1975,1976,1977 EASTERN DIVISION CHAMPION BALTIMORE COLTS
THE RIFLE, THE SACK PACK & HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE LYDELL UP THE MIDDLE
by Rick Benson
The Baltimore Colts final run of greatness occurred in the mid-1970s; winning three straight AFC Eastern Division championships (1975 through 1977) with a combination of a rifle-armed quarterback, a relentless pass rush, a talented all-purpose back with speed and great hands out of the backfield and a solid head coach who many thought was too conservative even though the numbers say otherwise. Oh, and they did this in spite of an owner who was moving full speed ahead in running the franchise into the ground along with a general manager who made some widely unpopular moves and maintained little or no interaction with the head coach. The mid-70s Colts. Successful, yes. Dysfunctional, absolutely.
The dysfunction was born on July 13, 1972 when Robert Irsay bought the Los Angeles Rams and transferred ownership to Carroll Rosenbloom, in exchange for ownership of the Baltimore Colts. Irsay quickly became known for his flash-fire temper which was often fueled by alcohol consumption. He would also burst into the locker room after victories; beaming and calling everybody “Tiger” because he couldn’t remember names.
The dysfunction was in full force the year before as then head coach Howard Schnellenberger was canned after three games as he and Irsay argued over whether Bert Jones or Marty Domres should be the starting quarterback. Jones was taken with the second overall pick in the 1973 draft. Jones, aka the Ruxton Rifle, was the heir apparent to Baltimore legend Johnny Unitas. General Manager Joe Thomas, who traded Unitas away in 1973 and fellow Hall of Famer Ted Hendricks in 1974, finished out the season as head coach. The Colts 2-12 finish to the disastrous 1974 season certainly gave no portend of upcoming success.
Enter head coach Ted Marchibroda, whose initial coaching staff included a 23-year-old assistant named Bill Belichick. A 1-4 start offered little promise of better days and then Baltimore’s high-powered offense kicked into high gear. Consecutive road wins over the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills produced 45 and 42 points respectively before the Colts came home and buried the Jets once again 52-19 before a packed house at Memorial Stadium. Baltimore took their final nine games of the season; including a regular season ending 34-21 win over the New England Patriots to take the division title.
During their division title run, Jones showed the downfield passing ability fans had hoped for with 2,438 yards and 18 touchdowns and only 8 interceptions. Wide out Glenn Doughty and tight end Raymond Chester proved to be sure-handed targets; along with an emerging downfield threat in 23-year old Roger Carr. Complementing the passing ability of Jones, the Colts had star running back Lydell Mitchell. Drafted in the second round out of Penn State, Mitchell was a dual threat coming out of the backfield. During the dismal 1974 campaign, he led the league with 72 pass receptions. He earned Pro Bowl honors in 1975 with 1193 rushing yards and 11 TDs and 60 catches for four more scores. Despite this wide array of offensive weapons, many of the Colts faithful felt Marchibroda was too conservative and relied too much on Mitchell which prompted the chant, “Hey Diddle Diddle, Lydell up the Middle.” Short yardage specialist “Third Down” Don McCauley found paydirt 10 times to compliment Mitchell out of the backfield.
Anchoring the line was All-Pro tackle George Kunz, an All-American from Notre Dame, who was the number two pick in the 1969 NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons (the top pick was Buffalo’s O.J. Simpson). The Colts acquired Kunz by swapping their consolation prize for finishing 2-12 in 1974---the number one pick in the draft---along with the Falcons’ top pick. The Colts new tackle and his 6’-5” frame provided great protection for the Ruxton Rifle.
On the defensive side of the ball, the Colts had a relatively unheralded front line consisting of ends John Dutton and Fred Cook and tackles Joe Ehrmann and Mike Barnes who combined for a total of 59 sacks; earning them the nickname “The Sack Pack”. Linebacker Stan White snagged eight interceptions and help lead Baltimore into the playoffs and a matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Howard Cosell himself proclaimed the Colts as favorites to go on and win the Super Bowl.
Unfortunately, the Colts magical season ended with a 28-10 loss at Three Rivers Stadium. In that game, Jones was knocked out on the fourth play, when Ernie Holmes got a sack and cornerback J.T. Thomas accidentally kicked the quarterback in his throwing arm, which developed a knot the size of a baseball.
Marty Domres replaced Jones. Despite Marchibroda's conservative play-calling and 153 yards pounded out by Harris - who nearly outgained the Colts by himself - Baltimore used a series of breaks to stay in the game.
