Playboy's First Pro Football Preview

Professional Football, as 40,000,000 neglected wives and girlfriends will readily agree, has displaced baseball as the Great American Spectator Sport. Armchair psychologists go so far as to speculate that football is much more closely attuned than baseball to the American psyche. It delivers a weekly package of controlled violence mixed with intricate teamwork and superspecialized skills, plus the joy and strife of regional chauvinism, packaged in all the color and gimmickry that American showbiz know-how can concoct.

But pro football's pre-eminent place in the American sports scene is relatively new. In only a dozen years, 12 teams have become 26, attendance has tripled and millions of people who once thought football began and ended at college are glued to their television sets because tickets to the pro games are usually sold out by mid-May.

The story of the precipitous growth of pro football is in the best American tradition. In 1959, Lamar Hunt, rich son of ultrarich H. L. Hunt, decided he would like to bring a pro football team to his native Dallas. Following protocol, he went to Chicago and called on George Halas, then chairman of the National Football League's absurdly titled Expansion Committee. There was an excited flurry in the press about all this and Halas omnisciently announced to reporters that pro football had reached its full growth potential at that time and there was neither room nor sufficient fan interest for expansion.

So Hunt, seeing that the National Football League owners were sitting on a tight little monopoly and had no intention of giving an outsider a piece of the action, decided to fight his way in. He forthwith rounded up other money-laden would-be sports impresarios and started the American Football League, keeping the Dallas franchise, naturally, for himself. The new A. F. L. owners went into the open market, bidding for football talent against the established N. F. L. owners, and the player war was on.

Barely a month after Hunt and his partners announced the founding of the A. F. L., Halas and Pittsburgh owner Art Rooney, the other member of the N. F. L. Expansion Committee, called a press conference in Houston, where the Bears and the Steelers were playing an exhibition game. Halas and Rooney announced that, by golly, there was room for N. F. L. expansion, after all, and the first two franchises were to be in Dallas and Houston, the two key A. F. L. cities. (Houston's franchise was promulgated in the belief that Rice Stadium would be available for N. F. L. use--a false assumption, it turned out, so the Houston franchise was switched to Minneapolis, the next most desirable proposed A. F. L. site.)

The N. F. L. Dallas franchise went to Clint Murchison, Jr., son of another Texas oil zillionaire, who, seeing Hunt buy himself a football team, decided he wanted one, too. In the uncertain months before either the A. F. L. teams or the Dallas Cowboys began play in 1960, Murchison apparently had second thoughts. He went to Hunt and offered to sell him half the Cowboy franchise if he would drop plans for founding the A. F. L. Hunt said no dice. A few weeks later, Murchison called and said Hunt could have the whole Cowboy franchise if he would drop his A. F. L. plans, explaining that all he wanted was to see Dallas have a first-class pro football team--and, of course, that meant an N. F. L. team. Hunt, who has a frontier sense of integrity, again demurred, explaining that he couldn't abandon the other A. F. L. owners, who had gambled so much on his idea.

The first two years of A. F. L. competition were marked by feeble fan interest, generally inept and ragged play, financial crises and frequent press predictions that the whole thing would collapse in a season or two. The American Broadcasting Company, looking for sports programing on the cheap, agreed to televise A. F. L. games for a relative pittance. But it was a beginning and the television exposure recruited an increasing number of followers for the young league.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys, who had opened for business in the fall of 1960, almost immediately won over the Dallas fans. The Cowboys' attendance gains were the Dallas Texans' losses. Finally, in 1962, when Hunt's Texans won the A. F. L. championship but still drew fewer paid spectators than the Cowboys, who won only a couple of games, Hunt decided to move his franchise to Kansas City.

From then on, it was all uphill for the A. F. L., but the league was helped by the reluctance of N. F. L. owners to match some of the A. F. L. clubs' fat contract offers. A few players fresh out of college took less lucrative N. F. L. contracts merely for the honor of playing in "the big league." But, in general, the A. F. L. teams were getting their share of the available speed, brains and muscle, and the price war for talent threatened to become disastrous. Finally, the N. F. L. owners realized that the only way they could continue to make reasonably exorbitant profits was to take in the interlopers. The event that triggered this change of heart occurred in January 1964, when the A. F. L. got an astonishingly juicy TV contract from NBC, making it obvious that the league not only would survive but, for the next five years at least, would also have plenty of bread with which to buy talent. So Tex Schramm, Murchison's general manager, called Hunt and said, "Let's get together." After a supersecret courting, marriage vows were exchanged in 1966, with the A. F. L. required to pay a multimillion-dollar dowry for the honor of joining the "in" crowd. Four years later, after Hunt's Kansas City Chiefs had thrashed the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl, the Bonehead Club of Dallas gave Hunt its Bonehead-of-the-Year award for "paying $18,000,000 to join a bunch of losers."

