I remember when Dickerson came to Indianapolis. He certainly didn't make any friends there, and once criticized his O-line to the media. The following week, Dickerson got stuffed more times than a Thanksgiving turkey.
Speaking of numbers being important in baseball, my latest goal is to try to memorize all of Randy Johnson's wins in the Major Leagues. By this I mean I memorize the date, the score, and the losing pitcher. I'm getting a real appreciation at just how big 300 wins is. Heck, even 100 wins is a lot!
I had Rams season tickets while Dickerson was there. There is no way that he was overrated. This might be a slight overstatement, but I never saw him hit the wrong hole. He got the most that he could out of every run. He was smooth, but his genius was his vision and feel for the play. There is nobody that saw the field like he did. He made otherworldly cut backs into open seams. He also seemed to have the talent for always falling forward for an extra yard, or two. On his side, those teams did have great offensive lines. But what great running back didn't have that? He did get very unhappy at the end, which made everyone angry at him, including the fans. But to be fair, he was mad at John Shaw (the GM) who was Georgia Frontiere's hatchet man. She was notoriously cheap & of course was the one who sold out the Rams fans and moved to St Louis. So, Dickerson, I'm sure, was righteous in his complaints about not getting paid. Regardless, watching Dickerson run was one of the major highlights of my sports watching career. He was really great.
What I love its that for a player constantly called out for not being tough when he played is now part of a "rule" of football analytics about, well, being durable and tough. The curse of 370 states that: "A running back with 370 or more carries during the regular season will usually suffer either a major injury or loss of effectiveness the following year, unless he is named Eric Dickerson."
I went to Youtube and watched a couple of videos and I didn't fully realize how smoothly he ran until I read this and watched with new eyes. It really does look like he's not running full speed while he's blowing by defenders.
He actually went to the UCLA track coach and got trained on his posture and footwork. One thing he learned was using a wider stance. It improved his balance and speed. You can see it in his running. He looks like a track athlete when he gets into the open field.
I think Joe is doing that thing where you test your limits, like How many days in a row can I go without sleep? or How much milk can I chug before it reverses course? Only Joe’s test is How many words can I write about Ozzie Newsome while promoting a three pound baseball book, hosting two-hour podcasts, and re-tweeting the best parallel parking fails?
Answer: 2,861 loving words, which is 1,250 more than Joe wrote in The Baseball 100 about Ozzie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Smith, whose career just happened to overlap with that of Ozzie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Newsome (and also with the release of Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz album).
• 1,770 . . . average number of words per B100 essay, the first 10
• 2,580 . . . average number of words per F101 essay, the first 6 (does not include double essays)
• 2,660 . . . average number of words per F101 essay, the first 8 (includes two double essays)
Or maybe it is that the world’s greatest and possibly most prolific baseball writer just has more to say about football players.
• 1,106 . . . word count for 97-Roberto Alomar in B100
• 2,861 . . . word count for 97-Ozzie Newsome in F101
• 1,571 . . . word count for 96-Larry Walker in B100
• 3,226 . . . word count for 96-Mel Blount in F101
• 1,320 . . . word count for 92-Bullet Rogan in B100
• 2,738 . . . word count for 92-Eric Dickerson in F101
• 90% . . . proportion of the first fifty B100 essays that are shorter than the Mel Blount essay
The total word count for The Baseball 100 (internet) is 289,151 give or take. How long will The Football 101 be? Here are the current over/under lines:
• 387,500 words OVER -105
• 387,500 words UNDER -115
I’m taking the over. And I’m looking forward to every word of it (including 8,000 words on 17-Brian Sipe).
[O/U courtesy of F101 Sports Book, a Maltese registered company]
What I’m finding interesting is that Joe’s words per article posting has increased so much but the number of comments is so much less than for the B100. I mean waaaaaaaay lower. I think there were only a few with less then a hundred and it built up to crazy numbers by the end. Nik can provide the exact stats one of these days. 😎
Probably due to two factors- 1) his (new) blog versus The Athletic; 2) baseball people are so much more nerdy, thus our obsession with stats- Old stats, the multiple variations of WAR, which ones are truly the most important, etc.
