NFL Films: Mavericks and Misfits (1987)

[Music] they really named him right when they named him psycho i this guy is was a legend every time you lose you die a little bit you die inside a portion of you not all of your organs maybe just your liver any ball that came near me i wanted to be like a vacuum cleaner i mean it was mine you know i just i turned me on be positive think super bowl look have you ever seen the super bowl range in the past they're unbelievable the size of telephones well i always admired eddie he was one of the high quality players with character that i ever coached i thought if he'd have been four inches taller he and i would have wrote most of the record books because he was that good at passing the greatest little football player that ever lived was eddie levine i was a strategist i knew where to throw the football i wasn't blessed with all the physical skills in the world but those things uh understanding the game knowing defenses knowing offenses being able to call players being able to read defenses i felt that i could do that as well as anybody i took great pride in it [Music] pro football teams spend countless hours looking for players who will stack up beside one another as neatly as these rows of film cans but throughout nfl history the games mavericks and misfits have proven that it's possible to be part of a total team effort yet still retain one's individuality one of pro football's most unique individuals was jim marshall the defensive end of the minnesota vikings we've got plenty of footage of jim leading the charge of the fabled purple people eaters but this can of film contains footage of jim skydiving jim's free-spirited nature remained free throughout an amazing nfl career that began in 1960 and lasted for 20 years professional football players are all too often presented as mythic figures icons who are viewed as being indestructible as stone [Music] in reality they are men of flesh and blood but up in minnesota there once was a player to whom many generations of viking fans looked upon as being immortal he was a defensive end and philosopher named jim marshall far better it is to dare mighty things to win glorious triumphs even though checkered with failure than to be ranked with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much for they live in that great twilight that knows not victory nor defeat teddy roosevelt jim marshall's sought adventure adventure however for good or bad never had a problem finding him [Music] straight back to pass looking stops throws completes it to kilmer up at the 30-yard line killer driving for the first down losing the football it's picked up by jim marshall who's running the wrong way marshall is running the wrong way and he's running it into the end zone the wrong way thinks he's scored a touchdown his score to safety only someone who has brushed with death off the field could ever survive this cool twist of fate on it for jim marshall wrong way runs pale in comparison to his life-threatening endeavors from a rocky mountain snowmobile expedition that left one member of his party dead [Music] to numerous other encounters into the unknown the life and times of jim marshall reads like a hollywood horror show scary and humorous and hard to believe [Music] little silver things were dancing in front of my eyes and and i i kind of felt like this might be it you know and it was it was a little a little strange to to feel that way after having been um you know the athlete and never quitting and all those all those things and i said boy you do you really up you have really felt that you're going to die i watched all my limbs break as i as as i hit the ground i watched my my legs snapping and and my my foot come up into my groin held on by the calf muscle back here the bone of the leg stuck down in the ground i remember sitting up in the bed and blood just kind of started running down my face and it was just pumping out uh and the artery that had had been nicked had deteriorated and and burst the story's making me sick dude i didn't get to the good parts they lost me they lost me on that one on the operating table and i remember being up looking back at myself laying on the table and i told them everything that they did no they never lost jim marshall [Music] ironically over the course of 20 years on the playing field he hardly suffered a scratch by playing in 282 consecutive games marshall established an nfl record of endurance that may never be broken he also went on to run the right way with his fumble recoveries [Music] in minnesota marshall was not merely admired he was worshipped by his fans his teammates and even his longtime legendary coach jim marshall was a special kind of person i always call him mr marshall and we had a good relationship he was our captain as long as he was here he was exactly what a captain should be and if i would say okay guys let's do this and joe marshall will be first in line and if we got a rookie and line up and say well there goes jim marshall doing this full speed full board played 15 years hey i got to do it and that's those are the kind of people you have to have in a football team jim marshall was very special yes we do often mistakenly believe that professional athletes are immortal but the man carrying the football here may well have been the exception for if ever there was an indestructible football player he was number 70 for the minnesota vikings a maverick named jim marshall pro football's heroes are as varied as the game itself in this library we've got the young the old black white