Without further pre-game commentary, here's our prognostication on the winners--and losers--of the upcoming season.

Even the Dallas Cowboys' proclivity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory may not keep them from a return visit to the Super Bowl. For one thing, the squad will be virtually an exact copy of last year's edition, and presumably the Cowboys are nursing wounded pride from their exercise in ineptitude last January. Also, it rankles the Texas psyche to be even second best, so feverish preparations have been under way for the coming season and a mood of Spartan determination has fallen over the Cowboy camp. This is a situation made to order for coach Tom Landry, whose icy personality and craggy features evoke images of a Nova Scotian landscape in late November.

One new face in the Cowboy starting line-up may be the pink-cheeked visage of quarterback Roger Staubach. The frequently injured and infrequently impressive Craig Morton may be more useful as a back-up man, and Staubach appears to have the personal qualities--and now the maturity--to keep the psychic fires burning in the sometimes listless Cowboys. If Staubach can put some juice in their offense, thus giving an occasional breather to the best defense in the business, the Cowboys will have to invent new ways to lose in the Super Bowl. They certainly won't have too much trouble getting there; their schedule is the weakest in either conference. Dallas' nondivisional opponents collectively won only a third of their games last season.

It has been 23 years since the St. Louis Cardinals--then the Chicago Cardinals--won a football championship. With a little luck (and a few slips by Dallas), the drought could end in '71. The needed manpower is on hand. In fact, the only really new man on the Cardinal scene is head coach Bob Hollway, recent zookeeper to Minnesota's famed Purple Gang defense. Hollway knows a good thing when he sees it. He has had other head-coaching offers before but has shrewdly waited for a chance to take over a team with the right ingredients of quick success. His patience and judgment have paid off: The Cardinal camp contains the necessary parts, just waiting for the right leader to hang them all together. Last year, the Cards had young and mistake-prone talent that suffered some bad luck and crippling internal personality conflicts. Now Hollway is bringing order out of chaos. All spring, he has been making noises that would lead opponents to believe he has brought with him from Minnesota the Bud Grant philosophy of methodical, grinding football. But don't believe it. The Cardinals have the speed and slash that are missing in the Viking offense and Hollway is too smart a guy not to take advantage of them.

The New York Giants could also challenge Dallas. Coach Alex Webster is into his third year of rebuilding the team and the results so far have been little short of phenomenal. Last year, with eight rookies on the roster by the end of the season, the Giants were in solid contention for the divisional championship up to the final game. Those new men have matured and this year's draft should produce at least two more instant starters in the persons of wide receiver Rocky Thompson and linebacker Ronnie Hornsby. The big questions are whether the Giants can again enjoy last year's reprieve from excessive injury and whether quarterback Fran Tarkenton can repeat last year's performance, the best of his career. Coach Webster's main problems are shoring up the offensive line and the linebacking corps, both of which have geriatric problems despite the presence of a few talented youngsters. If the new men have learned enough and if coach Alex Webster can find some reliable depth, the Giants should continue to improve.

George Allen takes over at Washington to continue the revitalization begun by the late Vince Lombardi. Lombardi's is a hard act to follow, but if anyone can do it, the single-minded Allen is the man. His strength--or perhaps his downfall--will be his private football prejudices. First of all he is incurably suspicious of callow youth. He also thinks the idea of building for the future is merely a cop-out for present incompetence. "The future," he says, "is now!" Add these personal prejudices to the situation that Allen inherited (one of the best offensive teams in pro football and one of the worst defenses) and you have a simple explanation of Allen's extraordinary move on arrival in Washington. He traded away virtually his entire 1971 draft plus a big chunk of the 1972 draft for seasoned defensive help. Allen got the Rams' three starting linebackers (Myron Pottios, Jack Pardee and Maxie Baughan), plus blue-chip defensive tackle Diron Talbert. The Rams threw in guard John Wilbur to sweeten the pot.

Virtually every pro coach we've talked to insists (off the record) that George Allen got taken in the trade. The new Los Angeles coach, Tommy Prothro, they say, was just about to turn those three linebackers out to pasture anyway. We'll soon know who took whom in the trade.

The Redskins have a fabulous offense. Quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, at 37, is still one of the best in the country. He has some top-grade receivers in Charley Taylor and Boyd Dowler, who will be ably abetted by rookie Cotton Speyrer, and Larry Brown is the best runner in pro football. The big problem is the defensive line, which was so miserable last year that even the addition of Diron Talbert probably won't help enough to make it respectable.