I’m hoping the number of comments and commenters increase a lot as we get closer to the top. That opus of comments was a great joy- and use of time- off the B100. I’m just thankful I am retired- otherwise I don’t think I could have kept up.
Since you asked, Ron, I have gone into file storage and taken a look at my B100 records. I have a few comments:
• I cannot believe the amount of ridiculous stuff I kept track of and (even worse) posted. Did I not have a job back then? I am pretty sure the wife I have now is the same one from pre-B100. How is this possible?
• The lowest number of comments for a B100 piece is 86 (Buck Leonard) but that is an outlier. The next lowest is 121.
• The average number of comments per B100 piece broken into groups of ten (the first ten pieces, the second ten and so on) is: 211, 221, 245, 216, 311, 297, 274, 408, 418 and 967. The average of the top three is 1,756!
• The average number of comments for the first ten F101 pieces (three of which are double essays) is 21.
The numbers for F101 should increase. But for the reasons you mention, there is no chance that the numbers of comments for F101 will approach those of B100.
Thanks for the info Nik. I actually thought the numbers might even be a little bit higher. Maybe I’m remembering posting for Baby Ruth and the 477 comments that basically said “# 2? But can that be. Didn’t you know that the Babe was a hall of fame pitcher in addition to the home run king- who by the way out homered every other team all by himself one year. “
Job- you have a job? How is that possible. Did you find a replacement for sleep?
And I assume that your reference to a wife (or two) must have been a typo- instead of “wine”. 😂😂😎😎
I would not have thought that the B100 word count had been suppressed in any way, given that the series ended up at close to 300,000 words and resulted in a book that can double as a sturdy lap table. One wonders, Scott, but my guess is that The Athletic would have been concerned more about each entry being posted on schedule, and the series being completed on schedule, rather than the length of any essay or the series as a whole. They must have known what they were getting with Joe (informative and entertaining words) (in abundance).
As I think about it now, Joe had written about many of the B100 baseball players once or twice or many times before, whereas I suspect that he has never written these sorts of pieces about many of these NFLers. That might be playing a part in the lengths of the F101 essays - the excitement of researching and telling new stories.
I really do not know anything about this, though, I am just guessing. Yet you managed to coax a two hundred word response out of me. How ironic.
I think Joe said it all in the second paragraph. Baseball is described by stats and numbers while football is about the visual. It takes more words to create that football visual than it does to string together stats and anecdotes that is the baseball 100.
Thanks Adam. I’m sure that there is truth to this. But I do not think that there is an inevitability to it. I think that choices are made and that outside influences affect the outcome.
I could be completely wrong about this (who am I to say and how am I to know) but Joe appears to have the security and status and freedom to do as he wishes. And the desire to write profusely has always been there it seems. Whatever the reason, I am thankful for the output.
Don't forget to mention the WAR (Words Above Replacement) when comparing Joe's 2,738 to the Athletics' 1,680 words on their write-up of Dickerson. And we won't even get into the OPS+ (Outstanding Prose Score weighted by peer performance).
As is typical with Joe, this provide a look behind some of the more complex areas of a player and his career. Looking deeper into a past player's life store is always interesting. Thanks again, Joe.
For those tracking, this is only the second overlap with the Athletic NFL 100*, and the first running back in Joe's list. Dickerson was the sixth highest running back in the fifteen (!) they included in their NFL 100.
*- If anyone wants to play with comparisons with the Athletic NFL 100, I added a Google Sheet for that the NFL 100 in a different link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WYvXTpG7yjLh9qjlT684PGxzx3_9DyvjTlrGI4VQRVw/edit?usp=sharing). If you're not familiar with spreadsheets, you can filter and sort by clicking the little triangle at the top of each column. Like with the prior sheet I put together for the Football 101 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19reESfIvV2ROI5rdehKSyU6j7ujt94xoHYUrPaJcDtw/edit?usp=sharing), it has hyperlinks to the stories there too. Also, if you go to the Positions or Years Played tabs at the bottom, you can see the distributions for each. I was surprised to see how uniform the NFL 100 was in both, particularly the years played (albeit with heavier weighting towards the glamor or "skill" offensive positions of QB, RB, and WR). I was expecting much more recency bias.