Lloyd Mumphord intercepted Terry Bradshaw and brought it back 58 yards to set up Baltimore's only touchdown, a 5-yard pass from Domres to Doughty. The Colts had a 10-7 lead midway through the third quarter, but L.C. Greenwood stuffed do-it-all back Lydell Mitchell, and Blount intercepted Domres on the next play to set up the winning points, a 7-yard touchdown run by Rocky Bleier.
Another short field off a punting mishap helped the Steelers to a 21-10 lead, but back came Jones, who hooked up with Doughty for a 58-yard catch and run with three minutes left. At the Pittsburgh 3-yard line six plays later, Jack Ham stripped Jones. Andy Russell, another linebacker, scooped up the ball and took forever to run 93 yards for a touchdown, still the longest fumble return in playoff history.
A turnaround from a 2-12 record to a division title would be cause for celebration and optimism going into the next season, but we’re talking Irsay’s Colts here. A week before the season started, Marchibroda resigned due to a power struggle with Thomas; who was agitated that the coach got more of the credit for the Colts’ turnaround. Several of the players, led by Jones, and the coaches confronted Irsay and demanded that Marchibroda be brought back. Irsay relented and Thomas was fired as general manager at the end of the season
In 1976, Jones returned to the lineup full force and had his best season ever. He threw for 3,104 yards and a career-high 24 touchdowns; compiling a passer rating of 102.5. Jones was honored by the Associated Press as 1976's NFL Most Valuable Player and NFL Offensive Player of the Year, selected All-Pro and named to the Pro Bowl team. Jones carried the overwhelming burden of replacing the legendary Unitas; a role that could naturally give anyone an inferiority complex. The rifle’s decision to remain in his hometown in Louisiana during the off-season was viewed by some as another stumbling block in the city’s embrace of him as their star.
Yet with Jones leading the way, the Colts offense was dominant in 1976; leading the league in scoring with 417 points (29.7 per game). Mitchell also had a spectacular year, rushing for 1,200 yards and catching 60 passes. Carr proved to be a valuable deep threat in the passing game, leading the league 1,112 receiving yards and 25.9 yards per reception. All three made the 1976 AFC Pro Bowl team.
The Sack Pack continued terrorizing opposing quarter backs; finishing the year with 56 sacks. The Colts led the division most of the way and finished 11-3 and in a first place tie with New England; who won their final six game to catch Baltimore. However the Colts were crowned Eastern Division champions based on their 11-1 conference record and were set to host the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers at Memorial Stadium.
The Steelers dominated the Colts with 526 yards of total offense, while limiting Baltimore to only 170. Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw completed 14 of 18 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns, including a 76-yard one to Frank Lewis on the third play of the game, giving him the first perfect 158.3 passer rating in NFL playoff history. Steelers running back Franco Harris racked up 132 rushing yards on 18 carries, and caught 3 passes for 24 yards. The Colts scored late in the first period with Bert Jones' 17-yard touchdown pass to Roger Carr, but the Steelers then scored 24 unanswered points. Bradshaw threw 29 and 11-yard touchdowns to wide receiver Lynn Swann, while running back Reggie Harrison had two rushing scores as the Steelers buried their hosts 40-14.
Something good came of the blow-out loss as ten minutes after the game ending, with many of the Colts faithful long since departed, Donald Kroner, a former charter pilot, had crashed a rented, low-wing, blue-and-white Piper Cherokee into the upper deck of the end zone, losing a wing in the process. The few remaining fans who were exiting witnessed quite a spectacle while Colt players in the locker room described a very loud rumbling sound. Kroner, who would serve three months of a two-year sentence for malicious destruction of property and violation of city aviation ordinances, had apparently planned to land the plane on the field at Memorial Stadium and had flown over the stadium several times in the week leading up to the game.
With former Colt Dick Szymanski replacing Thomas as general manager, the Colts began the 1977 season with a 9-1 run; including a 31-21 rematch win over the Steelers. Baltimore dropped their next three games but rallied to take the regular season finale against New England and claim their third straight AFC East title. In the finale, Jones fumbled late in the game but was ruled a dead ball; which allowed the drive to continue and then end on a three-yard TD run by McCauley.
Jones didn’t match his MVP season from a year ago, but still threw for 2,686 yards and 17 touchdowns. Mitchell was still a superstar out of the backfield with 1,159 yards rushing and another 620 yards receiving on a team high 71 catches. McCauley led the scoring with eight touchdowns. The Sack Pack started to show their age a bit in 1977 but still combined to record 47 sacks. Free safety Lyle Blackwood led the Colts with 10 interceptions and linebacker White added seven more.
