|
AFL Championship Game
Buffalo
Bills 20, San Diego Chargers 7
Sports Illustrated
Edwin Shrake
 With
a little more than eight minutes to play in the first
quarter of the American Football League championship
game in Buffalo last Saturday afternoon, San Diego's
balding quarterback, Tobin Rote, called a pass from his
own 34 and quickly retreated into the pocket to look
downfield. On the previous play Rote, who had already
thrown a touchdown pass for a sudden 7-0 lead over the
Buffalo Bills, had aimed deep for Halfback Paul Lowe,
but Buffalo Linebacker Mike Stratton had run 30 yards
stride for stride with Lowe, as rhythmically as if the
two of them were working up a vaudeville dance act, and
had knocked away the ball that Rote had figured would
bring another easy touchdown.
This time the Bills were in a different defense.
Stratton, a grinning blond from Tennessee, was
responsible for the area in San Diego's left flat.
Watching Rote intently, he saw the 15-year veteran's
eyes shift to his right, searching futilely for a
downfield receiver, and then Stratton knew what to do.
Without hesitating, he sprinted toward San Diego
Fullback Keith Lincoln, who had drifted into the left
flat as an alternate receiver.
Stratton's dash was perfectly timed. As the ball
reached Lincoln, so did the 6-foot-3, 240-pound
linebacker. Lincoln's arms were raised for the pass,
leaving his chest and ribs vulnerable. Into that area
crashed Stratton with a sound like a bull smashing into
a barrera. The wind left Lincoln in an awful grunt. The
ball skidded away. Stratton rolled over and loped back
to the defensive huddle. But Lincoln, one of the
toughest backs in the league, lay as if he had fallen
out of a third-floor window (video).
"A thrill went up and down our bench," said Buffalo
Assistant Coach Joel Collier. "We saw Lincoln down, and
we knew we had them. The offensive team, standing on the
sideline, started shouting. We had a great lift. We knew
we had them."
"Gosh, I didn't think I hit him that hard," Stratton
said, ducking his head shyly. "I just saw him out there,
and when Rote couldn't find a man open downfield I knew
Lincoln was mine, and I went for him. One second sooner,
it would have been interference. One second later, I
would have missed him."
When Lincoln finally did rise, it was to limp to the
dressing room with a broken rib. San Diego's magnificent
flanker, Lance Alworth, had not even suited up because
of an injury to his left knee, and when Lincoln departed
with half of the first quarter still to go, the Chargers
had abruptly lost too much of their offense to do
without.
The result was that after their first-quarter burst
that produced a 7-0 lead, the Chargers could do nothing
but watch as Buffalo methodically chipped away to win
the AFL championship 20-7, in a game that ended as
wildly as it had begun. And that ending was like
something that had been choreographed by Genghis Khan.
With half a minute still on the clock, thousands of the
AFL's record championship crowd of 40,242 sloshed across
the muddy sidelines and began to destroy the goalposts.
The crossbars toppled with a few seconds remaining, and
then hundreds of hands grabbed for Buffalo Quarterback
Jack Kemp. They lifted him up and tossed him high above
the delirious faces, and the Buffalo police charged to
the rescue with nightsticks at order arms. "Don't hit
them," Kemp yelled to the police in the high-pitched
voice that sometimes makes him sound like Mickey Rooney.
"Don't hurt these people."
"Imagine that," one cop said later. "They're throwing
the guy around, and they've broken my glasses and ripped
my coat and I'm ready to take a couple of belts at them,
and here's Kemp yelling don't hit them. Well, it's his
life, I guess."
At that moment life had never been better for Jack
Kemp. Last Saturday was his third championship game in
the AFL and his first victory. In the first two games,
in 1960 and 1961, he was quarterback for Coach Sid
Gillman of the Chargers. After the Chargers lost both
those title games to Houston, Gillman gave up on Kemp
and let Buffalo have him for the $100 waiver price. It
was Gillman's announced opinion that Kemp, despite the
strength of his arm, was too erratic ever to be counted
on for a clutch game. Now Kemp has won two clutch games
in a row, including the 24-14 verdict over Boston two
weeks ago that gave the Bills the Eastern Division
championship.
 Recently
Kemp did some pondering about his future. He went in to
Buffalo Coach Lou Saban and said he wanted to take films
home to study in the off season. Prior to this year,
Kemp had been the sort whose interest in football lapsed
as soon as he removed his helmet. Saban was surprised by
the request. "You have to consider the possibility that
you might come back here next year as the
second-stringer," Saban told him. Kemp was acutely aware
that Daryle Lamonica, a second-year man from Notre Dame,
was being trained for the quarterback job, but rather
than being discouraged, he merely nodded. Now the Bills
are champions, in some measure because of Kemp's new
attitude.
