Rechichar got his kicks in Pro Bowl
Sunday's Pro Bowl will bring back pleasant memories for Bert Rechichar.
It should.
Back in the 1950s he played in four of pro football's showcase games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and even walked off with the outstanding back award in one of them.
One of the league's top safeties and kickers, Rechichar booted field goals of 41, 42, 44 and 52 yards in the West's 19-10 victory over the East in the 1957 game.
Rechichar's playing in that contest was a story in itself if you listen to the 1948 Rostraver High graduate.
"Bobby Layne (the Detroit Lions Hall of Fame quarterback who ended his career with the Steelers) and I came to the stadium late after being in Las Vegas," he recalled. "They weren't going to let us in, but our coach, George Wilson, came out and told them we were OK. Bobby ended up throwing a pass for our lone touchdown."
Like his days at the University of Tennessee where he was an All-American two-way standout and captain on a national championship team, Rechichar was a versatile performer in seven seasons with the Colts.
Besides kicking, punting and playing safety, Rechichar also starred as a punt returner.
Rechichar made Ripley's Believe It or Not in his first season with the Colts in 1953 when he made the first field goal he ever tried in the pro.
It covered 56 yards on the last play of the first half in a 13-9 upset win over Chicago.
"I didn't know how far the kick was because I was heading for the dressing room," he grinned. "I had to go to the bathroom, but just ran back on the field. It was luck but I knew it was good as soon as I hit it."'
Rechichar's record lasted 17 years before Tom Dempsey booted a 63-yarder for New Orleans.
Rechichar was good enough in college to be a first round draft pick by Cleveland in 1972 as the 10th selection, one ahead of eventual New York Giants Hall of Famer Frank Gifford.
Rechichar, however, spent only one season with the Browns before Paul Brown sent him to Baltimore in a 15-player trade, the biggest in NFL history at the time.
Another player who went to the Colts in the deal was Miami's Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, who ended up playing in the same secondary with Rechichar.
Rechichar doesn't hesitate when you ask him about the biggest difference in the game between today and in the 1950s.
"It's the money and the high-tech equipment and television," he said. "I got nothing for being a first round draft pick and my highest salary was $13,500."
Rechichar was one of the highest paid players on the Colts behind two Hall of Famers: Johnny Unitas and Gino Marchetti.
"When we won the NFL championship in 1957, we got around $2,400," he said. "Today one player gets more money for playing in the game than our our whole team did for the entire season."
Each Pittsburgh Steeler picked up $78,00 for winning Super Bowl XLIII, with each member of the losing Arizona Cardinals receiving $40,000.
Now 78, Rechichar stays in shape by working for a construction company.
"Last summer I worked in Georgia and also in New York," he said. "I'll probably go another year before retiring."
Copyright (c) 2009 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co
What Time Does the Super Bowl Start?
Is football the focus at a Super Bowl party? There is cause to wonder. We What Time Does the Super Bowl Start?hear in the workplace about this Super Bowl party or that Super Bowl party, then we hear about various celebreties hosting this or that Super Bowl party. We even are informed of President Barack Obama's Super Bowl party.
But a whole bunch of people don't even know when the Super Bowl starts. As of noon EST today, here are some of the most frequent Google searches, based on the Google Trends site:
-- Number One, "what time does the super bowl start 2009."
-- Number Five, "superbowl kick off time 2009"
-- Number Six, "superbowl kickoff"
Well, at least these Google searchers know what year this is.
Believe it or not, there actually is one of those e-how web pages devoted to this dilemma. The title is, "How to find out the 2009 superbowl kickoff time." In Step Two, this e-how web page tells you how to find out the 2009 Super Bowl kickoff time. It reveals that the Super Bowl kickoff in Tampa is scheduled to occur at precisely 6:18 p.m. EST.
Why 6:18 p.m., as opposed to 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. Who knows? Apparently the Super Bowl powers-that-be have determined that it takes about 18 minutes for two teams to run out onto the field and organize on the sidelines, combined with smoke clouds and assorted other gimmicks.
When you consider that so many people at the last minute are asking exectly when the Super Bowl will be played, this may indicate that there are a whole lot of people who don't actually care about the game, and won't be actually watching it, and who could care less which team actually wins. They're more concerned with a Super Bowl party than with the Super Bowl.