big and yes even the small this is the story of the nfl's smallest quarterback eddie lebaron in 1952 eddie was drafted by george preston marshall the owner of the washington redskins who frankly admitted that eddie's lack of size would be a serious handicap but eddie proved mr marshall wrong and played seven years for the redskins and then four more with the dallas cowboys parlaying his limited size and limitless daring into a remarkable pro career it is a shabby trick on history's part that eddie lebaron number 14 is only remembered as an oddity the quarterback a fluke of the 1950s in spite of his obvious skill and ingenuity eddie was always viewed with more curiosity than admiration being 5'7 and 160 doesn't inspire what most people think is the traditional pro and all through the years i had things happen to me that people didn't think i was i was a player and in fact probably some coaches but uh uh when i was in college i started college when i was 16 and uh we were going to train and we passed two little ladies and i was with this was right after the war and i was with two guys had been in a service as we went by the little ladies one of them said who they the other one said that's the college of the pacific football team and one of them looked at me and said isn't that nice when they brought their little son along as a 16 year old freshman eddie played for an 86 year old coach the legendary amos alonso stag mr stagg was a unique person and if the uniform had a hole in it he took it home at noon and his wife would sew it up and she did a scouting she was only 84 and she would be upstairs and phone down to him and tell him what to use [Music] in 1950 eddie said goodbye to coach stagg and joined the marines in korea he was wounded and awarded the bronze star for bravery on the battlefield no one ever questioned eddie lebaron's courage only his size mr marshall didn't want a short quarterback so in the programs in those days initially i was 5 10 and 180 when we started and gradually they finally talked him into putting my true size down to five seven and a hundred and sixty the baron is only a half pint but he causes the opposition more trouble than a full court joe walton makes the catch and fights for the touchdown [Music] what i couldn't do is if people right on top of me just with an arm throw it down the field 30 or 40 yards that's why i went to more run fake type plays or half rolls or roll out type of things and so where i'd have a little more room to throw the ball [Music] the baron was the first quarterback to understand the tactical possibilities of the play-action pass and in 1958 he led the nfl in passing and was voted the most popular athlete in the nation's capital i was speaking at a banquet and uh i got in a line and they gave me a little survey i got up there and uh uh they you know they'd serve me a child's play along with the rest of the children there that that's kind of the way things went in those days and i was the hero of the little folk i used to get letters from fathers all over the country saying my son is five foot three and a hundred and twelve pounds and wants to be quarterback and would you write him and tell him that he can do it [Music] like the famous watch of john cameron swayze eddie could take a lecking and keep on ticking [Music] he went back to throw a pass and you talk about a blind side norman wild man willie played for us i mean he was a tough monster he hit eddie lebaron from behind i thought the guy was dead he got up and to my amazement he looked at willy and he smiled at him smiled and i said look at this i can't believe this stuff unbelievable and he was like that all his career and he was a great little quarterback in 1960 the smallest quarterback was traded to the team with the smallest chance of winning the newly formed dallas cowboys eddie the baron will always have a very soft spot in the heart of all people that have been associated with the cowboys because he was our first quarterback and he was an amazing i don't think people realize what an amazing athlete he was and this just enabled him to accomplish things that a lot of us normal human beings just couldn't have accomplished [Music] in 1962 at the age of 35 eddie guided the young cowboys to one of the most remarkable offensive performances in league history although dallas won only five games they finished second in yards game second in touchdowns and only vince lombardi's packers scored more points well i always admired eddie he was one of the high quality players the character that i ever coached i thought if he'd have been four inches taller he'll able to re-wrote most of the record books because he was that good a passer [Music] eddie lebaron won no championships and set no reference but he enjoys a special niche in the history of pro football the greatest little football player that ever lived was eddie lebaron one of the nfl's greatest coaches is george allen in his 12 seasons he never coached a losing team yet george was considered a maverick a renegade and it's fitting that his redskins of the early 70s had the same nickname as that infamous band of outlaws the over the hill gang george allen was both eccentric and innovative but above all he was a winner as chairman of the president's council on physical fitness george allen values the importance of good health but don't let him fool you he still believes that it is the fine line between winning and losing that truly affects a man's mortality every time you lose you die a little bit you die inside a portion of you not all of your organs