"Pity the poor old Eagles," the Philadelphia sportswriters have been wont to intone over the years, and the phrase is as pertinent now as ever. It is a mystery how a team such as the Eagles can finish near the bottom for so long, thereby inheriting a perennially good position in the draft grab bag, and still do such a lousy job in the fresh-meat department. Along with the thin ranks, the Eagles' coaching staff has been torn with dissension. One of the few pluses the team enjoyed until this year was the better-than-adequate quarterbacking of Norm Snead; but, for some inexplicable reason, general manager Pete Retzlaff traded Snead off to the Vikings, leaving no passers of remotely comparable quality to replace him. As if all these problems weren't enough, those poor old Eagles face the toughest schedule in pro football.

If the Minnesota Vikings could find some outside running speed, they would be the best team in pro football. They might be the best this year anyway, if they can avoid crippling injuries among the wide receivers and linebackers, where depth is thin. They certainly have everything else, including Bud Grant, the best coach in the National Football Conference. They also have a large stable of bull-like runners, two well-seasoned quarterbacks in Gary Cuozzo and Norm Snead and the best defensive line in football.

The Vikings are not one of the sport's glamor teams. Rather, they come at you like the Minnesota winters: cold, bleak and relentless. The defense is mean and immovable; the offense is tightly controlled, elementary and usually uninteresting to watch. Both squads retain a flavor of the early years under former coach Norm Van Brocklin, when momentum often was a substitute for skill. But now the Vikings also bear the Bud Grant trademark--thoroughness, cold pragmatism and a freight-train offense.

Grant doesn't believe in cheap scores and certainly isn't going to give up any to the opposition. The offense plays it close to the vest because it can afford to. Dave Osborn, Clint Jones, Bill Brown, Oscar Reed and Jim Lindsey are not fancy runners, but all are good for three yards a carry. Gary Cuozzo has the single most overlooked attribute of a great quarterback: intellectual agility. He was Phi Beta Kappa at Virginia and was number one in his class in dental school at Tennessee. Tackle Ron Yary is destined to become a superstar. He has everything, including size, mobility and a mean streak. Add it all together and it comes out this way: The Vikings have the best chance in the National Football Conference to beat the Cowboys to the Super Bowl.

The Detroit Lions have climbed a long way from mediocrity in the past couple of years and, had they been in any other division, they probably would have made the play-offs each of the past two seasons. The Vikings are a formidable roadblock for any ambitious team and the Lions may well wind up second best again this year. But they'll make a tough scrap of it. The two big problem areas have been the pass-rush--which has been unaccountably anemic in light of the truculent tonnage in the defensive line--and the passing offense, which was woefully unproductive last fall. Quarterbacks Bill Munson and Greg Landry are both excellent passers, so look for the Lions to open up the air lanes this year. Also, for the first time in a long while, the Lions went primarily for defensive stalwarts in the draft to beef up their pass-rush. They came out with some goodies, notably tackle Bob Bell from Cincinnati and linebacker Charlie Weaver from Southern Cal.

Perhaps the greatest thing the Lions have going for them is sheer mechanical discipline. Only 70 penalties were called against them all last season, the best record in the conference with a lot to spare, and they gave up the ball on mistakes 17 times fewer than opponents. This may sound like a lot of dull statistics, but it makes the difference between a 4--8--2 season and a 10--4 season, which is exactly how far the Lions have come in the past two years.

A new coach takes over the Green Bay Packers this season, but fans shouldn't expect to see a lot of difference in either playing style or results. Dan Divine abandoned cozy security at Missouri for the heady challenge of the pro game. That's an indication of the kind of man he is. But there was method in his move. In playing style and velocity, the Packers have been almost a perfect professional counterpart of Divine's Missouri Tigers.

Presumably, Divine will bring a platoon of medics with him from the Missouri School of Medicine. "I've never seen so many people hurt or half hurt," he says, sizing up his new herd. Top concern, of course, is the throwing arm of Bart Starr. Last year's back-up man, Don Horn, was swapped to the Broncos, so Zeke Bratkowski was reactivated, which probably gives the Packers the oldest pair of quarterbacks in captivity (Starr is 37 and Bratkowski is 39). That isn't exactly a liability, judging from the way Johnny Unitas and Earl Morrall handled Baltimore's offense last year.

Don't give Starr the arthritic countdown because of his age; last year, he did better with a sore arm than Horn did with a good one, and that's why Horn is throwing balls around Mile High Stadium in Denver this year. Part of the deal was that the Packers got Denver's position in the first round of the college draft, enabling them to pick off power runner John Brockington ahead of the surprised Chicago Bears, who had covetous eyes on the Ohio State battering ram. It was a wise choice, because Brockington will probably be the first man to make Packer fans forget Jim Taylor. The team will need him, Travis Williams having been dealt to Los Angeles.

Packer followers shouldn't count on miracles. Dan Divine's philosophy is the opposite of George Allen's. He is willing to work patiently and methodically toward future excellence. After meeting his squad last spring, he said, "I'm finding out right now that certain guys on the team are not going to buy me. I know who they are and I'll have to do something about them. We've got a big rebuilding job to do here; the team needs it more than I thought." Does that sound a little like Lombardi?

