Pro Football: Practice Makes Ulcers

It was not the kind of arithmetic that Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns, could do on his fingers. Let’s see, now: 35,000 seats at $5 apiece, 20,000 seats at $4, 20,000 at $3. Space for 5,000 standees. We’ll charge them $3 too. That makes $330,000. Of course, it’s partly for charity. So we donate $15,000 to that newspaper fund —”The Helping Hand.” Okay? Then we’ll divide up what’s left, and . . .

Modell was not just dreaming. The opening of the pro-football season is still two weeks away, but this Saturday 80,000 rabid fans will elbow into Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium to watch the Browns v. the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants v. the Detroit Lions in a pro-football “doubleheader.” The games are mere preseason exhibitions—the kind of practice scrimmage that no one used to notice. But now pro football is growing so wildly popular that no one can wait for the official gong. Many games are sellouts, and those who can’t get in see it all on TV. What’s more, the fans hardly even care that it isn’t the real McCoy.

They sure don’t in Dallas, where the Cowboys play their exhibitions on Saturday and televise them the following day; thousands of fans refuse to look at the Sunday sports pages until the telecast is over. They don’t care in Pittsburgh, either. After the Steelers lost their second straight exhibition to the Browns last week, one rooter groaned: “The season hasn’t even started, and already we’re waiting till next year.”

Monday-Morning Quarterbacks. It used to be that a coach could experiment in the preseason games and forget the score. But now there are all those eager faces in the stands, all those Monday-morning quarterbacks camped in front of all those TV sets. Two weeks ago, Harlan Svare took his Los Angeles Rams up to Portland, Ore., for a scrimmage with the Dallas Cowboys. In the second quarter, Svare decided to give Rookie Quarterback Bill Munson some practice, so he benched Terry Baker—who hails from Portland. Thirty thousand fans booed everything Munson did. The Portland Reporter even ran an editorial claiming that the Rams had”cheated” the city.

All that was mild compared with the woes of New York Giant Coach Allie Sherman—a believer in the old-fashioned theory that preseason games don’t count. For three straight years, Sherman’s Giants have been the champions of the National Football League’s Eastern Division. But now they look more like chumps—at least on TV. They lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 21-7, and Sherman insisted: “The defense looked good.” Then they ran into the Green Bay Packers and Halfback Paul (“Golden Boy”) Hornung, back from a year in Coventry for betting on games. Hornung passed for one touchdown, booted two field goals and four extra points, and the Packers trounced the Giants, 34-10. The Giant switchboard lit up with wailing calls from fans who had seen it on TV. New York sportswriters loaded the papers with stories patiently reminding everyone that Star Quarterback Y. A. Tittle hadn’t played much, and that Allie was “satisfied.”

Smilin’ Sam. The Giants’ next opponents were the Washington Redskins, who had not beaten New York since 1957. But there was a new face in the Redskin lineup: Sam Huff, who anchored the Giants’ defense for eight years before Sherman traded him away last winter. Smilin’ Sam was so anxious to see all his old teammates again that he hardly slept a wink all week. He batted down a Giant pass in the end zone, contributed half a dozen key tackles and managed to perch on top of practically every pileup. Redskins 27, Giants 24.

The Bronx cheer was deafening. Said Sherman, from the solitude of his Fairfield, Conn., training camp: “I understand things are in kind of an uproar down in the city.” Then he grabbed his ax and began swinging. Off to Pittsburgh went Halfback Phil King, the team’s top ground gainer in 1963. Off to limbo went Quarterback Glynn Griffing—the lad from Mississippi who was supposed to fill Y. A. Tittle’s shoes. Back came Assistant Coach Andy Robustelli to his old job in the defensive line. “There was no desperation involved,” Sherman insisted, but he was obviously breathing easier after the Giants played the Philadelphia Eagles last Saturday. Tittle limped off with an injured knee—and was hardly missed. Rookie Gary Wood, an Ivy Leaguer, no less, threw three touchdown passes, and the Giants won, 28-17. Admitted Allie: “I’m like anybody else. I like to win.”