The Colts hosted the Oakland Raiders in the first round of the AFC playoffs. In what would be the last NFL playoff game ever at Memorial Stadium, the infamous “Ghost to the Post” play---a 42-yard toss from Ken Stabler to Dave Casper that set up a game tying field goal to send the game into overtime. Just 43 seconds into the second overtime, Stabler hit Casper on another 10-yard touchdown pass that ended what was then the third-longest game in NFL history 37-31. A 62-yard interception return by Laird and Toni Linhart’s 32-yard field goal gave Baltimore a 107 halftime lead. The lead changed six times in the second half; including the Ghost to the Post play with under a minute remaining in regulation.
The 1977 season ended and with it the glory days of Baltimore Colts football. Back-to-back blowout losses to the Dallas Cowboys (38-0) and the Miami Dolphins (42-0) to start the 1978 campaign sent the Colts on their way to a 5-11 last place finish in the AFC East.
A breath of fresh air
THE COLTS HIT THE FAN AFTER HIS RECENT EXPLOSION, SO OWNER IRSAY, WHO MADE MILLIONS IN AIR CONDITIONING, KEPT HIS COOL WHEN THEY BEAT THE PATS
Ah, peace. Shaky or not, how sweet it is. Ask the embattled Baltimore Colts—the Oakland A's of the NFL—who last Sunday afternoon wiped thoughts of the previous week's chaos from their minds long enough to pummel the New England Patriots 27-13 at Foxboro, Mass.
Baltimore Quarterback Bert Jones completed five consecutive passes for 58 yards at one stage, including two touchdowns to Glenn Doughty; Toni Linhart kicked 28-and 32-yard field goals and Lydell Mitchell rushed for 73 yards. Not bad for a team that only a week before was on the brink of anarchy after its owner, Robert Irsay, had delivered a humiliating postgame locker-room scolding that produced the resignation of Coach Ted Marchibroda. Not bad for Jones and the other Colts, who had threatened to pick up their footballs and go home unless Irsay reinstated Marchibroda at once. And definitely not bad for Marchibroda, who won his power struggle against General Manager Joe Thomas and also seems to have persuaded Irsay to forgo any future attempts at locker-room oratory.
Internal strife has been part of Baltimore's modus operandi ever since Irsay acquired the team in 1972 and installed Thomas as general manager. Two years ago Irsay stormed onto the field while the Colts were being defeated, dismissed Coach Howard Schnellenberger and ordered Thomas to take over. The present troubles started when the Colts were swamped by Detroit 24-9 in their final preseason game, their fourth straight defeat. Irsay, who made his millions in air conditioning but frequently blows his own cool, charged into the dressing room and began to lambaste his players. Says Jones, "I don't know if that was Irsay talking—or whiskey."
Whichever, Irsay was obnoxious and abusive. When one player objected to the tongue-lashing, the owner ordered him to turn, face the wall and apologize—if he wanted to get paid. When Irsay ranted that the coaching staff needed help, though, Marchibroda had heard enough. "If you want a new head coach, go get yourself one," he said. Marchibroda demanded a meeting with Irsay and Thomas, and after a six-hour session at the Milwaukee Yacht Club, where Irsay docks his boat, failed to strengthen his position, Marchibroda resigned.
But on his return from Milwaukee, Marchibroda suggested that the fundamental problem was not Irsay's behavior. "In order to lead his men, any coach must have the authority to call the shots," he said. "This differs from the position held by the ownership and management here. I couldn't tolerate the interference I was getting." While Marchibroda didn't name Joe Thomas, it was clear that his resignation resulted from a disagreement with the general manager—not with the owner.
The relationship between coach and general manager in the NFL varies considerably from team to team, but Thomas clearly takes an extremist position. He believes that the general manager should have total control over all matters relating to personnel, including which players make the 43-man squad. He views the coach as a necessary evil, a push button, an Xs-and-Os guy whose duties are limited strictly to training whatever personnel the general manager provides.
Certainly it is difficult to dispute Thomas' credentials as a judge of personnel. He was the first person hired by the Minnesota Vikings and helped bring in much of the talent that made them a contender. He also was the first person hired by the Miami Dolphins and was responsible for acquiring 21 of the 22 Dolphins who started in Super Bowl VIII, in which Miami beat Minnesota 24-7. But Thomas chafed when the coaches in Minnesota and Miami—Norm Van Brocklin and Don Shula—received most of the credit for their teams' success. So he went looking for a new situation, arranged Irsay's acquisition of the Colts and, for his efforts, was rewarded with what he had always wanted: full control of a team.