The Chicago Bears have been victims of their own ineptitude in the draft. Not since the '65 draw that brought Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus and Dick Gordon have the Bears had a really good crop of rookies. As a result, owner George Halas has had to resort to the trading block in order to replace the lame and the aged, and the ranks have been resultantly thin. Fortunately, the trades have been shrewder than the draft choices and last year's Bear squad was improved enough to approach the mediocre. Biggest flaws were the defensive backfield and the running corps that was made up of one injured great (Sayers) and several barely adequate runners. The quarterbacking can be charitably described as unfulfilled potential, and if coach Jim Dooley didn't have an embarrassment of riches in the receiving department, the passing game would be almost nonexistent.

Halas opened his wallet this year and spent $100,000 on scouting. The big happy surprise package of the draftees could easily be James Harrison, running mate of Joe Moore (also a Bear draftee) at Missouri. When Harrison and Moore were freshmen, Columbia sportswriters were making noises about Harrison's being a future combination of Jim Thorpe and Bronko Nagurski. Moore was just another freshman who could run a little. But it was he who had the guts and drive to become the best college runner in the nation--until his shoulder separation in midseason last year. Harrison still has the tools; he is 6'4", weighs 242 pounds and, when his adrenaline is flowing, he really runs. If Dooley can motivate him, the Bears could have the best three-man infantry platoon in the country.

The San Francisco 49ers' rush to the top--it took them 21 years in the N. F. L. to win their first divisional title--was one of the big surprises of last season. They seem to be in even better shape this year. One refreshing change is that coach Dick Nolan isn't relying on the rookie crop to strengthen his starting units. There won't be much change in offensive nor defensive tactics, because Nolan isn't one to tinker with a winner. It's easy to see why he isn't too worried about his offense. Quarterback John Brodie has finally matured and last year's brilliant performance should be repeated in '71. One reason for the blossoming of Brodie was the maturity of the offensive line, which allowed him to be decked only eight times, an N. F. L. record. What the running attack lacks in breakaway speed it makes up for in sheer power. Ken Willard has become one of the most devastating blockers around; and if rookie Joe Orduna pans out, the 49er offense should be one of the two or three best in the country. The principal (and almost totally overlooked) key to San Francisco's newfound defensive excellence is Nolan's unique system of using eight starting defensive linemen. By constant shuttling, he keeps a fresh front four on the field at all times, with the result that the 49ers' defense often dominates the fourth quarter. Defensive end Cedrick Hardman should become the best in the country within a couple of years.

Rarely does a pro football organization change as drastically from top to bottom as the Los Angeles Rams have this year. Shortly before the death of owner Dan Reeves, one of pro football's great pioneers, his stormy relationship with head coach George Allen was terminated and UCLA coach Tommy Prothro was hired. Prothro's motivations for taking over the Rams were much the same as Dan Divine's for going to Green Bay: New challenges were more inviting than old securities. But where Divine will not bring many immediate changes to the Packers, Prothro's innovations will probably dazzle fans in the first exhibition game. He brought along five of his UCLA assistant coaches, retaining only one member of last year's staff. Also, despite the Rams' excellent material, many new names will be listed among the starters. Main reason for this is Prothro's football philosophy, which seems to be the opposite of Minnesota's Bud Grant. Prothro goes for the big play, maneuvering the game situation until he gets in perfect position to spring some preplanned but unexpected game-breaking play. Whether this will work as well for him with the Rams as it did at UCLA remains to be seen, but veteran pro coaches to whom we've talked seriously doubt it. The main thing Prothro has going for him is his quarterback. Along with everything else, Roman Gabriel has the stature and the stamina to stand up to the charging behemoths who man defensive lines.

Both the offensive and the defensive lines are prime beef, but the running backs have been battering-ram types with not enough outside speed for Prothro's sudden-big-play style of football. That problem may have been solved with the acquisition of Travis Williams from Green Bay. Despite the doubters and the cynics, we have a feeling that canny Tommy Prothro will do his job in spectacular fashion. His main problem will be dealing with advancing age among his squad members. The five regular offensive linemen, for example, have an average age of 30, and that borders Medicare country in the world of pro football.

