski just didn’t throw into his area. How do we know this?? In Super Bowl XV Hayes was the left cornerback. Jaworski threw exclusively to his left and Right OLB Rod Martin picked off a Super Bowl record 3 interceptions in a 27-10 win.
The NFL outlawed stickum after that 1980 season in anther decision that Raider loyalist felt was the offspring from the court battle between Raiders’ owner Al Davis and commissioner Pete Rozelle. Some thought that Hayes inability to use stickum had a lot to do with his interception total dropping, when in fact quarterbacks just flat didn’t throw into his area. He never intercepted more than 3 passes in a season from that point forward.
Lester Hayes showing off both rings from Super Bowl XV and XVIII
After being overshadowed by Mike Haynes for that 1979 Pro Bowl slot, he was joined by his former counterpart in 1983 to form one of the greatest CB tandem in NFL history. In that year the Washington Redskins became the highest scoring team in NFL history scoring 541 points on their way to Super Bowl XVIII. Washington’s quarterback Joe Theismann was the NFL’s MVP and the Redskins were being hailed as the greatest team in NFL history…yet they had to defend their title against Los Angeles.
The Raiders started their charge in the 83 playoffs with a 37-10 devastation of the Pittsburgh Steelers which ironically began with Hayes getting the team started with an 18 yard TD interception return. After a 30-14 win against the Seahawks in the AFC Championship experts had the Redskins winning a high scoring game.
What took place in Super Bowl XVIII was a dismantling of epic proportions. Charlie Brown, who had caught 78 for 1,225 and 8 TDs during the regular season, was smothered along with Art Monk and held to a combined 4 receptions by Hayes and Haynes. The coverage was so superb the Raiders blitzed their linebackers and recorded 6 sacks as Joe Theismann had his worst game of the year. His stat-line?? Theismann was held to 16 of 35 for 243 yards and 2 ints. Only one pass was completed in Lester Hayes area the entire day. He won his second championship ring as the Raiders won in dominating fashion 38-9.
Hayes at this point was the best cornerback in all of football. He played in 5 straight Pro Bowls from 1980-1984 and was the player most future NFL’ers modeled their game after. Most notably Hanford Dixon of the Cleveland Browns. Everything from the three foot long towel hanging from his waist to his aggressive play against a receiver at the line. Dixon and Frank Minnifield are the tandem that Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes are most often compared to. As a combo… Dixon and Minnifield were the best tandem in NFL history. Yet the man who coined the Brown’s “Dawg Defense”, was a 3 time Pro Bowler who modeled himself to be like Lester, what would you call Hayes?? In The Chancellor’s book, he’s a Hall of Famer.
Please lend your thoughts as well by writing in to the Pro Football Hall of Fame to the address below. Please be respectful and positively lend your voice:
Please write & nominate #37 Lester Hayes
Send letters to:
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Attention Senior Selection Committee
2121 George Halas Dr NW, Canton,
OH 44708
For induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I present to you Lester Hayes
Over the course of an NFL career there may not have been a more overlooked Middle Linebacker than the heavy hitting Harry Carson of the New York Giants. For 13 years he was the man in the middle for the Giants, first as the guy in a 4-3 defense. Then once the Giants drafted Lawrence Taylor he shared inside linebacker duties in a 3-4 unit. Adulation and praise for his play was slow and coming from NFL fans everywhere but Giants fans knew his true value. His peers voted him to a record (at the time) nine Pro Bowls with the last coming in 1987.
He was the most physical inside linebacker in the heyday of the NFC East, which at that time had 1,000 yard rushers in Hall of Famer John Riggins of the Redskins, Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett of the Cowboys, Wilbert Montgomery of the Eagles, and Ottis OJ Anderson out of St Louis. The success of the Giants in the early to mid 80s began with Carson stuffing the opponents running game, then unleashing Lawrence Taylor and Leonard Marshall after opposing quarterbacks.