By the way, Jennifer Hudson will be performing the national anthem at some point between that gap between 6 p.m. and the 6:18 p.m. kickoff, and Bruce Springsteen with the E Street Band is slated for halftime. The Super Bowl will air on NBC, so you don't need cable television and it will be 17 more days before national digital TV takes effect.
Also, just so you know, the teams playing in this year's Super Bowl are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals.
(c) 2009 Associated Content, Inc
Cardinals could not be charmed
The Pittsburgh Steelers had to go through a Baltimore team to reach the Super Bowl. To become world champions, they'll have to beat a team that almost came to Baltimore.
Many have forgotten after 13years of the Ravens, but in one of the strangest chapters in Baltimore football history, city and state leaders spent the fall of 1987 and the winter of 1988 wooing the St. Louis Cardinals.
It might seem odd to have yearned for one of the NFL's least successful franchises and one of its least respected owners, William V. Bidwill.
"But you have to look at in the context of the times," says Mark Hyman, a freelance writer who reported on the possible relocation for The Sun at the time. "The Colts had just left, and there was this kind of desperation. This was the first real chance Baltimore had at bringing football back."
Rumors of a Cardinals move had percolated for years. Upon being introduced to a Baltimore reporter in 1985, veteran running back Ottis Anderson asked, "Are we going to Baltimore now?"
Bidwill was tired of playing at Busch Stadium, which seated only about 55,000, and of sharing the park and the attention of the town with the more successful baseball Cardinals.
The football Cardinals, owned by the Bidwill family since 1932, had moved to St. Louis from Chicago in 1960 and had failed to win even one playoff game in 28 seasons there.
Despite the so-so records and poor drafts, Bidwill remained loyal to longtime front office employees. The franchise occasionally landed a good coach, such as Don Coryell or Gene Stallings, but those men chafed at their lack of input.
The franchise seemed amateurish in so many ways, remembers Bob Rose, the Cardinals' spokesman during Bidwill's search for a new city. A visitor to Busch Stadium could turn right and walk on plush, brilliantly red carpet to the office of the baseball Cardinals. But a left took the poor soul to the football offices, with their faded red carpet, stretched "thin as a dime."
Bidwill received much of the blame for the culture of ineptitude, and Baltimoreans later wondered whether he would be just as bad as Colts owner Bob Irsay. But Bidwill was never known as a crude or cruel man.
"With him, the issue was competence," Hyman says. "There was the sense that he ran his franchise like a mom-and-pop store, that winning and losing didn't matter much."
Bidwill, now 77, favored conservative coats and bow ties and wore large, square glasses with plastic rims. He shared confidences with few and left longtime players feeling they had never learned a thing about him.
"I've known him 22 years, and I don't know him now any better than I did 22 years ago," longtime quarterback Jim Hart told a Sun reporter.
Despite Bidwill's poor record and lack of charisma, plenty of cities showed interest when he said the Cardinals weren't long for St. Louis.
Franchises rarely move now, but the practice seemed more common in 1987. The Raiders had ditched Oakland in 1982, and the Colts had abandoned Baltimore in 1984. Phoenix; Jacksonville, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; and Columbus, Ohio, all seemed happy to receive the Cardinals.
But with the wounds still fresh from Irsay's departure to Indianapolis, Baltimore began as a more reluctant suitor.
"We have been the victim of a raider, and it would be hypocritical for us to reverse roles," said Herbert Belgrad, who had been appointed by Gov. William Donald Schaefer to run the Maryland Stadium Authority and to bring football back.
With league expansion an uncertain prospect, however, the city couldn't ignore the opportunity. Belgrad wouldn't engage in a bidding war for the Cardinals, but if Bidwill was definitely going to leave St.Louis, he and Schaefer wanted Baltimore on the list of possible destinations.
"I know it sounds like we're talking out both sides of our mouth," Belgrad told reporters, "but we're not."
Baltimore's involvement prompted mixed reactions from fans.
"The prospect of the Cardinals lateraling themselves off to Baltimore hasn't exactly been greeted with dancing in the streets," wrote John Steadman, the dean of Baltimore sports columnists.