Spectacular story. The Darrell Green rundown is what many remember about Dickerson- and that was in that playoff game. Darrell ran him down and the Rams didn't score. And that was pretty much the ballgame.
My opinion of my memory is taking a beating today. I would have sworn that it was Tony Dorsett - about whom it was said that he had never been caught from behind once he got into the open field - who was famously caught by Darrell Green. I suppose Darrell Green could have done it to both of them. He was so fast.
That happened too. I believe Darrell Green was a rookie or something when he chased down Dorsett--that's kind of when he really got a national profile.
Great as always. To clarify, in 1985 Dickerson held out at the beginning of the season and only played 14 games, so "only" 1,234 yards in 14 games is still impressive.
Absolutely one of my favorite backs, he was so big but so fast. With the huge shoulder pads, rec specs, neck roll, elbow pads & taped wrists he looked like a running back robot created from the future.
Yes, from the future. This could just be poor or selective recall, but in my memory Eric Dickerson always looks immaculate. I mean head to toe washed and pressed at all times. Clean as a robot out of the box. As I think about this, it must be in part because the Eric Dickerson memories I have are of him running between and away from people, untouched, on dry and gloriously sunny days in L.A. or in the sterile Dome the Colts played in.
I wonder if I can look up how many yards Eric Dickerson gained, if any, while his uniform was soiled?
Side bar: if you ever have the chance and desire to share, I would love to know (and perhaps other readers) what your research process is for these essays -- not to mention the superlative Baseball 100.
For the folks who precede your career, do you lean on contemporaneous reporting or interviews with the principals?
You make the past -- near or far -- feel fresh and alive. I really appreciate your writing. Thank you for what you do!
What I had always hoped to hear from Joe was his different methodologies between his first baseball 100 attempt- about 35 entries if I remember correctly; his 2nd attempt a couple of years later- got up to about 66 entries, and of course his final 100. He had different players in each of the three lists, with his second list having by far the most outliers. I think there were a total of around 20 guys on either or both of his first 2 lists that did not make his final version. And his stories for them were as good as for the final, official 100. I’m sure it’s not part of his book, but I’d have loved it if it had an appendix with those stories.
Remember when Joe had that looooooong survey where you choose (and rechoose) from 100s of players? I think that was part of the foundation of the initial list. But I'm also interested in 'the process' especially where it diverges from the Athletic's (and other) Top 100 list.
Good stuff. When Dickerson appeared (seemingly out of thin air for me, a non-college fan) in '83, I'd never seen anything like him. Tall, running upright, with the goggles and the mouth guard. And so damn fast!
He really turned a very mediocre Rams team into a contender for the next few years.
Somewhat fair. I was a season ticket holder. They had gone to a Super bowl in 1979, and were good in 1980. They followed that up with two subpar seasons, including the strike year. Dickerson joined in 1983 and did make an immediate difference, especially since their QB Dieter Brock was terrible. But they still had that great offensive line and a very good defense. They just lacked offensive weapons until Dickerson got there. Fortunately, their bad season previous allowed them the draft position to get Dickerson. BTW: you really had to be completely unaware of college football not to know about Dickerson, paired with Craig James as the "Pony Express" at SMU. Especially since that team was so dirty with cheating. The coach, Ron Meyer, was openly cheating & bailed to the NFL (New England) after getting caught. It's an epic team, for being so incredibly talented, as well as for all the wrong reasons.
Fair points. Though wasn't Brock still in Canada in '83? Wasn't Ferragamo still QB'ing for them?
And, yes, I don't follow college football at all beyond headline news/games and the final rankings. ALL I know from '83 is Nebraska (all season) and Miami (once the Orange Bowl began; didn't know crap about therm 5 seconds before kickoff).