Quickly disposing of aging legends like Johnny Unitas, Tom Matte and John Mackey, Thomas began to rebuild the Colts, and last year they went from last place to first in the AFC East. Inevitably, the same old problem arose: the coach—not the general manager—got most of the credit. New Coach Marchibroda, it was noted, had taken the same talent that finished 2-12 in 1974 and produced a 10-4 playoff team. Privately, Thomas admitted he was miffed that the accolades went to his coach.
During the off-season Thomas made some personnel moves that Marchibroda vehemently opposed. "Joe had to show Ted who was boss," says one Colt. Middle Linebacker Mike Curtis, an outspoken critic of the general manager, was lost in the expansion draft, leaving the Colts woefully thin at that position, because the only other veteran, Jim Cheyunski, had knee surgery and still limps badly. This summer Thomas traded Backup Quarterback Marty Domres and his $110,000 salary to San Francisco for a fifth-round 1978 draft choice and cash. Consequently, the Colts have no experienced backup if Jones, who likes to run the ball, gets injured. Meanwhile, no new players were brought in. "I saw the problem," says Marchibroda, "but I didn't know how to handle it." Irsay unwittingly brought the problem into the open when he questioned the coach's competence during his locker-room tirade.
At the Milwaukee meeting, Marchibroda demanded final say over the playing personnel. Irsay sided with Thomas, so Marchibroda resigned. That night in Baltimore Marchibroda met with about 30 Colt players to say goodby. It was an emotional farewell. "Some of the players cried," says Jones. "I would imagine Ted cried, too. I know I did." After Marchibroda left, the players considered a boycott of the New England game but decided to delay any decision until a team meeting the following morning.
The brash Jones, who is the Colts' unquestioned leader, prepared a letter chastising Thomas and Irsay, and he read it to the players at their meeting. They endorsed it unanimously. "I felt it was better to handle the situation that way," says Jones. "If we had left the situation open for individuals to make comments, people could have been hurt. There are a lot of people here who are 'disposable,' so to speak." The public statement was formal but to the point. It said, in part, "Thomas and Irsay may have completely destroyed this team by forcing Marchibroda out the week of the first league game."
Jones also issued a few off-the-cuff comments. "Joe is an egomaniac," he said. Jones added that if he were not a player, he wouldn't go to a Colt game. "I hope there aren't 20 people at our first home game, and I would commend Baltimore for it," he said. Jones even placed a call to Commissioner Pete Rozelle to discuss possible solutions to the problem. By the eve of the New England game, Jones had mellowed slightly. "I like Joe Thomas personally," he said, "and he pays me well. But he was wrong this time. I told him I was going to blast him before I did it. I'm not going to say any more now. I've slapped his face enough."
When Marchibroda quit, Thomas reportedly offered the job to Assistant Coach Maxie Baughan. Baughan not only turned Thomas down flat, he threatened to resign. Other assistants also talked of leaving. With the season less than a week away, Thomas, the man who holds coaches in such low regard, suddenly realized he desperately needed them. So he phoned Marchibroda and asked him if he would return. Would Thomas accede to the terms Marchibroda had demanded in Milwaukee? Thomas obviously said yes, so Marchibroda also said yes. Since then Thomas has refused to discuss the matter. One day, in fact, he escaped the press by leaving Colt offices by a fire escape.
On Tuesday morning Marchibroda strode into a packed meeting room and was given a rousing ovation by the Colts. In the uproar Marchibroda couldn't make himself heard. On the night he resigned, Marchibroda had told the Colts that his situation was "like being third and eight or worse." Now, rather than try to shout above the noise, he simply walked to the blackboard and wrote, "First and 10."
Thomas missed Baltimore's victory at New England because of the illness of his wife, but Irsay watched from the visiting owners' box. At halftime Irsay was asked if last week's power struggle could happen again. "It could rain tomorrow," he said. "It rained the other day." For one of the few times in his five seasons as Baltimore's owner, though, Irsay did not make a postgame visit to the Colts' locker room. The players gave Marchibroda one game ball and Baughan another. "If Irsay was here, would he be getting a game ball?" Defensive Tackle Joe Ehrmann was asked. "Now what kind of question is that?" Ehrmann, retorted. Ah, peace.