But as the saga carried on, many warmed to the idea.
"I'd prefer an expansion team so we could start over again and build on the enthusiasm and excitement that comes when you're developing something of your own," former Colts superfan Hurst Loudenslager told Steadman. "But I'm over 70 and I want to see pro football, so maybe we should consider an established team."
A local screen-printing shop, Serigraphics, pitched the idea of Baltimore Cardinals T-shirts to the Hutzler's department store chain. Thousands hit the shelves before a cease-and-desist letter from the NFL halted production.
"Oh, my gosh, they were selling as soon as we delivered them," Serigraphics president Eric Fondersmith remembers. "People were pulling them out of the boxes. You couldn't even get them on shelves."
In addition to practicing a little capitalism, Fondersmith hoped to send a civic message. "I knew Bidwill was this questionable character, but it seemed better than nothing," he says. "I wanted to show that the city was hungry to support a team if we got one."
Bidwill made several trips to Baltimore. He saw models of the proposed downtown stadium, toured the old Colts training facility in Owings Mills and took a helicopter flight over Camden Yards. Belgrad said the state would consider building the dome Bidwill wanted, and he recruited investment titan Raymond A. "Chip" Mason to convey the business community's thirst for football.
But it would have been easier to read a sphinx's intentions than those of Bidwill.
"I really don't have anything to say," he began during a November powwow with Baltimore reporters.
"The Inner Harbor certainly is a very nice place," he added in a relatively lusty moment.
Fans and reporters parsed such statements for hints Bidwill might be leaning toward Baltimore. If they couldn't find any in his actual words, they looked for clues in his biography. He had attended Georgetown Prep and Georgetown University, so he knew the Baltimore-Washington area. And as a product of blue-collar Chicago, Bidwill would surely feel more comfortable here than in the Sun Belt, right?
"We thought, 'He isn't going to go anywhere that he's not comfortable and he'd be comfortable in Baltimore,'" Rose recalls.
Hyman staked out Bidwill's office in St. Louis for weeks.
"He would entertain my questions in the sense that he'd stand there while I asked them," Hyman says. "But his answer was usually just to throw up his hands like a referee signaling a touchdown."
First, Phoenix looked like the favorite. Then, Arizona officials thought they were out of it. Two weeks later, they were back in as a supposed co-favorite with Baltimore. A few weeks later, Jacksonville's mayor claimed that, in fact, his city shared the pole position with Arizona.
Schaefer fanned the flames of anticipation and uncertainty, phoning WBAL radio the day after Christmas to say: "It's right in the balance right now. Right now, a decision is going to be made in the next couple of days."
Early in January, Bidwill paid a last visit to Baltimore after dropping his youngest son off at Georgetown Prep. "You will hear from me by the end of the week," Belgrad remembers Bidwill telling him. "And you will like what you hear."
Belgrad and his legal counsel, Gene Feinblatt, considered breaking out a bottle of champagne.
What Bidwill didn't tell them was he would be in Phoenix the next day. When he finally got back to Belgrad, his tone had shifted considerably.
On his appointed deadline day of Jan.15, Bidwill met with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for two hours. He had chosen Arizona, he said, for its growth potential. "I can't say the Baltimore effort was lacking," Bidwill commented in typically opaque fashion.
The Cardinals said yesterday that Bidwill was not available to be interviewed.
Belgrad says Bidwill seriously considered Baltimore as an alternative but always preferred Phoenix.
"A great disappointment ... a sad ending," Schaefer said upon hearing the news.
But was it?
In 21 seasons in Arizona, the Cardinals have posted exactly two winning records, both 9-7. Only now, with Bidwill's son, Michael, gradually taking over day-to-day operations, have they reached the NFL's biggest stage.
Baltimore grew more comfortable with the idea of welcoming an existing franchise, and eight years later, the Cleveland Browns showed up to become the Ravens. In 13 seasons, they've made the playoffs five times and won the Super Bowl.
"It just goes to show," Belgrad says, "that if you wait for a good thing, you're rewarded."
Copyright (c) 2009, The Baltimore Sun
Spagnuolo introduced as Rams head coach
Spags' recipe for success in St. Louis? A dash of Giants and a pinch of Eagles.