maybe just your liver and every time you win you're reborn george allen triumphed as a head coach with both the la rams and the washington redskins he's more popularly known however for his work in the nation's capital where he diligently set out to transform the redskins from also rans into winners is what i'm doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective dash dash dash winning if you aren't careful you spin your wheels and do a lot of things that are not that important is this going to help us win we didn't bother to give out christmas cards we used that money i found out that they spent close to three thousand dollars on porsches and christmas cards we use that money to buy projectors more projectors to study the dallas cowboys santa claus was shocked but other grey beards applauded allen's will to win this was the infamous over the hill gang a group of wily veterans and rejects who did what allen promised they would do bring an immediate winner to washington one of the media said when you've traded your first round pick you've traded your second round pick what are you going to do what about the future of this organization i said the future you haven't been to the playoffs in 29 years uh we're going to win now we're going to win in the future the future is now i just happened to fall upon the expression like that and it came to be a true statement in fact they published a book on the futures now and it was a pretty good seller this is the opportunity we all been waiting for this is what it's all about just remember this 40 men together can't lose [Music] everybody stick together play as a team and be physical [Applause] allen's unique style of motivation produced victories and he restored to his players a childlike innocence that they long ago left on their high school playing field hey let's have three more research for the redskins they weren't really old we just like to make them the opposition think they were old i remember calvin hill said when those redskins ran out on the field they looked so old we wondered how we could lose to those guys well that's what we wanted [Music] while george allen never won a super bowl he did defeat tom landry's dallas cowboys more times than any other nfl coach somehow you get the idea that this might be his proudest achievement we beat those cowboys in their own backyard redskins 27 cowboys 14 made the playoffs you see there were people associated with george allen former employers in particular who were not always enamored with his obsessive ways his 10 years in la and washington were successful but filled with tension this partly explains the mystery as to why this man who still possesses an incisive football mind is no longer prowling an nfl practice field or figuring out ways to beat the cowboys i think you pay a tremendous penalty in life if you're totally dedicated to your profession because you rub some people the wrong way uh however i'm very proud to say that anybody associated with george allen and never lost they won 70 of their games and they can be proud and they have that record to prove it [Applause] [Music] george allen a maverick and a master motivator above all a winner [Music] our next maverick is a man named fred williamson who patrolled the kansas city chiefs backfield in the 1960s he wore white shoes even before broadway joe namath and he wore out receivers with a hard-hitting style that earned him the nickname the hammer when i walked out in the field uh twenty thousand people gave me a reaction ten thousand blue ten thousand cheer that's okay i mean they were watching me kansas city's fred williamson was one of the most colorful cornerbacks ever to play professional football he could match skills against the afl's best and come out on top [Music] his prowess as a past offender was surpassed only by his tenacity as a tackler for fred williamson played his best when the spotlight was brightest his solo performances on pass catchers gained him national notoriety i always considered football as a form of show business i was the first guy actually to start wearing white shoes the nickname that was given to me by my amorous fans was the hammer [Music] hammering was fred williamson's calling card a tactic that took on many looks it was legal back then but hardly popular with opponents nevertheless in the 1966 afl championship game it was effective against the buffalo bills kansas city buried buffalo 31-6 earning the hammer a chance to test his tactics against the mighty green bay packers the first week we arrived to los angeles stram quietly comes over to me and says that kind of attitude we can't have here you can't be that kind of braggadocio guy that you're going to uh alert the packers that were here and i'm thinking they know we're here [Music] if i tell you that boy dowler is not going to catch a pass is because i believe it if i tell you gary dale is going gonna be spending half the game on his behind is because i believe it as a matter of fact the first fake boy dollar gave me they carried him off the field after that he caught one pass or slanted over the middle and i said this is just what i'm looking for there's a guy six seven six eight coming across on a slant-end on the hammer and i hit him with everything that i had and they took him off the field because the shoulder was no longer normal and now if they want to blame the loss of the game on me they can blame it on this particular incident because of the fact that after that max mcgee came in and it takes him an hour and 25 minutes to run a hundred yard dash