Bullet Bob v. Roger the Dodger

If you look at successful Aquarians, you will note that theirs is a new, unique, or progressive approach to whatever they are doing. They are blessed with a great fixity of purpose in completing what they started.

--Astrologist Carroll Righter

IT was perhaps inevitable in the Age of Aquarius that two young men born in the first week of February would ultimately battle for the same prize. But when Quarterbacks Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys and Bob Griese of the Miami Dolphins meet in the Super Bowl for the National Football League championship this week, they will have more in common than their Aquarian fixity of purpose.

Staubach was raised in the Midwest. So was Griese. Staubach was a class president and star baseball, basketball and football player in high school. So was Griese. Staubach was turned down by Notre Dame, the college he passionately wanted to attend. So was Griese. Staubach was named a college all-America in his junior year. So was Griese. Staubach is a Roman Catholic, is married to a former nurse, sells real estate, has blue eyes, short-trimmed hair and is modest and reserved. Ditto for Griese on all counts. Staubach is the leading passer in the National Football Conference. Griese is the leading passer in the American Football Conference. Now, on the eve of the sixth annual Super Bowl, the two best young quarterbacks in professional football are preparing to establish a crucial difference in their parallel careers: the difference between winner and loser.

The match-up of the Aquarians and their teams--little old Miami (the Cinderella team) and big bad Dallas (the fiercest force in the West)--has stirred more than the usual frenzy among the nation's pro-football freaks. In Miami, where attendance at home games averaged a meager 34,687 just two seasons ago, more than 78,000 screaming, hanky-waving "Dol-fans" jammed the Orange Bowl last week to watch their beloved Dolphins score a stunning

A.F.C. play-off victory over the World Champion Baltimore Colts. In Dallas, no less a booster than Lyndon Baines Johnson moseyed into town, cheered the Cowboys' N.F.C. play-off win over the San Francisco 49ers, roamed the locker room shaking hands, and drawled: "They wouldn't let us back on the range if you didn't win."

The nation's No. 1 football fan was not idle either. From the White House, Richard Nixon put through a call to the home of Miami Coach Don Shula at 1:30 a.m. Says Shula: "He told me, 'Now you understand that I'm a Washington Redskin fan, but I'm a part-time resident of Miami and I've been following the Dolphins very closely.' " During their ten-minute chat, says Shula, the President "talked real technical football. He told me that Dallas was a pretty tough club but that he thought we could hit Warfield on a down-and-in pattern." Washington Redskin fans, among others, have reason to be skeptical about the presidential strategy. Shortly before the Redskins' 24-20 loss to the 49ers two weeks ago, Nixon called Redskin Coach George Allen to suggest an end-around reverse by Flanker Roy Jefferson. Allen tried it, and Jefferson was nailed for a 13-yd. loss.

Old Campaigners. Once, it was assumed that a young quarterback had to spend several years warming the bench before he could even begin to master the complexities of the pro game. No more. Staubach and Griese, leading the top teams in each league into the biggest game of the year, symbolize a changing of the guard--the triumph of youthful field generals over veteran campaigners.

Familiar names are still around, but the best of the still-active quarterbacks who reigned over pro football for the past decade are getting long in the tooth.

John Unitas, still wearing the old high-top-style cleats that he sported when he broke in with the Baltimore Colts 16 seasons ago, is 38. John Brodie, a survivor of 15 colorful campaigns with the 49ers, is 36. Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers is 38 and considering retiring. Sonny Jurgensen of the Washington Redskins is 37 and ailing. Griese, on the other hand, is only 26, and has already logged five seasons as a starter. Staubach is 29 and "in the best physical condition of my life."

With the ranks of the oldtimers dwindling, the search for more Grieses and Staubachs has intensified. What the pros are looking for in their "dream quarterback" is aptly described by Minnesota Viking General Manager Jim Finks: "The future star quarterback will have the qualities of a single-wing tailback. He will have the size to see over and around big onrushing linemen, good strength to absorb the punishment, and speed to run past the defensive linemen and linebackers."

From All Sides. Some teams have already realized that dream. Indeed, there are four other young quarterbacks whose exploits come close to matching those of Griese and Staubach: the New England Patriots' Jim Plunkett, 24, 6 ft. 3 in., 210 lbs., has more than lived up to his Heisman Trophy notices, passing the Pats to upset victories over the Colts and Miami this fall; New Orleans Saints' Archie Manning, 22, 6 ft. 3 in., 212 lbs., the sensational roll-out passer and scrambler from Ole Miss, was so spectacular as a rookie that he had defenses gunning for him all season long; Pittsburgh Steelers' Terry Bradshaw, 23, 6 ft. 3 in., 214 lbs., finding his groove in his sophomore season, sparked the Steelers to their best winning season in five years; Buffalo Bills' Dennis Shaw, 24, 6 ft. 3 in., 205 lbs., the A.F.C. Rookie of the Year in 1970, fired eleven touchdown passes this season.