THE NEW COLTS ARE MIGHTY FRISKY
Three years of sharp horse trading by General Manager Joe Thomas finally has Baltimore riding high. Beating Kansas City 28-14 made it six straight
By Mark Mulvoy Sports Illustrated 12/8/75
For a long time last Sunday afternoon the Shake-'n-Bake Baltimore Colts played football like a lot of their old living legends. No, that was not Johnny Unitas, No. 19, completing 12 of 13 passes, including 11 in a row, for 145 yards and a bullet touchdown to Tight End John Mackey, No. 88. It was Bert Jones, No. 7, connecting with Raymond Chester, No. 87. No, that was not Lenny Moore, No. 24, high stepping for 178 yards and catching four passes for 42 more. It was Lydell Mitchell, No. 26, whose jaunts included a slashing 70-yard touchdown gallop. No, that was not Gino Marchetti, No. 89, the hamburger king, and Art Donovan, No. 70, the beer baron, sacking Lenny Dawson seven times for losses of 44 yards and harassing him into pitching two interceptions. It was John Dutton, No. 78, and Joe Ehrmann, No. 76, and Mike Barnes, No. 63, and Freddy Cook, No. 72—the Looney Tunes, they like to call themselves. And, no, that was not Bob Boyd, No. 40, scooting 40 yards for a touchdown with one of those interceptions. It was Jackie Wallace, No. 20, Minnesota reject.
The only thing missing at Memorial Stadium when the Colts thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs 28-14 was a big crowd. Only 42,122, some 18,000 short of the automatic capacity that the legends always attracted, watched the feisty Colts win their sixth straight game and remain tied with the Buffalo Bills at 7-4 for second place in the AFC's Eastern Division, behind the injury-wracked Miami Dolphins.
The Colts will probably have to win their division to make the playoffs; the AFC Central, with Pittsburgh 10-1 and Cincinnati 9-2, is almost certain to supply the conference's wild card. But a lot of people, not just in Baltimore, are beginning to believe that's exactly what will happen. The Colts were 1-4 and apparently headed for another miserable season—they had won only 11 games during three previous years—when the renaissance began. However, after two wins over the Jets and Browns, they were down 21-0 to Buffalo before beating the Bills 42-35. That made the comeback official, and since then they've taken the Jets again, Miami and now the Chiefs. "To put it short and sweet, what we do is Shake-'n-Bake, put ourselves in the oven and then whip up on the other guys," said Wide Receiver Glenn Doughty, the unofficial poet laureate of Baltimore who also found time to combine with Unitas, er Jones, on the 58-yard pass play that led to the Colts' second touchdown. "I told everyone before the game that we would have no pity on Kansas City, and we sure didn't. I'm like my man Muhammad Ali. That dude does what he says he's going to do. Me, too."
For General Manager Joe Thomas the rebirth of the Colts and the hoopla over the Shake-'n-Bake, the Looney Tunes, Young Mr. Jones, the scraggly bearded kid and Old Mr. Unspectacular, Lydell Mitchell, have served as vindication for what his harshest critics—or everyone in town—called the "tyrannical tactics" he brought to Baltimore in 1972. Thomas now says, "The guys who rapped me all the time dug themselves a hole so deep that even if we win the Super Bowl they'll have to write that we didn't win by a big enough score—or that we played dull football."
Although Thomas arrived in Baltimore with impeccable credentials, having weaned both the Vikings and the Dolphins from the expansion drafts, most people in crabcake country hardly regarded him as the savior of their football franchise. In the spring of 1972 Thomas was out of football, having left the Miami front office, and he put his plush Coral Gables house on the market and prepared to move his family into a small apartment. "I figured there had to be a couple of pro football teams in financial trouble," he says, "so I did a lot of investigating. What I wanted to do was put together an ownership syndicate and run the football operation for them."
In short order Thomas learned that the family of the late Dan Reeves wanted to sell the Los Angeles Rams and that Colt Owner Carroll Rosenbloom, who always thought Baltimore was too far a commute from his swimming pool in Bel Air, wanted to vacate Maryland. Rosen-bloom was actively campaigning for a new stadium in Baltimore and a season-ticket plan that would include all those meaningless exhibition games, and to emphasize his points he brusquely shifted the Colts' 1972 training camp from Westminster College, outside Baltimore, to Tampa, a subtle warning that it might someday be the team's permanent stomping grounds.
