If one NFL player from today was magically whisked onto a 1960s team… take your pick… Ok maybe not a punter…
How hard would it be to adjust to the game of that era?
What impact? Would he be nigh unstoppable and/or render his team nigh unstoppable?
They’d be bigger and faster than their competitors (but not as much as you might think in some positions - see this comparison by position here going back to 1970). My WAGS are:
I can’t imagine a scenario where, with a decent qb, Calvin Johnson (or Andre Johnson or Julio Jones or…) could be covered 1 vs 1, and he could be pretty damn good 1 vs 2. That would open up the rest of the offense to incredible possibilities. Ray Lewis (or Terrell Suggs or Brian Urlacher or…) would have to be close to the size of offensive linemen from that era, but with speed rarely matched by anyone but RBs and WRs. Adrian Peterson would seem to be a faster version of Jim Brown. I just can’t imagine a position where a current player, on average, wouldn’t be a complete physical freak compared to 40-50 years ago, and as such wouldn’t define how every game they were in was played.
In Jerry Kramer’s book, Instant Replay (I’m going to paraphrase here), he talked about a meeting with Vince Lombardi when Lombardi joined the Packers as coach (Kramer predated Lombardi with the Packers by a year). Lombardi sketched out the core of his offensive playbook on a single sheet of legal-pad paper; Kramer lamented having lost the sheet, as he was certain it’d be quite valuable by that point. There’s no way that even the most fundamental portions of a modern NFL offensive system could be so easily summarized.
I imagine that a modern NFL player would look at a 1960s offense or defense, and realize that the system he played in college (and perhaps even in high school) was substantially more complex.
That’s a funny story re: Kramer. Don’t some teams issue ipads or laptops instead of playbooks now?
If, for the sake of argument, Ray Lewis could step into a time machine, go back to 1960, and play for the Colts against the Packers… well, he’d be utterly dominant. Nobody in 1960 would be ready for a linebacker that big AND that fast.
Currently, an average offensive lineman weighs well over 300 pounds. Jake Long or D’Brickashaw Ferguson would steamroller the average defensive lineman from 1960.
The question is, how long would that advantage last? Remember that in 1960, the NFL season was only 12 games long, and players didn’t get paid much. Long, Ferguson and Lewis might actually have had to get “real” jobs in the off-season. They wouldn’t have the money to spend hours at the gym every day.
After 6 months selling cars or insurance, they’d be smaller and weaker, and would NEED weeks of training camp to get back into playing shape.
Receivers would be in trouble. DBs could make contact almost at will.
Also, all the equipment has changed. Pads, helmets, cleats…all the exercise equipment, the physical therapy equipment, the medical procedures…
And, almost at will, they could be thrown on their backs and sprinted by.
From what I’ve read, most, if not all, of them started issuing iPads / tablets in the past year or so. They have them set up so that they can push updates to the playbooks directly to the players.
So, I guess now The Turk tells marginal players, “Coach wants to see you in his office… bring your iPad.”
Would a current NFL player be effective playing both offense and defense? There was a player for Denver a couple years ago who played both linebacker and fullback, but I think players today are a little too specialized in their abilities and the roles they play to do both ways.
Mike Vrabel sometimes became a receiver for the Patriots. Others have played both offense and defense occasionally. But Chuck Bednarik is known as the last 60 minute man, and that was in 1962.
Huge advantage for the giant defensive players taken back in time. Not that much advantage on regular offense. Place kickers are much better though.
Eh well, according to Wikipedia, one-platoon football ended in the 40s, so a modern player thrown into the 60s wouldn’t encounter it. I think it’s still an interesting question to think about.
Were steroids available for NFL players back in the 60s? This could be a problem for modern players.
[citation needed]
Although an offensive lineman would have the advantage of size, he would have to learn an entirely different, much more restrictive way of blocking. He’d feel like he was playing in a straitjacket.
A receiver would instantly start thinking about a different career.
Plus he’d have a cope with D-lineman head slaps, legal until 1977. :eek:
Imagine a quarterback going back in time and having to call his own plays. Bring on that simpler playbook!
This is very true. It was only in the 1960s that teams began to use kicking specialists; Lombardi’s Packers didn’t have a dedicated kicker (Don Chandler) until 1965 – before then, guard Jerry Kramer and halfback Paul Hornung handled kicking. The 1960s saw the beginning of the influx of soccer-style kickers, who generally had longer ranges than toe-style kickers – but the first wave of soccer-style kickers were largely foreign-born soccer players, and often unfamiliar with the rest of the game, which meant that they couldn’t play another position. While some part-time kickers were quite good (e.g., Lou Groza), many were only adequate.
And, as with all NFL players (as noted above), playing pro football is now a full-time job, and the ability to focus on your craft seems to have raised the bar on players’ performance.
In the 1960s, a kicker who hit 50-60% of his field goals (with an effective range of 45-50 yards), and 90% of his extra points, was acceptably good. Today, a kicker is expected to hit at least 80% of his field goals (82% of all field goals in 2011 were good), be more-or-less automatic from inside of 40 yards, be reasonably accurate out to about 55 yards, and rarely, if ever, miss an extra point (99% of extra points in 2011 were good). Anything less than that, and a kicker will be out of a job.
I forgot about Vrabel, though he really only came out in goal line and a few short yardage situations, he didn’t play tight end on 1st and 10 at their own 20.
Although another couple of good examples would be Julian Edelman and Troy Brown who both played receiver and nickle back for the Patriots. But then again, back in the 60s was there such a thing as a nickle back?