To be sure, Plunkett, Manning, Bradshaw and Shaw caught it from all sides as they learned their trade during on-the-fieid training. Or, in some instances, flat-on-the-field training. Bradshaw, for example, suffered the humiliation of being tackled for a safety in each of the first three games he started; it took him two more games before he threw his first touchdown pass. "The plain truth is," he says, "I didn't know how to attack a defense, how to set one thing up by using another."

Bob Griese knows, and his knowledge borders on the mystical. Take the blitz. "It's funny," he says. "Sometimes you can look into their eyes and you can tell they're blitzing." Buffalo Safety Pete Richardson is bugged by the Griese gaze: "He always seems to know which way I'm going. It's like he's looking into my head."

An extremely methodical man who approaches the game with the air of a Ph.D. candidate, Griese likes to equate football with chess: "In a game I think of myself as looking down on a situation from above, like a chess player. I can see moves coming and I'm ready to make them. When you're a rookie you feel just like another one of the pieces. You can't see everybody because you're down among them. But when you have total grasp and knowledge of what's going on, then you feel you can effectively maneuver people around, manipulate your offense to take advantage of what the defense is showing."

Blond, tan, dimpled and movie-star handsome, Griese, going to work in one of his Sears, Roebuck suits (he does promotion for the company), looks like a beachboy turned junior executive. For him, in fact, preparing for a game is "like a businessman going to a meeting. I have a 9-to-5 job like everyone else," he says. Not quite. When he goes home at night, he often lugs along reels of game film and then spends long hours in his den taking notes by the flickering light. His diligence has paid off in a kind of built-in instant-replay system. On the field, he says, "every time a defensive formation moves it reminds me of something I've seen on one of the films the week before."

To his teammates, Griese is a respected if somewhat distant leader. No rah-rah man, his most insistent utterance in the huddle is "Let's get going." Says Griese: "I don't say anything. I just call the plays and make them work." And work and work. Though he is a good swivel-hipped scrambler and has one of the quickest releases in the league, 6 ft. 1 in., 190 lb. Griese is running and passing less and enjoying it more. Once he threw as many as 35 passes a game; against Baltimore last week he threw only eight times. The fact that two of his tosses led to touchdowns supports his theory that nothing sets up a pass as neatly as a well-mixed running attack.

In the play-off battle with the Colts, Griese was expected to trade largely on the running attack of his battering backs, Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick. It would be futile, so the smart money figured, to pass against a zone defense that was reputedly an impenetrable wall. Although Griese used his aerial attack with restraint, the bombs that he threw picked the zone apart in short order.

Miami defensemen got in a few decisive licks of their own. In addition to manhandling Colt Quarterback Unitas, they combined for one of the most exquisitely executed maneuvers-this side of the Bolshoi Ballet. It came in the third quarter after Miami Safety Dick Anderson picked off a tipped Unitas pass. Rallying around him in a kind of free-form flying wedge, Dolphin blockers cut down six Colt tacklers in sudden, shattering succession, as Anderson raced on unmolested for the score. Says Shula, still lost in the wonder of it all: "It was one of the great plays of all time, a classic." The 21-0 Miami victory marked the first time in 97 games that the Colts had been shut out.

Freely and Feebly. The other play-off clash, between the hard-nosed defenses of Dallas and San Francisco, was, as 49er Defensive Tackle Earl Edwards had predicted, "an alley fight." Another 49er, noting Staubach's penchant for running with the ball when his receivers are covered, warned that "a quarterback who plays that way can get his neck broken." As it happened, nothing was broken except the 49ers' spirit. Staubach romped freely while veteran San Francisco Quarterback John Brodie passed feebly. Brodie had three passes intercepted, Staubach none; he was the Cowboys' leading ground gainer to boot.

Indeed, he befuddled the 49ers all afternoon with what might be called the Staubach Shuffle. In a third-and-seven situation on the Dallas 23, Staubach faded, found his receivers covered, circled as far back as the 3-yd. line, zigged away from one tackier, zagged around another, started upfield, reversed his course, angled for the sidelines, doubled back and then, while running full tilt, flipped a 17-yd. jump pass to Running Back Dan Reeves for a first down. Shuffling this way and throwing that, Roger the Dodger led the Cowboys to a 14-3 victory.

The unusual thing about Staubach is that he calls almost no plays at all. That chore is handled by Dallas Coach Tom Landry, who shuttles in his calls from the sidelines via "messenger ends." Landry uses the messenger technique, he says, "to take the pressure off the quarterback." (Others say it is because only he and God fully understand the complex Landry multiformations.) Not all of the Cowboys are happy with the messenger service. Says one player: "The coach has become so conservative--playing mostly ball control--that some guys on the offense feel throttled back. Hell we have the most explosive offense in the league, if Coach Landry would only loosen his short leash on us."