he goes over the other side of the field and i look up he's catching two slanting passes for two touchdowns i mean to me that was typical of the attitude that we had carried into the game fred williamson persisted with his downfield demolition but as irony would have it in the end it was the hammer who got nailed i had set myself up because i was the pied piper the green bay packers are gonna get the hammer donnie anderson came around and his knee hit me right on the smack right here in the forehead and i went down and i was a little woozy i'm the clown of the football field now cause i'm i'm out they got the hammer they said come on get up and i refuse to get up i'm embarrassed they came and they dragged me off the field and dumped me on the sidelines when he dumped me i jumped up and waved in my fans to let him know i was all right if we had any psychological advantage going against the packers in super bowl one we couldn't do any talking we have to be quiet and here's fred's expounding on what he was and was going to do to the packers now he was going to level them but freddie williamson was an outstanding player i know he did a lot of talking but he backed it up i mean i knew that i could do the job i mean i was all pro most of the years that i played so i wasn't really concerned about anybody's analysis of fred williamson as i am now in my life i don't really care if people don't like my movie but if you go see the movie then you have the right to say you don't like my movie because you have spent your money to see my movie then you have it right today fred williamson acts in produces and directs his own feature films his lifestyle is quintessential hollywood but one does get the impression that deep inside fred williamson's favorite role is and always will be the hammer another defensive player who made the transition from helmets and cleats to cameras and lights was fred dreyer from his defensive end position fred was tough enough to joust with the nfl's best defensive lineman but dreyer also jested as well as he jousted he saw the nfl as a crazy circus and in it he played the dual roles of strongman and clown you and i have an insight that no other person on the team has you've got to learn to loosen up be positive think super bowl look have you ever seen the super bowl rings in the past they're unbelievable the size of telephones number 89 fred dreyer may have been a joker but when he broke into pro ball with the new york giants in 1969 a combination of determination and speed marked this card as a pass rushing ace [Music] but in new york number 89 was afraid of getting lost in the crowd so after playing out his option in 1971 he went from the bright lights of the big city to the sun drenched vistas of his native california new york bugs because everything is why new york i mean why would a person want to be in new york i'd be in new york city and i was constantly looking around people thought i was looking for cabs i'm looking for open spaces it's like walking in a maze and monopoly set you know you always went in the park place i mean you walk around the city watching these big machines going while noisy machines symbolized confinement for dryer he heard a song of freedom in the sound of flapping wings i walk around the zoo and especially in the bird cage and go down the side and look at the different varieties of birds big birds small birds long-legged birds short bell birds and i just think of myself as being a bird sometimes flying around being free soaring up ten thousand fifteen thousand feet and all of a sudden i realize i am a bird oh i just go crazy because i love birds i i wanna be a bird dryer was a rare bird in his own right and whether he was soaring along pacific sands or flying past offensive linemen he saw his world as one giant cuckoo's nest i like to have fun in the field i'm not two different people on the field [Music] dreyer's lighthearted approach to pro football delight his flair for laying a heavy hand on quarterbacks in 1973 dreyer set an nfl record by registering two safeties in a single game against green bay dreyer's playing style was similar to his lifestyle he avoided being tied down by staying on the move i always thought that uh the least amount of contact you made between where you were and where the ball was the better off you were if you got hooked up with blocks you weren't much good the biggest asset that i thought i had was my ability to cover the field and i used to love sprinting and running by guys getting to wherever the ball was despite his love for running down opponents there were times when this free-spirited sprinter found it hard to get out of the starting blocks sometimes you just don't feel like playing maybe it was my inner psyche or spirit saying that i just we just don't want to do this today but i had definite times when i just literally was like a fish out of water with a football suit on on the sideline and almost falling asleep nothing the crowd the coaches the fact that there was this large black fellow running at me did not do anything to me except when i saw the faces of these other psychotic individuals i worked with and realized that okay we're going to do this aren't we although dreyer was light for a defensive end he lasted 13 seasons by stretching himself to the limit on every play a two-time pro bowl selection he won the admiration of foes and teammates but as a maverick fred dryer always found it hard to win the respect of authority figures especially his final head coach ray malibazi i always thought that he was looking to