The fight for the division title will be strictly limited this year to Los Angeles and San Francisco; neither Atlanta nor New Orleans has a chance. They and Philadelphia form the poverty belt of pro football. Best chance to climb to some kind of respectability probably belongs to New Orleans, on the strength of a few super rookies (quarterback Archie Manning, offensive linemen Sam Holden, Larry Di Nardo and Wimpy Winther and running back Carlos Bell). Manning, of course, is the cream of them all. Rarely is a rookie quarterback expected to shoulder full responsibility for running the team, but Manning has the qualifications, and the need is painfully obvious. New Orleans fans are going to see a lot of new faces this year, not only because of the excellence of the new troops but because of the all-encompassing ineptitude of last year's squad. The offense, which consisted of an inexperienced quarterback directing a group of runners whose most frequent body contact was with a surgeon's knife, did make the record book: It drew more penalties than any other attack unit. If you can believe it, the Saints' defense last year was almost as bleak as the offense. It couldn't even pressure an opposing passer with a blitz. Coach J. D. Roberts is trying to do a patch job with some position changes and a few rejects from other teams, but the prospects are poor.

Atlanta appears to be in even worse shape than New Orleans. There are also a few similarities: Most of the few good players on the squad are optimistic about recovering from surgery, the offensive line is green and this season's hopes are largely based on a rookie (runner Joe Profit) with fine credentials. Atlanta's greatest advantage is an excellent defense built around ends Claude Humphrey (the best in the business) and John Zook and linebacker Tommy Nobis. Prospects at the quarterback position are grim, indeed. Nobody really knows how good a quarterback Bob Berry can be, because of the inadequate offensive line. Berry spends most of his playing time crawling out from under 260-pound tackles. In short, it looks like a grim year in Atlanta.

Every pro team suffers injuries in the course of a season. But the New York Jets last year had more than their share. Says coach Weeb Ewbank, "One time I looked up and we had only four of our offensive regulars in the game. If we had been healthy, I don't know if anyone could have caught us. Before the season, we had a better team than the one that won the Super Bowl."

The Jets still have it. The passing game is the best anywhere, the running is adequate and the defensive crew has been the stingiest in the conference for three years. Better yet, all the manifold injuries seem to have healed, including Matt Snell's Achilles' tendon and Joe Namath's wrist, and in the draft Ewbank got some depth where he needed it most, at running back (John Riggins, who shows a merciful aversion to injury), in the offensive line (John Mooring) and in punt and kickoff returns (Chris Farasopoulos and Vernon Studdard). Another welcome addition is English soccer kicker Bobby Howfield. Last year, the kickoffs were so flaccid that the Jets had to resort to squib kicks after two regular kicks had been returned for touchdowns.

One crucial problem that appears to be fixed is Joe Namath's tender sensibilities. He seems to have decided that he does, indeed, want to play football again. Whether Namath's legs will take the beating is another matter. He is essentially a cripple, as anyone who has ever seen him walk upstairs can attest, and his teammates fear that one more good shot by a defensive lineman could end his career. Yet his return and his new dedication could be the spark that ignites the Jets. That is, of course, if they stay reasonably healthy.

Last year, the Baltimore Colts parlayed a pair of aging passers, a glaringly inadequate running game and plenty of everything else into the world championship. We doubt if they can repeat, but not for reasons of either age or inadequacy. Age, after all, says coach Don McCafferty, is a relative thing, and it matters little that your two top quarterbacks have a combined age of 75, if they just happen to be the best duo in the business. A more serious problem is the availability of Johnny Unitas. Like the turn-of-the-century stunt man who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel, then killed himself by slipping on a banana peel, Unitas survived 15 seasons of manhandling, then ruptured an Achilles' tendon while playing paddle tennis. At this writing, there seems little chance of his ever playing again. Best bets to back up Earl Morrall are Sam Havrilack (a running back last year who, Colt coaches say, could be a future star at quarterback) and Karl Douglas, a reputed diamond in the rough from Texas A&I.

The running problems will probably be solved by the return to health of Tom Matte, the arrival of rookie Don McCauley (who is the same kind of smart runner as Matte, only better) and the continued improvement of Norm Bulaich. Everywhere else, the Colts have the same depth, talent, size and speed. So why not a repeat, at least of the division championship? The main reason is that most of the Colts' opponents will be even more improved.

Expansion teams seem to follow a pattern, a journey from pitiable impotence to championship in five or six years. Only gross inefficiency by management and coaches alike can prevent this inevitability. We've seen the pattern played out in past years at Dallas and Minneapolis; last year, the big breakthrough came at Cincinnati and Miami. The Dolphin emergence was especially dramatic and the causative factors were typical. Created in 1966, the Miami squad consisted of a few rookies and several dozen of the least-wanted squadmen from other A. F. L. franchises. The morale and collective self-esteem of such an aggregation are precarious at best, but the consistently bad won-lost records for the next few years produced bumper crops of draftees. As the talent tank filled, the Dolphins' confidence grew, they got sick of losing, opponents continued to take them lightly and suddenly they were championship contenders last fall. Coach Don Shula looked like a miracle worker in his first year, but the truth is that he timed his arrival perfectly.