That does not seem likely, at least not right away. "We have 14 multiple offensive formations to cope with," says Landry. "It takes a while to learn how to run it smoothly and effectively." Perfectionist Landry even goes so far as to say that Staubach is still three years away from becoming a complete professional quarterback. "It will take him that long to learn to read defenses clearly." Staubach disagrees. He argues that "I cannot be a complete quarterback until I can call the plays," and wants to take over the team on his own next season. "I won't worry," he says, "until I see Landry working out in the offseason, like throwing a ball through a rubber tire in the backyard."

Scrambler. Actually, Staubach still has a very special hold on the team. Every time he fades back to pass and decides to run, for example, he is running the play his way. "Coach doesn't like my scrambling very much," he admits, "mainly because he's afraid of injuries." Staubach, who at 6 ft. 3 in. and 195 lbs. is no muscular giant by pro standards, seems to be afraid of nothing. Says New York Jets Line Coach Buddy Ryan: "The others lay down on you before you can hit them. This Staubach guy thinks he's a running back. He's still trying to win the Heisman Trophy in the pros."

Very often, the threat of a Staubach run is as damaging to defenses as the run itself. When he scrambles into his broken figure-eight patterns, swooping toward the line of scrimmage and then veering back again, defenses are gripped by a will-he-or-won't-he perplexity. Says Jet Cornerback Earlie Thomas: "In the time he's running around, your man can run two or three pass patterns, and if he runs two or three, he might beat you on one." After seeing him chased for many a zigzagging yard last week, 49er Assistant Coach Paul Wiggin marveled at Staubach's ability to stay on his feet: "That guy's got an inner gyroscope or something." Says 49er Coach Dick Nolan: "Staubach beat us. His scrambling was the difference."

Stunning Upset. More than one coach has voiced a similar lament when going against the likes of Roger Thomas Staubach and Robert Allen Griese. Everything about the two sons of Aquarius has remained remarkably similar, all the way to the Super Bowl. Both were outstanding high school athletes, Staubach in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Griese in Evansville, Ind. Spurned by Notre Dame, Staubach went to the U.S. Naval Academy, Griese to Purdue. In 1962, in his first game against Army, Sophomore Staubach passed and ran circles around the heavily favored cadets to lead Navy to a stunning upset. The next year he became the fourth college player in history to win the Heisman Trophy in his junior year. A year and a half later he was commissioned an ensign and later was sent to Danang, South Viet Nam, as a supply officer.

In 1965 Griese all but singlehandedly upset No. 1-ranked Notre Dame by completing an incredible 19 of 22 passes. Notre Dame Coach Ara Parseghian calls it "the greatest single performance I have ever witnessed." Then in 1967 Griese led Purdue to a 14-13 victory over Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl. That same year Griese was the No. 1 draft choice of the Dolphins.

In the opening game of the season. Quarterback John Stofa broke his leg, and Griese was sent in. Despite an injured shoulder, he helped Miami win three of its last five games while throwing 122 consecutive passes without an interception. Meshing well with meticulous Don Shula, who became the Dolphins' head coach last season, Griese led the Dolphins to the A.F.C. play-offs last year and into the Super Bowl this year.

In 1969 Staubach took off his Navy uniform and joined the Dallas Cowboys to serve on their taxi squad behind Quarterbacks Craig Morton and Don Meredith. Then, in quick succession, Don Meredith announced his surprise retirement and Craig Morton was injured--leaving Staubach to start the opening game of the season against the St. Louis Cardinals. In the first quarter Staubach fired a 75-yd. touchdown pass, and the Cowboys were never headed as they won 24-3. Off and on over the next two seasons, Coach Landry, a Methodist minister known to his players as the "Rev. T.L.," alternated Staubach and Morton as the starting quarterbacks. After the

Cowboys lost three of their first seven games this season, Landry announced that for "the sake of continuity" he would use only one quarterback: Staubach. Roger led the Cowboys to nine consecutive victories and straight into the Super Bowl.

Now the Super Bowl is all that remains of the season. Dallas has made the divisional play-offs four years running but has never won the big game. Miami is the youngest (organized in 1966) team ever to make the Super

Bowl. Dallas has the "Doomsday Defense," big, tenacious, experienced. Miami has the "No Name Defense," young, quick, aggressive. Dallas has Wide Receiver Bob Hayes, the fastest man in the N.F.C. Miami has Paul Warfield, the most elusive. Dallas has Running Backs Duane Thomas and Calvin Hill, the best one-two punch in the N.F.C. Miami has Backs Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick, the best in the A.F.C. Dallas has Ron Widby, one of the top punters in the N.F.C.

Miami has Place Kicker Garo Yepremian, the highest scorer in the N.F.L. Dallas has Tom Landry, aloof, cerebral, technical. Miami has Don Shula, driving, hard-nosed, elemental.

Finally, Dallas has Roger the Dodger: "Every time I step on the field, I believe my team is going to walk off the winner, somehow, some way." And Miami has Bullet Bob: "We will win." Who is right? In the age of the Aquarians the answer lies in the confrontation of the two stars.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.