I just looked up the starting quarterbacks for the Rams while Dickerson was there:
1983: Vince Ferragamo
1984: Jeff Kemp/Ferragamo
1985: Dieter Brock/Kemp
1986: Steve Bartkowski/Jim Everett/Steve Dills
1987: Everett/Dills
There was not much consistency, continuity, or even much talent in that list. It's amazing Dickerson had the seasons he had without a respectable passing game to offset the running attack.
I was sure that CFL legend Ralph (Dieter) Brock, of the hated Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was awful as a Rams QB, with stats that looked like they belonged in the 1940s. I just looked it up. He was not awful. From here, he seems to have been above average during his one season, and his numbers would have had him in the Pro Bowl every year of the 1970s.
Unfortunately, Brock’s NFL career did not end well for him, suffering a brutal drubbing (I suppose there is no other kind) at the hands of the Bears. That might be why I remembered him as I did.
I’m new to the blog and catching up on old posts. Your comments on Dieter Brock and “the hated Winnipeg Blue Bombers” caught my eye. Are you from Saskatchewan?😉
I did misremember which season Brock had. And Brock, and I'll talk about him in a minute, was an improvement on Jeff Kemp. But, that's not a high bar. On the plus side, Brock did have a good arm & could rifle the ball downfield. He also did rank 8th in passing rating. On the downside, he was generously listed as 6 feet tall, so he really struggled to find passing lanes to throw the ball. Balls were constantly being tipped at the line of scrimmage. He threw 16 TDs to 13 interceptions. The fan base never really warmed to him, and I think that game against the Bears obviously wasn't a good look. But, it was the 1985 Bears. At the time, I looked at him as an upgrade. I was in the minority. But it was clear, especially at age 34, he wasn't going to be the answer.
I remember when Dickerson came to Indianapolis. He certainly didn't make any friends there, and once criticized his O-line to the media. The following week, Dickerson got stuffed more times than a Thanksgiving turkey.
Speaking of numbers being important in baseball, my latest goal is to try to memorize all of Randy Johnson's wins in the Major Leagues. By this I mean I memorize the date, the score, and the losing pitcher. I'm getting a real appreciation at just how big 300 wins is. Heck, even 100 wins is a lot!
That's impressive. The only thing I can remember about Randy Johnson is that bird he exploded.
I had Rams season tickets while Dickerson was there. There is no way that he was overrated. This might be a slight overstatement, but I never saw him hit the wrong hole. He got the most that he could out of every run. He was smooth, but his genius was his vision and feel for the play. There is nobody that saw the field like he did. He made otherworldly cut backs into open seams. He also seemed to have the talent for always falling forward for an extra yard, or two. On his side, those teams did have great offensive lines. But what great running back didn't have that? He did get very unhappy at the end, which made everyone angry at him, including the fans. But to be fair, he was mad at John Shaw (the GM) who was Georgia Frontiere's hatchet man. She was notoriously cheap & of course was the one who sold out the Rams fans and moved to St Louis. So, Dickerson, I'm sure, was righteous in his complaints about not getting paid. Regardless, watching Dickerson run was one of the major highlights of my sports watching career. He was really great.
What I love its that for a player constantly called out for not being tough when he played is now part of a "rule" of football analytics about, well, being durable and tough. The curse of 370 states that: "A running back with 370 or more carries during the regular season will usually suffer either a major injury or loss of effectiveness the following year, unless he is named Eric Dickerson."
I went to Youtube and watched a couple of videos and I didn't fully realize how smoothly he ran until I read this and watched with new eyes. It really does look like he's not running full speed while he's blowing by defenders.
He actually went to the UCLA track coach and got trained on his posture and footwork. One thing he learned was using a wider stance. It improved his balance and speed. You can see it in his running. He looks like a track athlete when he gets into the open field.
** F101: WORD COUNT **
I think Joe is doing that thing where you test your limits, like How many days in a row can I go without sleep? or How much milk can I chug before it reverses course? Only Joe’s test is How many words can I write about Ozzie Newsome while promoting a three pound baseball book, hosting two-hour podcasts, and re-tweeting the best parallel parking fails?
Answer: 2,861 loving words, which is 1,250 more than Joe wrote in The Baseball 100 about Ozzie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Smith, whose career just happened to overlap with that of Ozzie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Newsome (and also with the release of Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz album).