replace me for some reason if i got blocked or i got knocked down it was because i was too small as opposed to some guy just knocking me down because after all if you're playing football you do at times wind up on you right and i look back on it now i realized that if it hadn't been for that type of thing bleeding through my whole career i probably wouldn't push myself as hard as i did and uh i realized that uh that wasn't my problem it was that problem it helped me more so than it than it did go against me because the end result was i played well which was the only thing they couldn't take away from you was to play well fred dreyer's sense of humor enabled him to see an often too serious game from a different perspective now tommy mcdonald also saw the game from a different perspective but that of course was because he only stood five nine but like a true maverick tommy mcdonald had a unique way of doing things and his way of doing things made him an exciting pass receiver for 11 years with five different teams tiny tommy mcdonald was the last man on the playing field to know when it began to rain but size meant nothing to tommy team colors and jersey numbers changed but tommy never did he compensated for his short stature with a hearty appetite for gobbling up any pass thrown his way any ball that came near me i wanted to be like a vacuum cleaner i mean it was mine you know i just i turned me on [Music] i wanted people to say that tommy mcdonald you get the ball to him and believe me don't worry about it because it's it's had it's it's leather in his pocket he was a guy probably could catch a ball better than anybody i ever threw to as far as just sheer hands of catching the ball if he could touch it anything that he could touch he would catch [Music] for a guy 5 foot 10 and 178 pounds i would say that and as a receiver i think tommy was the best i ever saw mcdonald thought he saw better with no face mask and was the last man ever to play without one this invited trouble from surly defenders who tried to knock the fight out of this mighty might how many times i hit tommy mcdonald and how many times i thought i killed him and how many times he got up before i did and it was a game he used to watch him in the film and i think well that little snot look at him bounce up he's not gonna bounce up this time and he'd be up fixing these shoulder pads and running back to huddle and you're laying there hurting just more guts and sense and he enjoyed playing the game he'd come across the middle and he'd be smiling while he's running and most of the guys today you can see the fright in your eyes i never saw him hurt and i saw him get a lot of tough shots matter of fact he got up too fast too soon i actually got hit one time and i separated my shoulder and i even got up with that separated shoulder and went back to the huddle and stayed in for two plays and then i went out after the two plays because i didn't want him to know that they hurt me when it came to expressing his emotions mcdonald was not nearly as secretive he was never embarrassed to show his love and enthusiasm for the game greeted his teammates with a salesman's grin and a bear hug for the world [Music] he was crazy i mean he'd do anything i've seen him running the fourth floor of the hershey community club had little balconies out with lord iron boxing he would run and jump over the balcony on the fourth floor and catch himself by one hand i thought he's gone four floors down he'd just catch himself with one hand he was a wild man and everybody thought that he was always inebriated and he never took a drink he would be on the tops of bars and running up and down and doing dives and into anything and he'd never take a drink and he never had a cold beer or anything but he was a lot of fun and i tell you what when you're on the football field and you needed him you could throw it in a crowd and he would go get it with my size and everything i know the only reason that i was able to make professional football is because i just baby i i've got a heart as big as a horse tub and i just there's no worse i don't even know the word quit it's not in my dictionary [Music] i just wanted a quarterback to be able to say to me that when he was in trouble and he needed something [Music] that old number two five could come across perhaps no player showed more lust for life or gift of grab than mini maverick tommy mcdonald [Music] during the 1960s the kansas city chiefs had a rough and resilient linebacker named cheryl hedrick whose competitive instincts sometimes exceeded the bounds of good reason uh hedrick's teammates fondly recall his post-game locker room annex that were often as colorful as his linebacking and in both cases hedrick's performances were always memorable if you live in fort worth texas and want to learn how to play bridge just drop by the town rec center and sign up for lessons with sheryl hedrick an accomplished master and tournament player hedrick has shared his knowledge with housewives and senior citizens it's hard to believe this friendly unassuming fellow is the same man whose football exploits are still revered by his teammates from the old afl really named him right when they named him psycho i this guy is was a legend uh some of the he's unbelievable he is simply unbelievable with the kansas city chiefs hedrick number 69 raised hell off the field and buried tacklers on it he was probably the best middle linebacker in football back in the days when they talked about sam huff and joe schmidt but sheryl hedrick was playing in american football