The Dolphins have everything except depth. That could be an insurmountable impediment to another successful year. Teams rarely win championships without back-up men who are as good as the players they may have to replace. Attrition from injuries is an inevitable consequence of a 14-game season, especially among running backs. Miami again is a case in point: Much of last year's success resulted from a superb ground attack built on only three quality runners--Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris--all of whom stayed relatively healthy. Several first-year men made it big last season and presumably they will be even better in '71. They will need to be, because the surprise factor is gone. No one takes the Dolphins lightly anymore.

The next pro team to fight its way into the glory circle could be either the New England Patriots or the Buffalo Bills. The reasons have been noted: A few years of low finishes have brought both clubs several of the best recent products of college football and both squads are showing signs of hunger.

Things are happening so fast in Boston that it's difficult to keep up with them. The activity and enthusiasm in the Patriot camp dazzle the visitor. They have a new, gung-ho general manager, Upton Bell, a new coach, Johnny Mazur, a new super rookie quarterback, Jim Plunkett, a jazzy new stadium (in Foxboro) and a new name (in January they were the Boston Patriots, in February they became the Bay State Patriots, in March they decided to be the New England Patriots; if they try to annex any more territory, the United Nations may intervene).

Whatever other claims the Patriots can make this year, they will surely have the best second-string quarterback in the country. Joe Kapp signed on last season (too late to be of much help) and Jim Plunkett is reputed to be the best quarterback prospect in history. It's good to see some skill and finesse being intermingled with the hell-for-leather ambiance of the Patriot squad. Boston fans have always preferred gutsy hitters in their sports heroes, like the good-hit, no-pitch Red Sox of Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, which probably explains their enduring patience with the Patriots' proclivity for losing. The Pats haven't given the Boston fans many victories (2--12 in '70), but they have provided a spectacle in mayhem. The squad is composed of such dainties as guard Len St. Jean (a former lumberjack who once split his hand open while chopping wood and calmly sewed it up himself with catgut) and Bull Bramlett (a former pro baseball player who got his name by chasing a fly ball through a fence). The only category in which the Patriots have consistently led in the league is forced fumbles.

Buffalo has had even better recent draft pickings than the Patriots. As a result, the Bills paid the price in 1970 of having a rookie-dominated offense. Last year's youth corps--led by runner O. J. Simpson and quarterback Dennis Shaw--is joined by another prize crop of yearlings featuring receiver J. D. Hill and tight end Jan White, who fortunately fill a couple of the Bills' biggest needs. The specialty teams were sail last year, but the blazing speed of Hill added to that of O. J. and Tim Beamer should make the Bills very dangerous in kickoff situations.

The Buffalo squad is both talented and young; of the 48 veterans, 31 have been on the team two years or less. Add the newest crop of rookies and the Bills will probably be the youngest aggregation on the pro circuits. So give them a couple of years. They'll be great. But if the Buffalo city fathers don't come up soon with a suitable stadium, some other city (such as Seattle, Tampa or Memphis) may inherit an instant-championship club.

The Cincinnati Bengals are the team of the future. And the future could easily be this year. Last season, the Bengals stunned their followers with a whirlwind finish, winning seven games in a row after losing six straight. This was the result of an earlier-than-expected fruition of Paul Brown's plans. Brown is a coach who combines brilliant analytical intelligence with an austere, ultracompetitive hunger for excellence. His genius is best illustrated by his choice of player personnel. Every year, he seems to come out of the draft with a fine group of players whom nobody, except the players' relatives and the pro scouts, has ever heard of. The Bengals' most terrifying quality--to opponents--is their youth. Amazingly, only five players on the entire Cincinnati squad are more than four years out of college. The best hope for the Bengals this season is the return of superb passer Greg Cook, who sat out the '70 season with an injury. With him back, watch for the Bengals to get off to a quick start and dominate their division.

A new head coach, Nick Skorich, takes over the Cleveland Browns, and at least one problem he won't have to solve is that of motivation. Nonwinning seasons are exceedingly rare at Cleveland, and last year's 7--7 record is a psychic wound that festered all winter. Cleveland's first season in the American Football Conference was a disappointment, largely because the Browns were unable to adjust adequately to the bump-and-run pass defenses of their new opponents. The most notable--and most hopeful--development during summer training will be the emergence of quarterback Mike Phipps, who has been destined for greatness since he was a freshman at Purdue. Despite the negligible experience he gained as a rookie last year, his size, strength, mobility and intellect should win for him. Presumably, his passing will be augmented by better running than last year's injury-prone backfield could provide. If Leroy Kelly stays healthy and Bo Cornell lives up to his advance billing, the Browns' infantry should show its traditional excellence.

