Change Is Not Always Good When It Comes to Play-Calling in the NFL

To watch any of the NFL’s successful quarterbacks is to realize that there’s one thing you don’t know about any of them--even Brett Favre, Steve Young or John Elway.

You don’t know how they would be judged or evaluated by teammates and other critics if they had to call their plays.

Until a quarter-century or so ago, play-calling was every quarterback’s responsibility. Today, the quarterbacks are essentially robots. In the huddle, they merely relay the instructions that are sent out to them by their coaches, who call every play.

The pictures that tell the most about modern football as an intellectual exercise show the coach studying a computer printout on the sideline or in the press box--a new printout for each game--and mouthing the numbers for the next play.

At that instant the coach is a broadcaster. He’s transmitting the numbers 50 yards, more or less, to the quarterback, who listens in on his helmet radio and acts accordingly, doing what he is told to do.

To those who remember Johnny Unitas, that is embarrassing.

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Double load: One other difference is that Unitas was paid thousands of dollars each year, whereas Elway is paid in the millions. But in workload terms, it should be the other way around. For there was twice as much work for a quarterback in the age of Unitas, the 1960s. The quarterback was then expected to be a dependable passer and game-day commander.

In fact, from the NFL’s infant days into the 1970s, play-calling was every quarterback’s most important assignment--more important than throwing good passes.

Of all the changes that have been made in the NFL in the last 25 years, the most revealing has been the trend to coach-called plays. As a result, each coach is a dictator now. Previously, he had been a participant through all the decades when the game-day boss was the quarterback.

In those early years, the most accomplished quarterbacks were most respected not as passers, as they are today, but as play-calling leaders--Unitas for the old Baltimore Colts in 1956-72, Joe Namath for the New York Jets in 1965-76, Sammy Baugh for the Washington Redskins in 1937-52, and many others.

Indeed, of early-era quarterbacks, the only robot was Otto Graham, who led the champion Cleveland Browns in 1947-56 when playing for Paul Brown. Disrupting most opponents, it was Brown who brought coach-called plays to the NFL a decade or two before any of his peers got bold enough, or smart enough, to follow suit.

Graham always protested. He said he was humiliated. But when he became a coach himself, Graham, like all coaches, called the plays.

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Foiling defenses: The old quarterbacks took their leadership roles seriously. As Oakland Raider George Blanda once said, “Play-calling makes a bigger difference than anything else in winning and losing. At least, I’ve given it more of my time than anything else in the last 25 years.”

Blanda, the only NFL player who ever lasted 25 years, was 47 the day he said that in the 1970s, when, as a quarterback doubling as the Oakland kicker, he had a lot to think about.

Elaborating that day, he added, “Play-calling means when, where and why you throw or run the ball, and who gets to run or catch it. The key is keeping the defense off balance. You have to bear in mind than any team in the league can stop anything it expects. The defense will stop you if they anticipate the play. You only get a man open by surprising the defensive people.”

That explains why even Terrell Davis of Denver and Barry Sanders of Detroit often fail as running backs on third and one. Most of Davis’ big runs, among them the one that won the last Super Bowl, have been on passing downs with the defense geared to beat the Denver passer, John Elway or Bubby Brister.

Another quarterback-kicker, Baugh, whose punts averaged more than 50 yards one year--51.3 in 1940--explained after a Redskin victory one day that “the ability to call the right play at the right time” is the quality that separates a great quarterback from a good one.

Baugh never mentioned passing in that discussion, although he was in the midst of leading the league in passing a record six times.

“The kind of thing the quarterback has to know is the [defensive] weakness of every player in the league,” he said.

That’s why you can’t compare quarterbacks Blanda, Baugh and Namath against passers Favre, Young and Elway.