• 1,770 . . . average number of words per B100 essay, the first 10
• 2,580 . . . average number of words per F101 essay, the first 6 (does not include double essays)
• 2,660 . . . average number of words per F101 essay, the first 8 (includes two double essays)
Or maybe it is that the world’s greatest and possibly most prolific baseball writer just has more to say about football players.
• 1,106 . . . word count for 97-Roberto Alomar in B100
• 2,861 . . . word count for 97-Ozzie Newsome in F101
• 1,571 . . . word count for 96-Larry Walker in B100
• 3,226 . . . word count for 96-Mel Blount in F101
• 1,320 . . . word count for 92-Bullet Rogan in B100
• 2,738 . . . word count for 92-Eric Dickerson in F101
• 90% . . . proportion of the first fifty B100 essays that are shorter than the Mel Blount essay
The total word count for The Baseball 100 (internet) is 289,151 give or take. How long will The Football 101 be? Here are the current over/under lines:
• 387,500 words OVER -105
• 387,500 words UNDER -115
I’m taking the over. And I’m looking forward to every word of it (including 8,000 words on 17-Brian Sipe).
[O/U courtesy of F101 Sports Book, a Maltese registered company]
What I’m finding interesting is that Joe’s words per article posting has increased so much but the number of comments is so much less than for the B100. I mean waaaaaaaay lower. I think there were only a few with less then a hundred and it built up to crazy numbers by the end. Nik can provide the exact stats one of these days. 😎
Probably due to two factors- 1) his (new) blog versus The Athletic; 2) baseball people are so much more nerdy, thus our obsession with stats- Old stats, the multiple variations of WAR, which ones are truly the most important, etc.
I’m hoping the number of comments and commenters increase a lot as we get closer to the top. That opus of comments was a great joy- and use of time- off the B100. I’m just thankful I am retired- otherwise I don’t think I could have kept up.
Since you asked, Ron, I have gone into file storage and taken a look at my B100 records. I have a few comments:
• I cannot believe the amount of ridiculous stuff I kept track of and (even worse) posted. Did I not have a job back then? I am pretty sure the wife I have now is the same one from pre-B100. How is this possible?
• The lowest number of comments for a B100 piece is 86 (Buck Leonard) but that is an outlier. The next lowest is 121.
• The average number of comments per B100 piece broken into groups of ten (the first ten pieces, the second ten and so on) is: 211, 221, 245, 216, 311, 297, 274, 408, 418 and 967. The average of the top three is 1,756!
• The average number of comments for the first ten F101 pieces (three of which are double essays) is 21.
The numbers for F101 should increase. But for the reasons you mention, there is no chance that the numbers of comments for F101 will approach those of B100.
Thanks for the info Nik. I actually thought the numbers might even be a little bit higher. Maybe I’m remembering posting for Baby Ruth and the 477 comments that basically said “# 2? But can that be. Didn’t you know that the Babe was a hall of fame pitcher in addition to the home run king- who by the way out homered every other team all by himself one year. “
Job- you have a job? How is that possible. Did you find a replacement for sleep?
And I assume that your reference to a wife (or two) must have been a typo- instead of “wine”. 😂😂😎😎
LOL
Do you think it has to do with The Athletic editing portions out of the Baseball 100? To keep them down to a certain word count.
I would not have thought that the B100 word count had been suppressed in any way, given that the series ended up at close to 300,000 words and resulted in a book that can double as a sturdy lap table. One wonders, Scott, but my guess is that The Athletic would have been concerned more about each entry being posted on schedule, and the series being completed on schedule, rather than the length of any essay or the series as a whole. They must have known what they were getting with Joe (informative and entertaining words) (in abundance).
As I think about it now, Joe had written about many of the B100 baseball players once or twice or many times before, whereas I suspect that he has never written these sorts of pieces about many of these NFLers. That might be playing a part in the lengths of the F101 essays - the excitement of researching and telling new stories.
I really do not know anything about this, though, I am just guessing. Yet you managed to coax a two hundred word response out of me. How ironic.
