Some pretty nice short videos! The best part that I found wasn't actually a video but rather an article. You can tell Sammy Baugh is one tough son of a umm you know what comes next. thanks Jake !
By Sammy Baugh
as told to NFL Insider's Dennis Tuttle
Sammy Baugh was the NFL's first great quarterback, bringing the modern passing game to the NFL in 1937 and changing the course of football history. He played with the Redskins until 1952, directing championship teams in 1937 and 1942. He won six passing titles and set more than 20 records, some of which still stand. Now 86 and living on his massive cattle ranch near Rotan, Texas, Baugh remains an avid football fan and an eagle-eyed judge of talent.
A few years ago, my kids bought me one of those satellite dishes so I can watch football all weekend long. From the first game on Saturday morning to the end of the Monday night game, I sit here in my chair with my clicker and watch every game I can find.
It makes me wish to hell that I still was playing. You'd think I would have gotten over that by now. But I haven't. When I'm watching a game, I like to put myself on the field, right in the middle of things. When a quarterback walks out of the huddle, I try to see what he sees on the field. I pick out a weakness in the defense and think about what play I'd call.
I love today's football. It's a passing game. Everything favors the passer because of the rules. When I came to Washington in 1937, pro football was a running game dominated by the defense. The only time we passed was on third and long, when even your grandmother knew what was coming.
We had some of the silliest rules. If a lineman put his hands up on a boy's jersey to block him, it was holding, 15 yards. If you got hurt and had to leave the game, you couldn't return until the next quarter. I never did understand that rule.
There wasn't a single rule to protect the passer or even encourage passing. A defender could hit the quarterback until the play was dead. The ball would be 50 yards downfield, but the quarterback would be running for his life. I'd look up and some big sonofabitch like Joe Stydahar would be chasing me.
When we played in the 1937 championship game, the damn Bears just about killed me. One time I had to take off running up the middle with the ball, and about four guys piled on top of me. While I was on the bottom, someone grabbed my leg and bent the hell out of my knee, which still bothers me today. Another fellow buried his head into my thigh and two others piled on top of my hip. Roughing the passer? Nobody had ever heard of that.
"You know what I liked about football during my day? It was calling my own plays, trying to beat the damn defense."
— Sammy Baugh
So one day in 1938, I was working on my ranch when Mr. [George Preston] Marshall [the Redskins' owner] called and said, "What if we put in this rule that said you can't hit the quarterback after the pass is thrown?" I said, "That'll put about five years on my life." So Mister Marshall and Mister (George) Halas [Bears owner and coach] got together, as they did when they wanted something changed, and agreed to make that rule.
The changes in rules to help the passing game — including the free-substitution rule [in 1943] — were the most important things ever done for the health of the pro game. The pro game was too predictable. It was sweep left, sweep right, or dive up the middle. Bored the living hell out of you.
For 30 years, football had been the Single Wing and power football. The pros didn't have many good passers — Benny Friedman of the Giants in the late 1920s and Arnie Herber of the Packers in the 1930s. But in the Southwest Conference, teams had been throwing for years. Clark Shaughnessy at the University of Chicago was 10 years ahead of his time with the T-formation. But the pro teams didn't start switching over to the T until the Bears [with Sid Luckman running the offense] beat the living hell out of us [73-0] in the 1940 title game.
Here's what we found out about the passing game: The players loved it and the fans loved it, too.
People say I changed football, and I guess I did because passing is what I did best. I didn't invent the modern passing game. Hell, I don't know who did. But I was ahead of people in the pro league because I had played under Dutch Meyer at TCU.
In my first team meeting [in 1933], Dutch wrote three S's on the board, and no one knew what the hell they meant. They stood for short, safe, and sure. That was his theory. I had never thought of the passing game that way, but it made a lot of sense. Dutch's offense was about timing, precision, and ball control.
That's why it's so damn funny when I hear people talk about Bill Walsh as a genius with the West Coast offense. Don't get me wrong; Walsh was a great coach. But he was a product of Paul Brown's school of coaching, and Paul Brown was a product of Francis Schmidt at Ohio State. Schmidt went to Ohio State from TCU, where Dutch had been his assistant coach.
THE SAMMY BAUGH FILE
Charter Enshrinee, 1963 (TCU)
QUARTERBACK 6-2, 180
1937-1952 Washington Redskins
• Two-time TCU All-America…No. 1 draft choice, 1937…Split career between tailback, T-quarterback…Premier passer who influenced great offensive revolution…All-NFL six years…NFL passing, punting, interception champ, 1943…Six-time NFL passing leader…History's top punter…Career records: 21,886 yards, 186 TDs passing, 45.1-yard punting average, 28 interceptions…Born March 17, 1914, in Temple, Texas.
Maybe it's a coincidence, but I don't think so. At TCU, our offense was pretty similar to the West Coast offense. We had better passing patterns at TCU than we had in the pros, so when I went to Washington I got a lot of TCU stuff put into the offense. The whole idea of the short, ball-control passing offense was that if you played bigger and stronger teams at their game, you'd get killed. Dutch's offense gave you a chance to pick away at them, eat up the clock, and beat them.
We'd do things no one had done before. One time we were buried deep in our territory and had the wind at our back. I made a pass that got us a first down at about the 20-and then I quick-kicked! The ball rolled about 70 yards and pinned them inside their 10.
