This Flicker was originally posted on April 10, 2013
So, I'm reading Vince Lombardi and W.C. Heinz's football classic Run To Daylight. It's about the six days of preparation for the next game. There's always a next game. Lombardi's preparation for that next game brings into focus one of the most disruptive and under-appreciated football payers that the game has ever seen, Alex Karras.
The night after thumping the Chicago Bears 49-0, Lombardi lies in bed unable to sleep. He's not kept awake by thoughts of the game that his team just won. He's kept awake by thoughts of the next game.
"...seeing the other people who are coming in next Sunday with the best defensive line in the league, with that great middle linebacker...." Lombardi doesn't mention the team by name but I know right away that he's thinking about the Detroit Lions. He only had to mention the line and the linebacker and I knew. Run To Daylight is about a week of preparation during the 1962 season. Lombardi's Green Bay Packers won their second title at the end of that season. That Packers team was on their way to legendary status but the Lions always gave them fits. Those Lions teams gave a lot of teams fits. If not for the Packers, the Lions might have won some titles of their own in the early 1960s. The cause of most of those fits were the linebacker, Joe Schmidt, and a defensive line led by Alex Karras. Schmidt is in the Pro Hall of Fame. Karras is not. He should be.
Alex Karras played all of his 12 seasons with the Lions before I had truly become aware of football and the NFL. I first learned of his greatness from my father. I was the only kid that I knew that was aware of Karras' "pre-Mongo" career. As I learned more about the history of the NFL, I learned more about the football career of the Detroit Lions excellent defensive tackle.
Alex Karras was a nightmare for offensive lines. When the Hall of Fame voters get together to talk of the merits of the players that played before 1970, they should drop the statistics and instead listen to the opponents and teammates of those players. As well as the coaches, like Lombardi that had to game plan for them. Players and coaches of the late '50s and through the '60s speak so highly of Alex Karras that you assume that he must be honored in Canton. His play was so great that it's hard to believe that he was pretty much blind on the football field. He could barely see without his glasses and he didn't wear them while on the field. He reacted to movement and colors. He would attack the movement of whatever color he wasn't wearing. It truly is incredible that he could play as he did with such a handicap. The defensive tackle of recent years that most reminds me of Karras is Warren Sapp. Both were just a disruptive force in the middle of the defensive line. Just relentless in rushing the passer and in pursuit. Offenses had to account for both players on every snap. As Lombardi worried about Karras all week in 1962, coaches worried about Sapp. Warren Sapp was inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. It was his first year of eligibility. Alex Karras retired after the 1970 season so his wait is approaching fifty years. Karras died last year without ever receiving his proper recognition.
I think that Alex Karras has been kept out of the Hall of Fame for his 1963 gambling suspension. There's really no other explanation. The suspension was a trumped up charge from the start. His betting was among friends and on games in which the Lions weren't involved. It was small time. Betting for fun rather than profit. But, he also associated with some unsavory characters in Detroit and new commissioner Pete Rozelle had to make a statement. The gambling excuse for his Hall of Fame absence loses merit when you consider that Packers running back Paul Hornung was also suspended in 1963 for gambling. I guess that you can't have a Hall of Fame without the "Golden Boy." Hornung does deserve his spot in Canton but Alex Karras deserves to be honored there as well.
As Lombardi says,
"That 71 is just a great tackle."
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