I think Joe said it all in the second paragraph. Baseball is described by stats and numbers while football is about the visual. It takes more words to create that football visual than it does to string together stats and anecdotes that is the baseball 100.
Thanks Adam. I’m sure that there is truth to this. But I do not think that there is an inevitability to it. I think that choices are made and that outside influences affect the outcome.
I could be completely wrong about this (who am I to say and how am I to know) but Joe appears to have the security and status and freedom to do as he wishes. And the desire to write profusely has always been there it seems. Whatever the reason, I am thankful for the output.
Don't forget to mention the WAR (Words Above Replacement) when comparing Joe's 2,738 to the Athletics' 1,680 words on their write-up of Dickerson. And we won't even get into the OPS+ (Outstanding Prose Score weighted by peer performance).
LOL thanks for the reminder about these crucial stats Ed!
I appreciate you, Nik! Nice to see you posting over here! I'll try not to tempt you with trivial word count requests (tho I cannot promise) -- Kevin M
Thanks Kevin, it is great to see you here!
[There is no such thing as a Kevin M request that is too trivial to act on expediently.]
BTW- The Athletic had Dickerson at number 40 all time- ahead of OJ. It's a good article but it is almost entirely about his contract disputes.
As is typical with Joe, this provide a look behind some of the more complex areas of a player and his career. Looking deeper into a past player's life store is always interesting. Thanks again, Joe.
For those tracking, this is only the second overlap with the Athletic NFL 100*, and the first running back in Joe's list. Dickerson was the sixth highest running back in the fifteen (!) they included in their NFL 100.
*- If anyone wants to play with comparisons with the Athletic NFL 100, I added a Google Sheet for that the NFL 100 in a different link (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WYvXTpG7yjLh9qjlT684PGxzx3_9DyvjTlrGI4VQRVw/edit?usp=sharing). If you're not familiar with spreadsheets, you can filter and sort by clicking the little triangle at the top of each column. Like with the prior sheet I put together for the Football 101 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19reESfIvV2ROI5rdehKSyU6j7ujt94xoHYUrPaJcDtw/edit?usp=sharing), it has hyperlinks to the stories there too. Also, if you go to the Positions or Years Played tabs at the bottom, you can see the distributions for each. I was surprised to see how uniform the NFL 100 was in both, particularly the years played (albeit with heavier weighting towards the glamor or "skill" offensive positions of QB, RB, and WR). I was expecting much more recency bias.
Spectacular story. The Darrell Green rundown is what many remember about Dickerson- and that was in that playoff game. Darrell ran him down and the Rams didn't score. And that was pretty much the ballgame.
My opinion of my memory is taking a beating today. I would have sworn that it was Tony Dorsett - about whom it was said that he had never been caught from behind once he got into the open field - who was famously caught by Darrell Green. I suppose Darrell Green could have done it to both of them. He was so fast.
That happened too. I believe Darrell Green was a rookie or something when he chased down Dorsett--that's kind of when he really got a national profile.
Great as always. To clarify, in 1985 Dickerson held out at the beginning of the season and only played 14 games, so "only" 1,234 yards in 14 games is still impressive.
Absolutely one of my favorite backs, he was so big but so fast. With the huge shoulder pads, rec specs, neck roll, elbow pads & taped wrists he looked like a running back robot created from the future.
Yes, from the future. This could just be poor or selective recall, but in my memory Eric Dickerson always looks immaculate. I mean head to toe washed and pressed at all times. Clean as a robot out of the box. As I think about this, it must be in part because the Eric Dickerson memories I have are of him running between and away from people, untouched, on dry and gloriously sunny days in L.A. or in the sterile Dome the Colts played in.
I wonder if I can look up how many yards Eric Dickerson gained, if any, while his uniform was soiled?
Joe Posnanski remains the greatest!
Enjoyable article, Joe.
Side bar: if you ever have the chance and desire to share, I would love to know (and perhaps other readers) what your research process is for these essays -- not to mention the superlative Baseball 100.