"The game was on," Thomas says. Some friends introduced him to Bob Irsay, a Chicagoan who had borrowed $800 from his wife's rainy-day fund and parlayed it into a multimillion-dollar ventilating, heating and air-conditioning conglomerate. Presto. Irsay, an admitted football nut, bought the Rams for $19 million. Irsay and Rosenbloom then traded franchises. Los Angeles for Baltimore; 92,000 seats for 60,000. The Polo Lounge for The Block. Raquel Welch for Blaze Starr. And Irsay did not even get any future cities or draft choices or celebrities to be named later.
"I took charge the day before we opened training camp in Tampa," Thomas says. "The Colts had won the Super Bowl in 1970 and had lost the conference championship to the Dolphins in 1971, but I saw right off that we were an old team on the down side. The real problem was that Johnny Unitas was 39." Thomas promptly acquired a young quarterback, Marty Domres, from San Diego. "We split the preseason games," he says. "Worst of all, we were shut out in one home game and scored only three points in another, as we lost four out of our first five. We were going nowhere slowly."
So, for the first shot in his Baltimore massacre, Thomas fired Coach Don McCafferty, replaced him with John Sandusky for the rest of the schedule and then hit the town with his shocker: Johnny Unitas, No. 19, the man with the golden arm, was benched. Permanently. "I told my wife to be ready for an explosion," Thomas says. "There were signs all over town, letters, editorials, phone calls, the whole bit. Listen, someone had to be the bad guy. I had a long-term contract, so I didn't have to worry about the flak."
Thomas continued his purge of Baltimore's household names as soon as the Colts concluded that 1972 schedule with a 5-9 record, their worst since Unitas, he and his crew cut and those funny high-topped shoes, appeared back in 1956. Tom Matte, Dan Sullivan, Fred Miller, Jerry Logan, Bill Curry, Bob Vogel and John Mackey all were swept out or led to the retirement pasture. Unitas was traded to San Diego.
"To make matters worse," says Thomas, "I hit the fans with two preseason games as part of our ticket package. Our season tickets have dropped from 47,000 to 28,000, but I kept those preseason games right there. Those people will be back."
After hiring Miami assistant Howard Schnellenberger as Baltimore's new head coach, Thomas attacked the college draft. "There are two things I don't do," he boasts, "draft poor football players or trade good young football players. The kid I wanted in the 1973 draft was Bert Jones. He had a Koufax arm and a great football background. Well, Houston had the No. 1 pick and New Orleans the No. 2, and the way I saw it, they were both fixed with young quarterbacks. Houston wanted to draft a big defensive lineman, not a quarterback. So I went around the back door and gave the Saints Billy Newsome and a fourth-round draft choice for their No. 2 in the first round. Houston drafted John Matuszak, just as I figured, and I got Bert Jones."
Baltimore emerged from the 1973 draft with four other 1975 starters—Defensive Tackles Joe Ehrmann and Mike Barnes, Running Back Bill Olds and Offensive Tackle David Taylor. In 1974, the top selections were Defensive Ends John Dutton and Freddy Cook, the other half of Ehrmann's Looney Tunes front four, and Wide Receiver Roger Carr. Still, the Colts won only four games in 1973, and they were winless last season when an irate Irsay stormed onto the field during their third game in Philadelphia and fired Schnellenberger because the coach would not replace Domres at quarterback with Jones. Thomas reluctantly became head coach.
"None of us really knew the man," Ehrmann says of Thomas, "because there was a gap between the players and the front office. But he didn't come in and start preaching to us or making too many waves. Instead, he talked to us more about his philosophy of life, of winning, of togetherness, all those things—not the little Xs and Os—and he won us over." But, the Colts won just two games in 1974 and, for their ineptness, got the No. 1 pick in the draft.
"There was pressure on me around Baltimore to draft Randy White, the defensive end from Maryland," Thomas says. "The hell with pressure. Local kids don't mean anything to me. In Miami one year, remember, I got everyone in Florida mad at me by planning to pass over Steve Spurrier and taking Bob Griese in the draft. What I needed was an offensive lineman. Atlanta had the No. 3 pick and needed a quarterback, obviously Steve Bartkowski from California. So I told the Falcons I was going to draft Bartkowski and peddle him for a lineman unless they gave me George Kunz, an All-Pro offensive tackle, and their first-round pick. The Falcons eventually came around, and I ended up with two offensive linemen—Kunz and Ken Huff, the guard we drafted from North Carolina."
After the Thomas reconstruction program was completed, there were only four holdovers from the Rosenbloom regime on Baltimore's active roster. "Look at it this way," Thomas says. "Green Bay, Cleveland and Baltimore had all won together for a lot of years. Now the Colts are back on top. Only the Colts. I could have waited like the others. But I didn't."