league and he was in my opinion just as good as those two football players cheryl was probably the best middle linebacker in football back in the 60s plus he was one of the all-time characters of professional football cheryl hagrid says i mean he is if you don't throw up before the game something's wrong i mean everybody's waiting i mean you ever go to the locker room you wait you know you wake me nobody will go out on the field until they hear something going and they're going oh that cheryl's throwing up you know everything's okay he's the only guy could come into the dressing room after game and he would beat everybody out of the shower and the thing that he did he never dried off with a towel he would put his clothes on and that would dry him off he said he don't want to waste time doing that hedrick further enhanced his bizarre reputation with a total disregard for injuries or the suffering they caused him the man's threshold of pain is unbelievable and i can recall that he broke a finger and the bone was sticking out of his finger and he came to the sidelines and wanted the trainer to uh to snap it in place and he said no those are the team doctor he says no i don't have time so he said bang he snapped it in place himself and he said i'll be back get me some tape the next play came back and wrapped it around his two fingers together and back out playing again without missing a stroke i played a broken thumb and broken fingers a lot of times various other injuries i had two operations one of them on a thursday and played on a sunday i played the whole game against houston and didn't find out for two days later that i'd actually had a broken bone in my neck but hedrick smiled through the pain as the chief's class clown a character and cut up who gritted his teeth and laughed through the hurt he had the hemorrhoid operation on a thursday and we had like a six or seven hour flight out to the west coast for a football game on saturday so he stayed in the hospital on friday got out of the hospital made the flight to california and during that flight they gave him a little round inner tube to sit down well about one or two hours of sitting on that inner tube was more than he could take because it interfered somehow with uh this poker game that he used to get into on the airplane all the time and before it was all over cheryl was wearing that inner tube on top of his head and was not supposed to play in the football game on sunday but straham couldn't keep him out of the game and he ran out on a field and played a fantastic football game [Music] the injuries finally caught up with him and in 1967 the hobbled hedrick was let go by the chiefs and picked up by the expansion cincinnati bengals he had lost two steps not just a half a step couldn't do the things he once could do so well but he could lead you with regard to uh never forgetting this is a contact sport and the bengals were a tough football team earlier than any expansion team i've ever seen they were a tough physical team and cheryl hedrick was really the core of of creating that as the way to play their toughness the first five years was based so much on on headless personality i've enjoyed playing football it was my life i thought it was the most incredible thing in the world everybody said i didn't make much money playing football which i didn't but if you look at it the other way i thought those people were completely stupid they're paying me to do the thing that i love most he was someone that i'll always remember and i don't know how he survived as many years as he has yeah he was unbelievable a film about mavericks and misfits would be missing a chapter if the story of fran tarkenton was not included tarkin played in more games than any quarterback in history and when he retired in 1978 he had broken every meaningful record available to a passer but his passing wasn't really the quality that made him special he was the man who seated the word scramble into the vocabulary of pro football he once said i never thought a quarterback should be a statue well ironically he has become one his bronze bust is mounted on a pedestal in the hall of fame instead of a pedestal though they should have put it on rollers that would have been more authentic and every night they'd come in and find deacon jones and merlin olson looking around to see where it went [Music] it seemed that fran tarkinson was always going uphill to reach his destination his journey began in 1961 when as a quarterback for the newly formed minnesota vikings tarkington gave new meaning to the term advancing the football an era when football purists believe solely in the drop back stand-up quarterback tarkington and his scrambling became an object of scorn and ridicule without size a strong arm or a solid offensive line tarkinton achieves success with a pair of quick feet and a strong sense of resourcefulness my high school coach instilled in me the fundamentals of playing but also to never give up on a play if i went back in the pocket to throw a pass and the protection broke down he encouraged me to make something happen [Music] i was always distressed when i saw quarterbacks when their protection broke down just to give up and fold themselves in the pocket and accept the seven or eight yard loss and go to the next play and if you didn't get protection they would lose and i just made up my mind i got up to pro football that i was not going to give up on the play ever that if the pocket broke down if the protection broke down i was gonna run scramble uh do whatever i had to do to