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MISFIT continued

expression of football togetherness, of
wanting to win and committing your-
selves to excellence. I told you how the
scrimmages were, and the games were
no different. Forty guys were working
their tails off out there, enjoying every
minute of it, playing for one another.
Later some critics said we peaked too
early, as though we were in an election
campaign. Well, maybe so. We lost our
opener by one point to the Giants, and
then we came up against Baltimore, the
team that had beaten us in the playoffs
the year before, and we peaked them
right out of the ball park. We had cooked
on the 1968 loss all year and we were
out to prove something. We won 52-14,
and I tied an NFL record by throwing
seven touchdown passes. After the game
the usual ridiculous thing happened; the
press encircled me in front of my locker
and hardly talked to anybody else. I
was embarrassed, beca~se I knew bet-
ter than those reporters where the game
had been won, so I shouted, " Remember
the Alamo!"
''What's that supposed to mean?" one
writer asked.
"That's the last time the Mexicans
won anything," I said. I was so exhil-
arated I was talking nonsense, but then
the whole idea of attributing our vic-
tory to me was also nonsense.
After that game we won a long string
and usually the wins could be traced to
enthusiasm and togetherness and a will-
ingness to subjugate our own individual
egos for the good of the team. A team
slogan had evolved: "40 for 60," mean-
ing 40 guys functioning together for 60
minutes of every game and no individ-
ual star stuff. Our special teams under
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