Forced to hire another new head coach, Thomas selected Ted Marchibroda, who had coordinated George Allen's offense in Los Angeles and Washington for nine years. Marchibroda is light on the verbiage, preferring to lock himself in his dingy office under the stands at Memorial Stadium and get bleary-eyed from looking at films.
"The big thing about Marchibroda," says Lydell Mitchell, "is that he hasn't sold us out. We used to be very restricted. We couldn't talk or question things, we couldn't be ourselves. Now we've surfaced as individuals, and it's not a coincidence that we've surfaced as a winning team."
Ehrmann, the large bearded tackle from Syracuse, regards himself as the unofficial honcho of the togetherness department. "We've got three captains, really," he says. "Kunz is the boss of the straights, the Ail-American athletes. Raymond is the head of the blacks. Me? I'm captain of the heads, the guys who are loose. Like the Looney Tunes. I'm single, but I bought a big house just with team parties in mind. Everybody comes to the parties, even a lot of the old Colts like Artie Donovan and Ordell Braase. And every Wednesday night we have a poker game, too.
"All the guys are into their own thing, but the Looney Tunes are in another world. Our approach is carefree and loose. Being serious is not our bag. We're a bunch of weird guys. Hey, the psychological trait of defensive linemen is that they can't get uptight, can't follow all the rules, can't be inhibited and can't worry too much about conforming into what the coach wants."
Weird or not, the Looney Tunes lead the NFL with 47 quarterback sacks. "We're the same four guys we were last season," Ehrmann says, "but you don't sack any quarterbacks when you're down 21-0 real quick, and the other club stays on the ground. We're cocky now. If the situation is right, we'll say, 'Hey, let's mess with their heads.' We run about 20 stunts a game, and the other club never knows how many of us are coming—or from where."
According to Ehrmann, John Dutton is the wildest member of the Looney Tunes. "John's different," Ehrmann says. "He was conditioned to winning at Nebraska. I went to Syracuse, Mike Barnes went to Miami of Florida and Freddy Cook went to Southern Mississippi, and we played for bad teams and got conditioned to losing. Dutton always complains to the referees a lot. Barnes is my roommate, a quiet guy. He's a gourmet cook, too, and can make pizza from scratch, which probably is why most of the guys come over on poker nights. Freddy Cook is a beautiful guy, mild, easy, with a lot of depth. He's someone you'd like to fix up with your sister."
While the Baltimore front four torments rival quarterbacks, Kunz and company rarely permit the opposition to make unannounced visits to Jones. "The old rap against me," Jones says, "was that I bailed out of the pocket too quickly and ran too much with the ball. Well, when you don't have any protection, you don't stay in there and get killed. Now I can stay in the pocket all day." Operating with that protection, Jones has completed 59.1% of his passes, thrown for 17 touchdowns, had only seven interceptions and become a big-play specialist.
"Our offensive philosophy has not been what I expected," Marchibroda says. "I thought we'd play more ball control, but Bert has that explosive quality, so we've designed our game plans around what he can do, not what we'd like him to do." Baltimore trails only the O.J. Bills in the NFL's scoring derby.
After practice last Saturday, Jones and his girl friend Danni Dupuis, who was up from Louisiana for the holidays, stopped off at Johnny Unitas' Golden Arm restaurant for lunch. "Never did it dawn on me that I wouldn't be a pro quarterback," Jones said. "I played center for the sixth grade team when I was in the fourth grade, but that was it. I was a pitcher in baseball, and the way the progression went, the pitcher always seemed to be the quarterback." During his high school summers, Jones lived at the training camps of the Cleveland Browns, for whom his father Dub was an offensive coach, and picked up quarterback tips from Frank Ryan and Jim Ninowski. "Back home my mother charted all my high school games play by play and mailed them off to Daddy in Cleveland," he said. "Then he'd call me, and we'd discuss what I did and why I did it."
Jones had an erratic career at LSU, mostly because Coach Charley McLendon had not discovered the forward pass, and when Jones didn't play like a boy Unitas in his first two seasons with the Colts, there was talk around Baltimore that he must be another dumb quarterback from Louisiana like that Terry Bradshaw.' 'Then Bradshaw won the Super Bowl," said Jones, "and he wasn't so dumb anymore. He's a beauty, though; you're with him at six o'clock and he says he'll pick you up at eight, then you won't see him again for two weeks."