This was something the pros never would have done. The first few years I was in the league, you didn't see anyone punt unless it was fourth down. But I'd kick on third down if we were buried deep. I did it all the time. The only person who ever figured out when I was quick-kicking was Bill Dudley. He blocked more of my kicks than anybody else.
With all due respect, I was better than anyone else who ever punted the football. You can look it up in the record book. My name's still there [45.1-yard career punting average]. I just loved to kick. When I was a boy, I would go out in the field, drop a towel at a spot on the field and kick the ball for that spot. I'd do this for hours, running back and forth, kicking that damn ball to that towel.
Nowadays, these boys in the NFL punt the ball down the middle of the field, and the kick gets returned. I don't understand it. We punted to the corners so the return man couldn't get into the middle of the field, or we punted out of bounds. These fellas today are all worried about hang time and averages. But it doesn't do a damn bit of good to kick it 60 yards into the end zone and then have it brought out to the 20. Drives me crazy.
People find this hard to believe, but it was a long time before the pros had much speed. Don Hutson was the only real speed guy until the 1940s. He always scared us to death. The average defensive back couldn't cover him.
It's funny to hear people talk about how dirty football was in my day. We didn't have the size or the speed of these boys today. And nobody had a face guard, and nobody had anything but a helmet and light pads. I wore the same set of thin shoulder pads my entire career. Players didn't come in and hit with the head gear like they do now, using it as a weapon. I think you see a lot more serious injuries now because of the equipment.
"People say I changed football, and I guess I did because passing is what I did best. I didn't invent the modern passing game."
— Sammy Baugh
When a boy was playing dirty, we had something called a "bootsy" play. We'd waste a play where we'd rough up the sonofabitch a little to make him stop playing that way. I remember one game where an end was coming at me with his hands and arms like he was slapping at the ball. Each time, he'd hit me in the face. I warned him to stop it, but he didn't. So I called the bootsy. No one blocked him, he came barreling through, and I threw the ball and hit that sonofabitch right in the forehead with a perfect spiral.
You know what I liked about football during my day? It was calling my own plays, trying to beat the damn defense. The quarterback has to be able to think for himself on the field and make adjustments to the game plan. You take something away from playing the position when you call the quarterback's plays for him. I think this is why the quality of quarterback play is so bad these days.
Coaches are the cause, not the players. Coaches get fired a lot easier, and they don't want a quarterback out there losing their job for them.
A coach will trust his offensive coordinator up in the booth more than he trusts the quarterback on the field. That guy upstairs is just watching certain parts of the game. But a good quarterback gets into a "zone" where he can see a weakness in the defense and take advantage. When the defense covers up that weakness, he'll spot something else.
I'm not against scripted plays. But I believe most quarterbacks, if you put them to a vote, would rather call the game themselves. Hell, I used to draw up plays in the dirt in the huddle.
Is quarterbacking today the worst it ever has been?
There are so many teams. Where are you gonna find 31 great starting quarterbacks? But we're seeing some of the truly great quarterbacks-Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Dan Marino. They're all near the end of their careers, but they are some of the all-time best. This kid Peyton Manning? His daddy, Archie played on some of the worst teams of all time down in New Orleans, but he was a pretty-damned-good quarterback. His boy looks even better.
I'm always asked who was the best in history. I don't think you can compare quarterbacks from different eras. My era is certainly different from the one Otto Graham played in, which is different from the one Johnny Unitas played in, which is different from the one Joe Montana played in.
"It doesn't do a damn bit of good to kick it 60 yards into the end zone and then have it brought out to the 20. Drives me crazy."
— Sammy Baugh
When the NFL named us as the four quarterbacks on its 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, I think they picked one of us for each generation. What I don't understand is how the hell do you judge something like that? Do you base it on pure quarterbacking skills, or do you base it on championships? If you're basing it on championships, you've got to say Terry Bradshaw ranks up there because he led the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins. Graham played 10 years and went to the championship game 10 straight years. Who the hell is going to beat that?
What it all comes down to is the kind of teams you play on, and I can guaran-damn-tee you that neither Unitas nor Graham nor Montana will tell you they were the best of all time. We all got lucky by winding up with good teams.
Some good quarterbacks get with the bad teams and never have a chance to prove themselves. Look at Steve Young. What if he'd spent his career with Tampa Bay? Instead, he gets traded to San Francisco, with those wide receivers and that running game, and becomes the MVP, wins the Super Bowl, and he's probably headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Now, a lot of people think Joe Montana is the greatest of all time. I certainly think he's the best short passer. But you put John Elway on that same San Francisco team, and he wins those Super Bowls, too.
When I started following Elway, I thought he was the most talented kid I'd ever seen. Once he won those two Super Bowls, I think you can make a strong argument that he was the best. That boy's got a helluva arm, and he bought time the best I've ever seen. If I needed somebody to throw it 45 yards between the safety and cornerback, he'd be the man I'd want to throw. He'd get it there quicker than any other man alive.
In 1998, I was sittin' here watching the Vikings on TV when they lined up in the Single Wing for a few plays. Gawdalmighty, my dentures about fell out.
It just goes to show you: When you think you've seen about everything there is to see on a football field, and you get to be an old man like me, you might get to see it all over again.
