Griese expresses no doubt: Healthy Morrall the correct choice to start at QB in playoffs
After 17 seasons mostly as a knockabout pro quarterback, it was paradise finally found for Earl Morrall.
“Greatest season ever for me,” he said. “And yeah, you’re right, if anybody had asked me in the summer if the Dolphins or Minnesota or Dallas or anybody else would have a 14-0 regular season, I’d have said they were insane.”
The cool 38-year-old looked about the bustling locker room after Miami’s 16-0 walloping of Baltimore and drank it all in. No shouting. No tears. Morrall isn’t the type.
“No doubt now. Greatest team I ever played on. We won 15 overall at Baltimore in 1968, losing to Cleveland in the regular season and to the Jets in Super Bowl III. This is even better. It’s a better all-around team. And this has to be one of the most rewarding moments of my life.”
Even in the glow of this perfect season in which Morrall stepped in for injured Bob Griese in the fifth game, The Earl of Miami could not fail to note the irony of his five-yard scramble that gave the Dolphins the all-time National Football League rushing record.
“It would have been more fitting for Larry Csonka or Mercury Morris or Jim Kiick to bust the record.
You know there’s no way I’m going down in the annals of football as a great runner.”
The Dolphins had thirdand-7 at the Colts’ 47 in the third quarter and needed three yards to tie the record of 2,885 rushing yards set by Detroit in 1936.
“I went back to pass, juggled the ball a little, almost lost it, and by that time the pass pattern was all shot,” Morrall said. “So I took off, rolled off one tackler and got five yards.”
Morrall didn’t realize the record was broken until he heard the crowd roaring.
“I was surprised. All I knew was that we hadn’t made a first down, and Garo Yepremian had to kick a field goal.
“Then when they came out to take the ball for the Hall of Fame, I was busy telling Garo to get the field goal for 13-0. That 50-yard kick of his could have been 60 just as easily. He hit it that good.”
Alone as a debatable sour spot in the historical day stood the insistence of the Dolphins to establish Morris as a 1,000-yard runner along with Csonka. Merc carried the ball 26 times for 86 yards until his gimpy right ankle buckled in the fourth quarter.
For all its admirable sentimental aspects, the venture was foolishly prolonged. It risked serious injury to Morris with the opening American Football
Conference playoff coming up a week from today.
“Naturally we wanted the record for Morris,” Morrall said. He and fellow employees were even playing countdown in the huddle, now Mercury needs 29 yards, now 16, etc. “I was trying to get him outside where he could break loose. Maybe we were all too anxious for him. And he was trying to make his legs go too fast on that slippery Poly-Turf.”
More, the Colts were onto the scheme as well, which hardly enhanced Morris’ chances.
But it was a small enough gaffe considering the broad aspects of the first unbeaten regular season since the Chicago Bears turned it in one less game (13) in 1934.
Characteristically, Morrall refused to say whether he was certain he would start next Sunday’s playoff game now that Bob Griese is back in action for the first time since Oct. 15.
“Nobody’s told me who’ll start. I haven’t asked Don Shula. I don’t know. Either
way I’ll be the same person and same quarterback.”
Morrall, then, is the only one who doesn’t know. Griese does.
“Earl’s healthier than I am,” Griese said, “and until I’m ready altogether, there should be no doubt about who starts.”
Griese hit two of three passes in his brief return from injuries to his lower right leg. He looked sharp and felt sharp. That must be how Shula feels with a couple of beauties like this honed for the playoffs.
Griese said he had “no definite feeling” about his present physical status on a comparison basis of 100 percent. “I’m getting better
every week, though. I didn’t try any sharp cuts or anything like that. But I was twisting and turning, handling the ball, setting up to pass, about the same as ever.
“Sure I’d like to start a playoff. I’d like to start every game. It’s a lot easier being in there than watching. But you have to be reasonable. You have to take it in terms of team performance.”
Morrall, in the locker next to Griese, was taking it the same way.
“Now it starts all over again,” Morrall said. “It’s all sudden-death. You win and you keep playing. You lose and you go home.”