"I have come to the point in my career when I know I
can play four or five more years, but it will take
dedication to the mental aspects of the game," Kemp
said. "The game is changing rapidly, and I want to stay
up with it. If that means extra work and study, that's
what I'll do."
The way the Chargers had it puzzled out, Kemp was
going to be their heavy bag for serious buffeting on
Saturday. "Kemp doesn't like to see me coming," said
262-pound Defensive End Earl Faison. The Chargers
thought they could drive Kemp out of the pocket and
scramble Buffalo's game plan.
Offensively, the Chargers intended to throw flares
and screens to catch the Buffalo linebackers backing off
into their zones, and with Lincoln and Lowe they knew
they could run. During the week San Diego worked on a
spread formation designed for use on a frozen field. The
Chargers' plans did not include Lance Alworth, the
finest deep receiver in the AFL. In the final league
game against Oakland, Alworth was blocked after a pass
interception and his left knee was bent the wrong way.
"When I sat up and discovered there was no feeling in my
knee, I said to myself that's all for this season." He
tried to run in midweek before the championship game but
the knee swelled and his fears became fact.
Buffalo's idea was to control the ball. "We knew they
would give double coverage to our two outside
receivers- Elbert Dubenion and Glenn Bass- and their big
men up front would have to spread out to protect the
middle," said Kemp. "So we knew we could run Cookie
Gilchrist and Wray Carlton, and then we could throw into
the creases of their zone. But what we had to do was
keep the ball away from them."
Both teams had accepted the probability of miserable
weather and an icy field, despite the 60 tons of sand
that the ground crew at War Memorial Stadium had spread
on the turf. But the snow melted in Buffalo, helicopters
came in to hover over the field and dry the wet spots
and then the field was marked and covered. On Saturday
the cover was rolled off after a morning rain, the field
was marked again and the covering was replaced. At 1
p.m. Saturday the covering was removed for the last
time, and the field was remarkably firm. The temperature
was in the 40s, the sky was the color of an elephant's
hide and fog blew in like smoke. The stadium lights had
to be switched on before the kickoff. Bulldozers scraped
up hillocks of mud on the sidelines, but the footing was
good.
The Bills found themselves strangely unexcited. For
them, the big game had been the week before when they
beat Boston on frozen ground to win their first Eastern
Division championship. "That was the game that worried
us," said All-AFL Safetyman George Saimes. "We know if
we do what we're supposed to we can beat San Diego. With
Alworth out, that's six points for our side right there.
We had our injuries last year. It's their turn now."
But for the first two minutes it looked as if the
Chargers were out to surpass the 51-10 score by which
they demolished Boston in the championship game of 1963.
On the first play after the kickoff Lincoln raced 39
yards on a draw. Then Lincoln, who had gained 206 yards
rushing against Boston, hit for four more and caught a
pass for another 11. Rote, playing his final game before
retiring to his conduit manufacturing business in
Detroit, passed 26 yards under pressure to Tight End
Dave Kocourek for a touchdown, and San Diego led 7-0
with 11:49 left in the first quarter.
The Chargers quickly got the ball again, and Rote,
who will have an operation next month for calcium
deposits in the elbow of his throwing arm, threw a
60-yard pass that Jerry Robinson, Alworth's replacement,
could not hold. The pass was important, however, for it
proved that Rote could throw deep despite the bad elbow.
For the Bills, the situation looked darker than the
Buffalo sky. But Stratton disposed of Lincoln, Buffalo
drove for a field goal, Rote had an interception on the
next series and the Chargers were staggering.
"I should have kept pecking away short," Rote said.
"We had our short man open all day, but I couldn't hit
the right man."
Still, Rote kept San Diego threatening through the
second quarter. Lincoln came back from having his ribs
taped and asked to return to the game, but the team
physician advised against it. Buffalo moved in for a
touchdown on a four-yard run off right tackle by Wray
Carlton and then for another field goal by Pete Gogolak,
the Hungarian refugee who made his way into professional
football via the Ivy League. With the score 13-7 the
stadium shook beneath the shouting and stamping of a
crowd that adores the Bills without the smallest taint
of sophistication.