Introduced as the new head coach of the Rams on Monday, former Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo seemed to speak more about his two previous employers than his current one.
"I was very, very fortunate in this league to work for two outstanding organizations," he said after being introduced by Rams general manager Billy Devaney. "It's because of the experiences in those organizations and the people that I worked with that I'm able to be here today."
Spagnuolo had a chance to take the Redskins coaching job last year but returned to the Giants. This year his departure from New York seemed set as he interviewed for at least five head coaching vacancies and was near the top of every one of those opportunities.
He said he decided to take the Rams job based on a feeling of comfort he and his wife Maria had with the St. Louis front office. But he acknowledged that without his time with the Giants -- and the success they had -- he likely would not have been able to make such a choice.
"I was very fortunate and very blessed to have some opportunities and only because of what a group of people did in New York," he said. "That's not lost on me. It's not one person."
Spagnuolo, wearing a gold tie, said his tenure in New York that included a win in Super Bowl XLII last year would remain with him.
"My deepest appreciation to the Mara family, the Tisch family, Tom Coughlin, Jerry Reese, and the very special coaches and players for the New York Giants who made two years there some of the most memorable years of my life," he said.
Spagnuolo accepted the Rams coaching job on Saturday, less than a week after the Giants were eliminated from the playoffs with a loss to the Eagles. The Giants promoted linebackers coach Bill Sheridan to defensive coordinator on Monday, filling the vacancy Spagnuolo left behind.
"To me, I think it's a natural progression," Spagnuolo said of becoming a head coach. "I had a unit as a group of linebackers and DBs. Then progressed to a unit of defensive players. The next natural progression for me is to have the whole team."
Spagnuolo said he received advice on how to be a head coach in the NFL almost every day just by watching Andy Reid and Coughlin while working for them.
"Two of the most outstanding head football coaches in this league," Spagnuolo said. "You see their success on the outside, but on the inside when you watch them day to day and what they're all about, I'm hoping and I believe it to be true that that's going to be a tremendous advantage for me having worked for Andy and Tom."
Spagnuolo said he will apply those lessons in St. Louis.
"You take bits and pieces from each," he said. "Really at the core they're both the same person in the way they go about things, the goals they've set and where they're headed. Personalities might be different, but you pick out bits and pieces, mold them together with what you have, and hopefully come out with a good product."
Copyright (c) 2009, Newsday Inc
Arizona Cardinals Destroy Panthers Behind...defense?
Arizona 33 Carolina 13: Maybe it's not a good thing to have a first round bye.
The Titans and the Panthers both fell today, but the Panthers fell harder, losing in less than stellar fashion after starting out with the right foot.
Jonathan Stewart scored from nine yards out, capping a three-minute 50-yard opening drive.
DeAngelo Williams, who had a key 31-yard run in that drive, finished the game with 63 rushing yards and didn't find the endzone. Stewart totaled 12 yards on the ground and 39 receiving.
Surprisingly, the Arizona defense netted five interceptions and allowed only 75 yards on the ground.
That is uncharacteristic of this Carolina team that was 8-0 at home this season. It was an embarrassing loss for the Panthers who came in as heavy favorites.
Couple that with today being Jake Delhomme's 34th birthday. The veteran threw five interceptions, had a fumble, and only one TD on 205 yards, most of them in the second half.
Muhsin Muhammed had 55 yards to lead the Panthers' receivers. Steve Smith who didn't have a catch until the waning seconds of the third quarter, scored a late TD with 57 seconds left in the game. Smith finished with 43 yards on two catches.
The Panthers scored on only two drives today; the opening and closing ones.
In between, they went 56 scoreless minutes allowing the Cardinals to score 33 unanswered points, 23 of them off turnovers.
Arizona, on the other hand, proved that they can play without their 1-2 punch. Anquan Boldin was held out the game once more and could be out for the NFC Championship. Arizona is now 4-1 without Boldin in the lineup.
Larry Fitzgerald had a monster day catching the ball. He had eight receptions for 166 yards, a playoffs' franchise-high. The last time Arizona played a second playoff game, it was 10 years ago at Minnesota.
A 15-year old ball boy named Larry Fitzgerald was on the sidelines that day. The next closest receiver for the Cardinals was Steve Breaston with 28 yards.