make something out of the play since tarkinton was one captain who had no intentions of going down with the ship every viking pass play ultimately turned into a lifeboat drill [Music] viking linemen didn't mind the overtime work necessary to protect tarkington because their efforts often paid off defensive players on the other hand didn't appreciate the extra exercise targeting was a pain and he'd gamble he'd run anywhere i mean he'd run up in the stands if he had to he's one man that we tried desperately to end his career we tried and i must say that this in this day and age we tried desperately to get rid of him because on a hot day in the coliseum chasing fan targeting is not what you wanted to do i always hated tarkington i really did i mean that uh that little wimp would run around out there for hours and hours and hours and we had to chase him wherever he went sometimes he'd run 40 yards back and forth and up and down the field and uh at the end of a game against targeting your tongue was right on the ground while defenders were lapping up the turf head coach norm van broglin was busy licking his wounds van brooklyn was from the old school and he suffered each time tarkenton turned a carefully calculated drive into a kindergarten recess the dutchman's frustration eventually turned to resentment and tarkenton and his schoolyard antics were sent to another playground they fell out in 1967 and uh it was inevitable dutch had a huge eagle sort of targeted target didn't take his crap anymore he challenged him on a plane a couple times dutch did accused him of playing for himself rather than the team uh that was a bad accusation it really didn't make any sense um so target said well goodbye traded to the giants number 10 quickly found the accommodations in new york to be far worse than van brooklyn's doghouse when i went to that team it was the worst football team i've ever seen it was pathetic it was just absolutely pathetic i've never seen a team with so little talent despite the lack of talent tarkenton helped the giants become winners by doing what he did best [Music] fran hauled new york up from last place to a level of respectability however after five seasons tarkenton's towing services were sent back to the vikings in minnesota the trend-setting tarkenton broke another of pro football's commandments thou shalt only control the ball on the ground [Music] the sinning signal caller became the first quarterback to use the short pass the way other teams use the run i was a strategist i knew where to throw the football i wasn't blessed with all the physical skills in the world but those things understanding the game knowing defenses knowing offenses being able to call plays being able to read defenses i felt that i could do that as well as anybody i took great pride in that people always talked about his weak arm but fran tarkinton was the master quarterback of all because he got you to do the things that he wanted you to do he never played against his weaknesses he always played against yours he couldn't throw the long ball he'd throw the short ball to death until you got all the way up close and tried to stop the the short ball they need to throw the medium long ball which in the end would get you nonetheless parkinson perfected a personal style of play that helped minnesota become one of the game's most dominant teams in seven seasons the vikings won their division title six times and the weak armed quarterback who people said would scramble his way into obscurity had earned every honor a player could win except one three times tarkenton took his team to the super bowl and three times they came away losers i guess it was just the ultimate disappointments i cannot tell you the feeling of emptiness it gives you of hopelessness it gives you you feel like the world's against you because they are you see they don't remember or look kindly at the second place team in the super bowl they look more kindly at people that never even made the super bowl than the ones who did and didn't win fran tarkenton never wore a championship crown but his unyielding desire to succeed made him a king among quarterbacks i i really always believe this that the people that make it in the world are not necessarily the smartest or the strongest or the fastest or the prettiest the people that really make it in the world whether it be the football world the entertainment world the business world are the ones that outlast the others the ones that persevere yeah they get knocked down they get bloodied they get disappointed they get discouraged but somehow they got the strength of character the sense of presence to get back up and go again his career was a constant uphill struggle but when he retired he stood alone on the summit fran tarkenton completed more passes for more yards and more touchdowns than any quarterback in history fran tarkin was the best quarterback that's ever played professional football because you never achieved greatness without durability fran tarkin had in in addition to all the physical abilities all the records he had he had durability he played every week [Music] in my mind there's nobody played football at that position that was better than fan tarkin than ever [Music] you

Channel: Grey Beard

Views: 11,248

Keywords: NFL Films, Steve Sabol, Ed Sabol, Mavericks and Misfits, Fran Tarkenton, George Allen, Fred Dryer, Fred The Hammer Williamson, Tommy McDonald, Sherrill Headrick, Jim Marshall, Eddie LeBaron

Id: -0BIjOLNfwc

Length: 49min 49sec (2989 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2020