Rote was laboring under extremely poor field
position. The Chargers had to start twice from inside
their own 10 in the first half. But after Buffalo's
second field goal, a fine kickoff return by rookie Jim
Warren set up the Chargers on their own 33 with nearly
three minutes left in which to score before
intermission. At that moment in stepped Mike Stratton
again. The big linebacker intercepted Rote's first pass
and lateraled the ball to George Byrd, who darted around
like a waterbug, but in vain. The officials ruled the
interception had been caused by interference. The
Chargers got the ball again, at the Buffalo 43 now, and
it was the sort of break that can give a football team a
tremendous lift. Rote completed his next pass, Lowe
gained 10 yards on a sweep, Buffalo Corner Back Charley
Warner dropped a possible interception, and then Rote
passed 13 yards to Don Norton to the Buffalo 15. The
clock showed 59 seconds- a situation in which Rote, in
other, dearer days, could put a defense into paroxysms
of anxiety.
 But
not this day. Rote's final pass of the first half went
into the hands of, well, the same Mike Stratton. The
Chargers were finished. Rote walked off the field with
his head down. It was a sad ending to the career of a
man who had quarterbacked Detroit to the NFL
championship in 1958 and who had guided San Diego in the
championship heroics of last season. Rote began this
year's training camp in pain from his sore arm, and he
saw the last of the championship game in pain inside.
"My arm didn't bother me today," he said. "They didn't
shoot it. They haven't shot it all year. I wish we could
have had Lincoln and Alworth, but there's no use making
excuses. I'm just sorry I couldn't have gone out a
winner."
Rote was the San Diego quarterback for only seven
plays in the third quarter- during which the Bills ran
20 plays. Then, late in the third quarter, Gillman sent
in John Hadl to take over for Rote. There has been
speculation that Gillman, whose dismissal of a
quarterback can be harsh and quick, has given up on Hadl
as he gave up on Kemp. If so, Hadl's performance last
Saturday did not help him. His first pass was an
interception.
Meanwhile, Kemp was enjoying excellent pass blocking
by his offensive line and by the two big backs- the
251-pound Gilchrist and the 216-pound Carlton. It was
only a month ago that Carlton was pulled off the
injured-deferred list when Back Joe Auer had to leave
active duty because of his wife's illness. "I had been
pleading for Wray to be activated," Kemp said. "He's a
very underrated runner, and I like the way he stands
strong back there to block." Carlton rushed for 70 yards
against San Diego. Gilchrist, who had one of his best
days before he bruised his ribs early in the fourth
quarter, gained 122 yards on 16 carries and blocked like
a barbed-wire fence. Part of his improvement is due to
understanding Kemp better, and vice versa. "We talk
about things now," said Kemp. "If I'm going to pass a
lot and not let him run, I explain why to him. He tells
me how he's thinking. Our only trouble before was a lack
of communication. We're both heady guys with plenty of
pent-up feelings."
Kemp had a brilliant afternoon. Gilchrist's longest
runs- of 39 and 32 yards- came on Kemp audibles. Wearing
a white turtleneck ski sweater and a black leotard under
his uniform, Kemp completed half of his 20 passes
without an interception, and he had the satisfaction of
beating the team that had said he was not good enough.
(There was but one disappointment all day: the
disclosure that ABC had not sold out the commercials on
the telecast, and thus the winning players' shares were
only $2,668, only $200 more than last year and about
$5,000 less than the winning shares in the NFL game on
Sunday. The Chargers received $1,738 per man.)
In the more obvious passing situations the Bills
dragged out their weird three-man rush and dropped off
eight men into a zone that made the secondary look like
a volleyball lineup. The Chargers could not beat it.
Buffalo Captain Billy Shaw, who calls the team to silent
prayer before and after games and occasionally during
the half, kept San Diego's 295-pound tackle, Ernie Ladd,
from bothering Kemp. Lamonica, who went into most of the
regular-season games as a reliever for Kemp, got to run
with the ball once quite by accident. Lamonica was in to
hold for a field goal, called an audible to change it to
a pass, then jumped up to discover the receivers had not
heard him.
The fans overlooked such gaffes. They paraded onto
the field with a sign that said: Bring on the Colts!
They showered the stands with confetti. They blew bugles
and fired cannons and celebrated Buffalo's first AFL
championship with songs and laughter and that mad charge
through the police to get at Kemp. But perhaps the
happiest guy in Buffalo was a man who does not live
there. He was the Bills' owner, Ralph Wilson of Detroit.
Before the game American Airlines Executive Jack
Tompkins, a friend of Wilson who also lives in Detroit,
presented Wilson's wife with a mink football. "It's for
the football widow who has everything," said Tompkins.
"Five years ago this league didn't even have a
football," Wilson said. "Now we have one made out of
mink. That shows how far we've come."
Return to Index |