The Pittsburgh Steelers made a big haul in the draft. And they can certainly use it. The case in point is Frank Lewis, a wide receiver from Grambling College who is billed as the best player ever developed at that school--an impressive recommendation, indeed. Add linebacker Jack Ham, tight end Gerry Mullins and running backs Steve Davis and Brad Hubbert (obtained in a trade with San Diego), to mention a few, and Steeler fans may have trouble recognizing their team this fall. We're sure they'll welcome the change. The Steelers won only five games last year, but even that was a four-game improvement over the year before. The key to Steeler emergence could be the solution of the ancient quarterbacking problem. Last season, Terry Hanratty and Terry Bradshaw shared the position. These two have probably matured somewhat, and at least one of them should emerge as a strong leader. One headache has been the lack of really good receivers. All of last year's top receivers were rookies, but they had plenty of native ability and now they're joined by another nugget, Lewis. The running game will have a welcome shot in the arm with the arrival of Hubbert and Jim Evenson, a refugee from Canada. Both they and Warren Bankston are in the 240-pound range, so the Steelers' running strategy may be simply to steam-roller the opposition. This is the best Steeler squad in a decade, rich in young talent and needing only a little more to play on even terms with the other teams in its division.

With a little luck and some hard work, the Houston Oilers could be the surprise team of the country. They certainly have all the pieces, if new coach Ed Hughes can just fit them into place. Like the Steelers, Houston came out of the college draft with what appears to be a prize haul. One need was to get some back-up strength for aging passer Charley Johnson. So what happened? They grabbed off Dan Pastorini and Lynn Dickey, two of the best fledgling passers available. Even greater help could come from the new runners. Last year's rookie sensation, Joe Dawkins, will be joined by two new backs who may make an even bigger splash. Willie Armstrong is a bruising 230-pound speedster and Andy Hopkins--who can run 100 yards in 9.2 seconds--will be the fastest player in Oiler history. Coach Hughes steps into an enviable situation: He inherits a team that won only three games last year but will have some excellent veterans plus a crop of sensational rookies.

The lapses and lethargy that often overtake a championship team seemed to beset the Kansas City Chiefs last season. They didn't even make the play-offs. But nothing restores incentive like being a has-been, and this year the Chiefs seem to be deeper in good material--if that's possible--than ever. There isn't another team in football that looks as loaded with speed and tonnage, and in the areas where each is most vital. Needless to say, coach Hank Stram--despite his pride in his own tactical inventiveness--is too smart to tear apart a winning machine and try to rebuild it, so fans won't notice much difference in the team this year. Perhaps just more hunger and hustle. At least part of the hustle will be provided by a surprisingly good harvest from the draft. Nobody was more surprised than Stram when he got lucky and was able to pick off receiver Elmo Wright from the University of Houston. Wright is so good that he'll probably break into the starting line-up his rookie year, despite the wealth of receiving talent already on hand. Another bonanza from the draft is defensive tackle Wilbur Young. A behemoth from the Bronx, he has recently slimmed down from 350 pounds to a svelte 305, harasses passers by lobbing offensive linemen at them and runs the 40 in five seconds flat.

Over the past four years, the Oakland Raiders have won four straight Western Division championships while winning 45 games, losing eight and tying three, the best record in pro football for that period. The main reason, aside from the obvious material assets, has been the hard-nosed leadership and dedication of some of the old-timers on the squad, notably center Jim Otto, who for 11 years has been the best in the business, though very few people have recognized it. It was he, perhaps even more than the coaching staff, who pushed his fellow players toward excellence. In the very early days of the American Football League, Otto was hurling defiance in the face of football establishmentarians and newspaper writers, whose favorite hobby was sneering at the upstart A. F. L. "Don't worry," Otto told his teammates, "the day will come when we'll kick the shit out of them." Few sages are so fortunate as to see their prophecies fulfilled in their own lifetime.

Nevertheless, Otto and the other anchor men on the Raider squad are not getting any younger, and unless George Blanda has handed them his secret map to the Fountain of Youth, the wear and tear should begin to show. Therefore, we doubt seriously that the Raiders can be as sharp this year as in the recent past. The increased potential of their Western Division opponents should have something to do with it, too.

Last year, the Denver Broncos were one good quarterback, one speedy receiver, one cornerback and one linebacker away from being a championship team. The quarterback may have been acquired when the Broncos got Don Horn in an off-season trade with the Packers. The speedy receiver turned up in the draft in the person of Dwight Harrison. Rookie Cleophus Johnson may be the needed cornerback and Doug Adams from Ohio State will help at linebacker. If these new cogs fit, Denver could sneak up on everybody.