At 6’2 235lbs, Carson looked even bigger in his oversized shoulder pads and thigh pads. He was a more imposing presence in the middle which includes Mike Singletary as one of his contemporaries. Yet make no mistake about it, Carson was a cerebral player who reduced his position to one of angles and leverage. He read offensive blocking schemes and reduced the number of steps needed to get to the ball carrier and never took the wrong angle. In that aspect he was a modern day version of Willie Lanier of the 1960s Kansas City Chiefs.
Carson was the lone defensive stalwart on a losing Giants team for much of his career. Once the Giants surrounded him with other defensive stars during the 1980’s with Taylor, Carl Banks, and Leonard Marshall to go along with long time DE George Martin to form one of the finest defenses of the 1980s. He led them through the losing years, then all the way to the Super Bowl XXI triumph over the Denver Broncos. In 1988 Carson retired and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
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Now how could we have a category on the best defenses and defenders in NFL history and not include the Pittsburgh Steelers?? As we moved into the 1970’s following the merger, we saw the hashmarks narrowed in 1974 and the goal posts moved to the end line to provide offenses more room to operate. Scoring had been down for much of the first half of the decade and it was thought this additional field to cover would hamper defenses. Especially those with burly MLB types that had limited range tracking sideline to sideline, or defending the pass.
Enter Jack Lambert.
A converted outside linebacker who stood 6’4 and stayed at a playing weight of 220 lbs. the majority of his career. What he brought to the table was the speed to get further back than the Willie Lanier’s and the Dick Butkus’, a prior generation’s middle linebackers who were mainly there to stuff the run. His ability to get past twenty yards in pass defense was the impetus for the Steelers to run what is NOW misnamed the “Tampa 2”.
It started in Pittsburgh because against the run and rushing the passer, Ernie Holmes, Joe Greene, Dwight White, and LC Greenwood were the finest front four of their era….possibly football history. Lambert, along with outside linebackers Andy Russell, and Jack Ham, only needed to clean up against the run and were already a step back ready to clog the middle and flat areas against the slower tight ends of that era. The result??
A defense put together from astute drafting grew into one of menace that powered the Steelers to victories in both Super Bowls IX and X. In Super Bowl IX the Steelers held the Vikings to just 17 yards rushing for the game. A record that stood until Super Bowl XX. They stood tall and defended against a frantic last second effort in Super Bowl X. So strong was the Steeler defense, Coach Chuck Noll ran the ball on 4th and 9 and let the Cowboys have the ball at their own 40 yard line leaving it up to the defense to win the game. While winning a second straight world title they set the Super Bowl record for sacks with 7.
A young team with an unprecedented chance to win a third straight Super Bowl went into the 1976 season with their front four in their prime.With Terry Bradshaw growing up as a quarterback and growing receivers John Stallworth and Lynn Swann with one of history’s finest defense….What would they do for an encore?? Could they threepeat??
Well the Steelers didn’t win that Super Bowl and after falling to the Denver Broncos in 1977, they returned to win Super Bowl’s XIII and XIV. It was the impetus to stop this defense along with the Denver Broncos 1977 performance (18 TDs and 148 points allowed) that made the rules makers make changes for the upcoming 1978 season.
In fact the biggest of these rule changes was to nullify Steeler cornerback Mel Blount. Standing 6’3 and weighing in upwards of 200 lbs. he would manhandle receivers as they tried to run their patterns downfield. This new rule only allowed cornerbacks to only chuck a receiver under 5 yards. From there the receiver could run free untouched where in prior years a receiver could get hit by linebackers or safeties as well if the ball hadn’t been thrown. It’s actually referred to as the “Mel Blount Rule”. Another allowed offensive linemen to extend their arms while pass blocking to nullify Pittsburgh’s pass rush.
The Steelers dominance ended after their 1979 championship. The team had aged yet sent linebackers Lambert and Ham to the Hall of Fame along with two time NFL defensive player of the year Joe Greene. Was this the greatest ever defense?? Were they better than the 1985 Chicago Bears?? The 2000 Baltimore Ravens?? The 1969 Minnesota Vikings?? The 1968 Baltimore Colts?? Lets hear from you…
…and by the way, just to stick it to the rules makers who changed the game on them. The Steelers set the record for a 16 game season with only 195 points given up.
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