Shortly after Marchibroda moved to Baltimore he summoned Jones from Louisiana for six weeks of skull sessions. "Ted did a mental job on me," Jones said. "We studied films, playbooks, theory, the whole thing. We even graded the other clubs we'd be playing and figured how we might attack them." Jones lives with his football flicks, studying them each night and, he insists, even over his morning coffee. "What it has all come down to is that now I know the reasons why we do things in a game. I never had that concept before. Things worked at times, but I didn't know why.
"Another thing, now there's an air of what I say goes. But there's a new rap against me. People claim I don't see my secondary receivers. Heck, when I throw 30 or so passes a game, I probably go to a secondary receiver 28 times. Ah, I guess you can't win."
Jones passed almost perfectly against the Kansas City Chiefs, missing only a little flare-out to Mitchell, and, of course, he did win. So what was Doughty's poetic prediction for this week's game against the New York Giants? "We're seven and four!" he shouted, "and going for more."
Catching Up With ... Lydell Mitchell
Mike Klingaman, The Baltimore Sun 11/21/12
It seemed an ordinary run — a seven-yard burst up the gut, early in a game that the playoff-bound Colts would win easily. But when Lydell Mitchell trotted back to the huddle on that chilly November day in 1977, play stopped and the Memorial Stadium crowd of 50,957 stood and cheered the man who'd just set a new team career rushing record.
It happened 35 years ago this week, a moment stamped in Mitchell's mind. The player whose mark he broke? Hall of Famer Lenny Moore.
"I don't remember anything else about that game except that, at that moment, Lenny came out on the field and presented me with the football," Mitchell said. "He said, 'You deserve this.'
"That was big, man, when you break a legend's record [5,174 yards] — especially since we were both from Penn State."
A second-round draft pick in 1972, Mitchell starred for six years with the Colts and led the club to division championships in each of his last three seasons. The consummate all-purpose back, he rushed for more than 1,100 yards for three successive years and twice led the NFL in pass receptions.
"I didn't miss too many passes," he said. "My philosophy was simple: Since I was going to get hit by those linebackers anyway, I didn't want to get hit for no reason."
Despite the bullseye on his back, he never missed a game, in part because he ran behind the blocks of Colts fullback Roosevelt Leaks.
"He [Leaks] said, 'Follow me,' and that's what I did," Mitchell said. "I couldn't do it by myself. He'd hit anything that moved."
A typical Mitchell outing: 91 yards rushing, plus 8 receptions for 125 yards and a touchdown, all numbers he piled up in a 37-21 victory over the San Diego Chargers in 1976.
More than three decades later, the Ravens boast a running back of a similar ilk.
"I've never met Ray Rice, but he does remind me somewhat of myself," Mitchell said. "He does all of the tough things and, sooner or later, he makes things happen."
Now 63, Mitchell lives in the Reservoir Hill section of the city. Married 27 years and the father of three, he works as head of national sales for Super Bakery, the brainstorm of his college teammate, Franco Harris. The company sells nutritional snack foods to schools, colleges and the military.
For a running back who took part in so many plays, "I came out of football in pretty good shape," Mitchell said. "The game didn't hurt me as much as some other guys I know."
Still the second-leading rusher in Colts franchise history (5,487 yards), Mitchell walks three miles daily, often around Druid Park Lake Drive, stopping to sign autographs when recognized.
"It's nice to be remembered, but I don't get caught up in the past," he said. "I'm proud of what I accomplished, but I don't wear it on my sleeve."
The one thing he'd change: his exit from the Colts. In 1978, after three straight Pro Bowl seasons, Mitchell demanded a hefty pay raise from his $100,000 contract. After months of haggling, a deal was reached. All it needed was an OK from Colts' owner Robert Irsay.
"I remember that my agent and I went to a Chinese restaurant that night to celebrate," Mitchell said. "I opened a fortune cookie that said, 'A change in venue is best for you.'
"When we returned to our hotel, we learned that Irsay had called off the deal."
The next day, the Colts swapped Mitchell, 29, to San Diego for running back Joe Washington.
Mitchell played three more years, then retired. It wasn't the send-off he'd imagined in Baltimore.
"It hurt me to leave here in the prime of my career, and the disrespect I got [from the owner] for all I'd accomplished," he said. "All of a sudden, I wasn't important to them. I never got over that.
"I'd had a vision of playing here for a long time, then coming back before a game, and being introduced, and running through the goal posts before this magnificent crowd. But I was robbed of that.
"Yes, I went to San Diego, which paid me more than I'd asked for with the Colts. But I left my heart in Baltimore."
