Page 4 - lw3742

PARTY POOPERS continued ,

championship game against Cleveland I Right there in the dressing room we be- has enough good judgment to allow us
called a quick-out pattern to Gene Wash- gan acting like it would be bad luck if to act as free spirits within his rules. If
ington, but he was double covered. I we celebrated the NFL championship we choose not to act like free spirits,
looked to John Henderson on the other anymore. We should have. We were it's not up to him to get us out of it-
side, and there was nothing there, so I wrong! We should have had a party, it's up to us, and especially to me, as
took off around right end, straight at but we didn't. That was mistake No. 1! the quarterback. Well, I blew the as-
Jim Houston, the Browns' All-Pro line- Before I say another word about the signment. I didn't have the slightest idea
backer. I could have gone out of bounds, Super Bowl, let me be like Mr. Nixon what was wrong. All my insight came
but instead I put all my moves on Hous- and make one thing perfectly clear: I after the game.
ton, and when neither of them worked am not offering excuses. In fact, I'll say Another thing that was no help to us-
I put my head down and crashed into it flatly: the better team won that game. although it shouldn't have mattered-
him. The next thing I knew I had done The better team on Jan. 11, 1970. Noth- was being named 13-point favorites.
a complete flip through the air and Hous- ing that I say after this is intended to There wasn't a single Viking who didn't
ton was down and out. My leg hurt like deny that fact. The Kansas City Chiefs realize how ridiculous that was. We'd tell
hell, but I didn't rub it. I didn't know played one of the great games in mod- the newsmen every day, ''Listen, you
what really happened until several weeks ern football history, and they deserved guys, you just don't know pro football if
later when I ran into Houston on the to win. We made mistakes and they you think we should be 13-point favor-
Coast. didn't. That's all. They did to us ex- ites." We had studied the films, and the
''You know what you did to me that actly what we'd been doing to everybody Chiefs looked tough. And why shouldn't
time?" Houston said. else all season long. they be tough? Mr. Lamar Hunt had
"Yeah," I said. "l hit you with ill)'. In my opinion, somebody should have spent enough millions to develop a good
purse." seen our trouble developing early, right team. I don't remember him losing many
Houston said, ''You caught me right after the NFL championship game when draft choices. So how could he come up
on the point of the jaw with your knee." we didn't party eno_Qgh, didn't have with a marshmallow ball club? We knew
"Well," I said, ''that's one of our enough fun. But nobody added up the better. We had lost to the Jets in the ex-
plays. We practiced it all year." signs. We went down to New Orleans hibition season, and now it was Kansas
''Better practice some more next to prepare for the Super Bowl, and they City and not New York that had reached
year," Houston said. "I'll be looking checked us into the Hilton Inn near the the Super Bowl, so we had every reason
for that play." I hope not. airport, and that is exactly nowhere. It's to rate them high.
After our 27- 7 win in that champi- way out on the Delta flats, so far from I point all this out because there were
onship game, I got into a little bit of trou- downtown New Orleans that you can't a lot of reports later that we had un-
ble with Pete Rozelle, but it was all in- even see the skyline from there. That derestimated the Chiefs, that we had been
nocent. Without consulting the NFL only served to emphasize our change in too complacent. That theory just hap-
rules, Dale Hackbart and I had put a attitude. All year long we'd been win- pens to be bull. We were anything but
case of champagne in the dressing room ning by having fun and being enthu- complacent or overconfident. We were,
before the game. I said, "You know, siastic, and now we were changing into however, much too serious about ~he
Hack, the front four has been getting a bunch of certified public accountants. whole thing. All season long we had
all the newspaper space and they de- Not for us the bright lights of Bourbon been doing our thing, but when the big
serve it, but we also have a fine of- Street. Everybody was thinking about money was on the line we started doing
fensive line and nobody's writing about the extra $7,500 for winning. Each one somebody else's thing, acting like U.S.
them," so we went out and got another of us was thinking, "I'm not gonna be Steel or the Green Bay Packers. We for-
case of champagne strictly for our of- the guy who blows that money that ev- got who we were and we came to that
fensive linemen. When the game was over erybody's wife has already spent." We game as uninspired as Lawrence Welk.
and the television cameras focused on were all worried on behalf of our team- Well, I don't propose to replay the
our locker room, all you could see was mates, and instead of swashbuckling Super Bowl here. Everybody knows that
champagne spurting all over the place- around like the Odins that we were, we Kansas City worked out an intelligent
and that's against the rules. We just turned into organization men. game plan. They doubled and tripled
didn't know, and Rozelle was nice about In the middle of our practice week, on our great pass catcher, Gene Wash-
it. Personally, I'd have rather had te- Gary Cuozzo and I had a little talk. ington. They played head-up on our great
quila anyway, but he probably wouldn't "Something's not right," Gary said. center, Mick Tingelhoff, and kept him
have approved of that either. "We're flat," I said, "and I don't know from helping out our offensive linemen,
In my opinion, what the Vikings need- why." I should have been the guy to di- his specialty. They put a defensive end
ed after that Cleveland win was more agnose the problem and solve it, but I instead of a linebacker outside their line
partying, not less. But a strange change just didn't have the sense or the expe- to keep me from rambling around too
set in. After we'd spurted a few quarts rience. How many players are experi- much. And they played a defense called
of champagne on each other, everybody enced about things like the Super Bowl? the Kansas City stack, something we
started looking ahead to the Super Bowl. Maybe you'll say that Bud Grant should didn't see every day in the NFL. But it
This big bunch of happy-go-lucky war- have done something about our person- wasn't just those things that beat us.
riors, this team of crazy, enthusiastic ality change. I don't agree. Bud is a se- After all, we had worked out against
guys, suddenly changed its personality, rious, dedicated coach who makes rules their formations, and we anticipated
and you could almost see it happening. and expects us to abide by them, but he them thoroughly. All these stories you