Denver fans certainly deserve this kind of break, and therein lies a story. During the hundreds of meetings between N. F. L. and A. F. L. brass prior to merger, A. F. L. founder Hunt likes to recall, it got to be a running joke among A. F. L. representatives that at the end of every meeting, no matter what subjects had been discussed, the N. F. L. representatives would always wind up the discussion with the observation that the Denver franchise had to go, because "the city of Denver will never be able to support a pro team." In their ten years of existence, the Denver Broncos have never had a winning season, yet last year they sold 43,580 season tickets in a 50,000-seat stadium; all the standing-room-only tickets for the entire season were sold out by October fourth; on game days, fans show up early with wire cutters and remove whole sections of the Cyclone fence in order to get into the stadium. One Denver assistant coach is reputed to have acquired the local distributorship for wire cutters. There are few teams that wouldn't like to be in a city that won't support pro football the way Denver does.

The San Diego Chargers may not win any more games this season than last, but they certainly are the most entertaining squad in the country. The offense (or, more precisely, the offensive potential) is spectacular. The quarterbacking--in the persons of John Hadl and back-up man Marty Domres--is merely adequate and promising, respectively. Who needs great quarterbacks with a stable of receivers like the Chargers own? Gary Garrison is the best in the country and rookies Chuck Dicus and Sammy Milner should prove to be excellent complements. The running department looks even better. With super halfbacks Mike Garrett and Dickie Post already on hand, coach Sid Gillman used his first draft choice to pluck Leon Burns from the grab bag. A few of Burns's credentials are his size (6'1", 223 pounds), his speed (100 in 9.4), his build (size-50 coat, 32-inch waist and 22-inch biceps) and his strength (he has pressed 555 pounds).

It's great to have all those blazing offensive guns on hand, but draft watchers were puzzled by the way Gillman exercised his choices, because all that attack talent operates behind an atrocious offensive line, which may be helped by the acquisition of Tony Liscio and Pettis Norman from Dallas. But it probably won't improve in the immediate future, unless rookie Chip Kell can help.

That's how it looks as summer-training camps open and some 1800 pro players begin the grind of preparing for the first exhibition games. Most of the veterans and perhaps a third of the hopeful rookies will have survived the final player cuts when the regular season opens on September 19. How well the 40 men on each squad weather the mayhem of the season's 14 games will probably have more effect on the final outcome than the coaches' philosophies and plottings. In the last analysis, attrition--or the avoidance thereof--has become the name of the game in pro football.

This Season's Winners

NFC Eastern Division: Dallas Cowboys

NFC Central Division: Minnesota Vikings

NFC Western Division: San Francisco 49ers

NFC Play-offs: Minnesota Vikings

AFC Eastern Division: New York Jets

AFC Central Division: Cincinnati Bengals

AFC Western Division: Kansas City Chiefs

AFC Play-offs: Cincinnati Bengals

Super Bowl: Minnesota Vikings

This Season's Top Rookies

(In approximate order of value to their teams)

Leon Burns Running Back San Diego Chargers

Elmo Wright Wide Receiver Kansas City Chiefs

Joe Profit Running Back Atlanta Falcons

Archie Manning Quarterback New Orleans Saints

Frank Lewis Wide Receiver Pittsburgh Steelers

Jim Plunkett Quarterback New England patriots

John Riggins Running Back New York Jets

Don McCauley Running Back Baltimore Colts

J. D. Hill Wide Receiver Buffalo Bills

Rocky Thompson Wide Receiver New York Giants

Happy Feller Kicker Philadelphia Eagles

Vernon Holland Tackle Cincinnati Bengals

John Brockington Running Back Green Bay Packers

Isiah Robertson Linebacker Los Angeles Rams

James Harrison Running Back Chicago Bears

Joe Moore Running Back Chicago Bears

Jack Tatum Defensive Back Oakland Raiders

Richard Harris Defensive Tackle Philadelphia Eagles

Virgil Robinson Defensive Back Green Bay Packers

Eastern Division

National Football Conference

Dallas Cowboys .................. 11-3

St. Louis Cardinals ............. 9-5

New York Giants ................ 7-7

Washington Redskins ............. 7-7

Philadelphia Eagles ............. 2-12

Central Division

National Football Conference

Minnesota Vikings ............... 12-2

Detroit Lions ................... 10-4

Green Bay Packers ............... 5-9

Chicago Bears ................... 5-9

Western Division

National Football Conference

San Francisco 49ers ............... 9-5

Los Angeles Rams .................. 8-6

New Orleans Saints ................ 3-11

Atlanta Falcons ................... 3-11

Eastern Division

American Football Conference

New York Jets .................. 10-4

Baltimore Colts .................. 9-5

Miami Dolphins ................... 8-6

New England Patriots ............. 3-11

Buffalo Bills ..................... 3-11

Central Division

American Football Conference

Cincinnati Bengals ............... 11-3

Cleveland Browns ................ 8-6

Pittsburgh Steelers ............... 5-9

Houston Oilers ................... 4-10

Western Division

American Football Conference

Kansas City Chiefs ............... 10-4

Oakland Raiders ................... 8-6

Denver Broncos .................. 7-7

San Diego Chargers ............... 5-9