It has gotten rather out of hand, hasn’t it? The epic nature of these daily meditations on beer; paragraph upon paragraph, filled with countless links threatening to send the reader off on a beerless tangent. A quick strike, some instant offense – a change of pace from this relentless grind – is, however desirable, perhaps not destined to be found on these ever-discursive pages.
A quick strike is precisely what was needed and found, though, on this day in 1906 when a struggling ground attack led St. Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems (left) to do the inconceivable. He ordered halfback Bradbury Robinson to throw a forward pass – the first such play to be legally executed in a sport that had long been a battle for possession of the ball more than a battle for yardage. With only five yards needed (in three downs) for a first down, the best defense in those days was a patient and plodding offense. Methodically carving out small chunks of territory made an offense nearly unstoppable. Passing, on the other hand, was nearly unthinkable.
“The history of football has been a story of limiting the power of the offense,” wrote Elmer Berry in the opening lines of his brief 1921 book The Forward Pass In Football.
The defense has never been restricted, never curtailed, never hampered, always free to line up as it chose, to go when it pleased (barring offside), where it pleased and do practically as it pleased. Always the offense has been too strong, too powerful, and there has been the necessity of legal restrictions directed toward equalizing the attack and defense.
In the “old game,” as Berry described it, “If a team won the toss and took the ball there was practically nothing but a fumble between them and a touchdown.”
All sorts of ingenious formations were devised for massing power on the weak spot. The famous "guards back" of Pennsylvania, the "flying wedge" of Deland of Harvard, the "turtle back" wedge of others, the rolling mass on tackle and others of this type will bring a smile of reminiscence to "old-timers." Men were pushed, dragged and hauled along by their team mates. Often special straps were attached to the uniform to facilitate this work, and even to make possible throwing a man bodily, feet first, over the prostrate lines.
The very nature of the sport would change, as St. Louis University went on to an undefeated 11-0 season, outscoring opponents 407-11. The forward pass had been utilized on rare occasion in the past, in defiance of existing rules, but even with a new rule legalizing the play – a rule implemented to make the game safer after a 1905 season filled with on-field injuries and even deaths – teams were slow to adapt to, and reluctant to adopt, the forward pass. It was the sheer dominance of an offense led by Robinson, the gridiron’s first triple threat, that began the revolution.
Even in those early stages of revolution, it was a game that would hardly be recognizable to modern enthusiasts of American football. Writes Berry:
At first one forward pass could be made by any player anywhere behind his line of scrimmage to any player on the end of the line or one yard back of it provided the pass crossed the line five yards out from center. It was completed if touched by any eligible player before it touched the ground. Any illegal pass went to the opponents at the spot from which the pass was made. A forward pass over the goal line became a touch back.
“Naturally,” he explains, “a period of intensive experimentation followed.”
It’s a different game now as we head into the opening weekend of the NFL season. It’s a new era. The Ocho Cinco era. The age of the Post-Favrian Packers. A year in which Daunte Culpepper bitterly ended his career. A time in which Shawne Merriman seems recklessly hellbent on putting the “lights out” on his own career. Pacman Jones has been reinstated and will be playing at Texas Stadium – a stadium from which Jessica Simpson has most certainly been banned. John Madden has already filled the horse trailer with turducken, and ESPN undoubtedly hopes to fill its Monday Night Football broadcast booth with another half dozen commentators to add to the noise.
The warm-blooded of America will spend this Sunday glued to the television, renewing old rivalries, discovering new heroes, damning the half-point prevarications of Vegas oddsmakers to hell – and of course, being endlessly bombarded with mixed messages about how their choice of beer defines their manhood.
Why the insecurity? Beer is not a battleground for male dominance (though the dawn of the triple IPA may suggest otherwise). It is an art, like throwing the perfect spiral. It is, like any team’s playbook, a world of options – at times relying on brute force, at other times finesse or even trickery. Choosing the right beer, like calling the right play, is situational – and ultimately the right one is the one that works. So, on this fine day – this fine football weekend – for a beer, tune out the ads and call your own plays.