For the folks who precede your career, do you lean on contemporaneous reporting or interviews with the principals?
You make the past -- near or far -- feel fresh and alive. I really appreciate your writing. Thank you for what you do!
What I had always hoped to hear from Joe was his different methodologies between his first baseball 100 attempt- about 35 entries if I remember correctly; his 2nd attempt a couple of years later- got up to about 66 entries, and of course his final 100. He had different players in each of the three lists, with his second list having by far the most outliers. I think there were a total of around 20 guys on either or both of his first 2 lists that did not make his final version. And his stories for them were as good as for the final, official 100. I’m sure it’s not part of his book, but I’d have loved it if it had an appendix with those stories.
He's on the most recent episode of Keith Law's podcast and they get into Baseball 100 process a little bit
Remember when Joe had that looooooong survey where you choose (and rechoose) from 100s of players? I think that was part of the foundation of the initial list. But I'm also interested in 'the process' especially where it diverges from the Athletic's (and other) Top 100 list.
Good stuff. When Dickerson appeared (seemingly out of thin air for me, a non-college fan) in '83, I'd never seen anything like him. Tall, running upright, with the goggles and the mouth guard. And so damn fast!
He really turned a very mediocre Rams team into a contender for the next few years.
Somewhat fair. I was a season ticket holder. They had gone to a Super bowl in 1979, and were good in 1980. They followed that up with two subpar seasons, including the strike year. Dickerson joined in 1983 and did make an immediate difference, especially since their QB Dieter Brock was terrible. But they still had that great offensive line and a very good defense. They just lacked offensive weapons until Dickerson got there. Fortunately, their bad season previous allowed them the draft position to get Dickerson. BTW: you really had to be completely unaware of college football not to know about Dickerson, paired with Craig James as the "Pony Express" at SMU. Especially since that team was so dirty with cheating. The coach, Ron Meyer, was openly cheating & bailed to the NFL (New England) after getting caught. It's an epic team, for being so incredibly talented, as well as for all the wrong reasons.
Fair points. Though wasn't Brock still in Canada in '83? Wasn't Ferragamo still QB'ing for them?
And, yes, I don't follow college football at all beyond headline news/games and the final rankings. ALL I know from '83 is Nebraska (all season) and Miami (once the Orange Bowl began; didn't know crap about therm 5 seconds before kickoff).
I just looked up the starting quarterbacks for the Rams while Dickerson was there:
1983: Vince Ferragamo
1984: Jeff Kemp/Ferragamo
1985: Dieter Brock/Kemp
1986: Steve Bartkowski/Jim Everett/Steve Dills
1987: Everett/Dills
There was not much consistency, continuity, or even much talent in that list. It's amazing Dickerson had the seasons he had without a respectable passing game to offset the running attack.
I was sure that CFL legend Ralph (Dieter) Brock, of the hated Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was awful as a Rams QB, with stats that looked like they belonged in the 1940s. I just looked it up. He was not awful. From here, he seems to have been above average during his one season, and his numbers would have had him in the Pro Bowl every year of the 1970s.
Unfortunately, Brock’s NFL career did not end well for him, suffering a brutal drubbing (I suppose there is no other kind) at the hands of the Bears. That might be why I remembered him as I did.
I’m new to the blog and catching up on old posts. Your comments on Dieter Brock and “the hated Winnipeg Blue Bombers” caught my eye. Are you from Saskatchewan?😉
I did misremember which season Brock had. And Brock, and I'll talk about him in a minute, was an improvement on Jeff Kemp. But, that's not a high bar. On the plus side, Brock did have a good arm & could rifle the ball downfield. He also did rank 8th in passing rating. On the downside, he was generously listed as 6 feet tall, so he really struggled to find passing lanes to throw the ball. Balls were constantly being tipped at the line of scrimmage. He threw 16 TDs to 13 interceptions. The fan base never really warmed to him, and I think that game against the Bears obviously wasn't a good look. But, it was the 1985 Bears. At the time, I looked at him as an upgrade. I was in the minority. But it was clear, especially at age 34, he wasn't going to be the answer.
Yikes. What a rogue's gallery.