Arizona's running game was vital in keeping the Panthers defense guessing all game. Edgerrin James rushed for 57 yards and scored once, while Tim Hightower ran for 76 yards and scored on a three-yard pass from Warner.
Kurt Warner threw for 220 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception in a well balanced run-pass play calling.
Five different players recorded an interception on the Cardinals' defense.
Rookie Dominique Rodger-Cromartie, who has now picked a pass in three straight games, Gerald Hayes, Antrel Rolle (two straight games with INT), Roderick Hood, and Ralph Brown all took turns in ruining Delhomme's birthday.
The Cardinals will play either the Giants at the Meadowlands or the Eagles at home.
Copyright (c) 2008 Bleacher Report, Inc
For Chargers, Better Late Than Never
Just for one hot minute -- before it's time to analyze San Diego's chances in Pittsburgh or Tennessee -- can we just step back and appreciate what has happened with the Chargers?
Five weeks ago, the Chargers were 4-8. They had the same number of wins as San Francisco and Cleveland, one less than Houston. They were three games back of Denver in the AFC West.
Now they are two wins from the Super Bowl. This is one of the most remarkable, in-season turnarounds in NFL history.
Denver's magic number -- the combination of Broncos wins and Chargers losses that would clinch a Denver division title -- stood at two entering Week 14. The Chargers had lost three games in a row, five of their last six and two straight at home.
So when San Diego routed Oakland on Thursday of that week, it was easy to write it off as a throwaway game.
Apparently, at the time, we all missed something.
Sure, it took a complete Denver collapse to get to this point, but eventually you have to give the Chargers some credit. After smoking Oakland and sneaking by Kansas City, they demolished Tampa Bay (on the road) and then clobbered the Broncos.
Then, just in case you still thought they didn't belong in the postseason, they bounced the league MVP and a team that had won nine in a row. What must be scary for the rest of the AFC is that this Chargers team, once left for dead, appears to be the real deal.
Suddenly, you look back on San Diego's route to that 4-8 start and notice what the schedule presented. Is there a bad loss among those eight defeats?
Carolina, at Denver, at Miami, at Buffalo, at New Orleans, at Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Atlanta. Those are the defeats that put the Chargers in their nearly-insurmountable hole. Can you find an inexcusable one in there? Because I can't.
Which means that maybe this late run isn't all that surprising.
If you don't believe me, just look at what San Diego did to Indianapolis on Saturday night. The Chargers, save for two turnovers in the Colts' end zone, moved the ball very effectively on offense -- utilizing the lethal Philip Rivers-to-Antonio Gates combination and, when LaDainian Tomlinson was relegated to the bench, letting Darren Sproles run wild.
Sproles posted 105 rushing yards, part of a 167-yard ground attack by San Diego, almost all of which came because the Colts had no answer for the Chargers' run blocking.
If it's possible, the Chargers were even better on defense. They let Peyton Manning get his passing yards -- 310 total -- but, outside of one mental lapse, kept Indianapolis from hitting on big plays. They drove Manning from the pocket and stuffed the Colts' mediocre running game.
Long story short, the Chargers did what they needed to do. Again.
San Diego may have been 8-8 in the regular season, and may have needed a lot of help to reach the postseason. But the fact is that the Chargers earned this playoff spot with a stellar close to the year.
And, now that they've figured things out -- turning 4-8 into a division title and a first-round playoff victory -- the Chargers look like the team we expected all year. Even if it took them a long time to show up.
(c)2009 AOL, LLC
Texans Finish Season By Eliminating Bears
HOUSTON (AP) - The Chicago Bears' playoff chances ended against
a team long eliminated from postseason contention.
Andre Johnson had two touchdowns and the Houston Texans got a
31-24 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday to knock them out of the
playoff picture.
The Bears (9-7) needed a win to keep any postseason hopes alive.
The Vikings beat the Giants to take the NFC North title, but
Chicago could have got in with a wild-card spot, but needed a
victory combined with losses or ties by Dallas and Tampa Bay for
that to happen.
Long out of the playoff picture themselves, the Texans were
determined to win this one to finish with their second straight 8-8
record. They were desperate for a big finale after an embarrassing
loss to Oakland last week.
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