Tarkenton doesn’t scramble on views
PALM BEACH, Fla. – Fran Tarkenton, a Hall of Fame quarterback, rarely saw a pass he doubted he could complete or a topic he wouldn’t tackle head-on. It’s no different now during the approach of the Super Bowl in Minneapolis, where Tarkenton played
13 seasons with swagger.
When discussing performance-enhancing drug use in football, for example, Tarkenton called it the “biggest coverup in the history of sports.”
In an interview with USA TODAY last week, Tarkenton shared his opinion about a range of other topics, including how he would dominate today’s game, President Trump’s criticism of the NFL and his three losses in the Super Bowl.
“It kills me,” he said of the Super Bowl losses. “I think about it every day. It’s a chip on my shoulder. I hate it. I hate it for my fans, I hate it for my family, I hate for my teammates, most of all.”
Tarkenton’s legacy goes beyond those defeats. He retired after the 1978 season as the NFL’s career leader in passing yards (47,003), touchdowns
(342) and interceptions (266). He used his legs as much as his arm, famously scrambling out of the pocket to
elude would-be tacklers.
“I was different, so I was criticized,” said Tarkenton, who played five seasons for the New York Giants between his stints with the Vikings. “Oh, my God. I mean, I was ridiculed. ‘You’ll never win with this scrambling quarterback.’
“I was an outlier. I was something different. I was from another planet.”
He was also ahead of his time, embracing the wide-open, pass-happy style of play that has produced the likes of Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Cam Newton and other stars who are now lighting up NFL scoreboards.
True to form, at a posh resort in Palm Beach where he said he was staying in a $2,100 a night suite and eating dinner with actor Robert Duvall, Tarkenton did not shy from a host of topics.
“They didn’t think I was big enough, strong enough, fast enough. But in my generation, playing on all those teams, I set every passing record there was.” Fran Tarkenton Hall of Fame quarterback
On performance-enhancing drugs
With New England set to play Philadelphia in Super Bowl LII on Sunday, Tarkenton said he is speaking out about performance-enhancing drugs because it has put players at great risk.
“It makes players bigger, faster, stronger,” said Tarkenton, who will turn 78 Saturday. “The collisions are more violent. … So therefore the damage is going to be more.”
Although Tarkenton said he wants the issue addressed, he said he has not approached the NFL about it. “Your leaders in the league don’t want to talk about it,” Tarkenton said.
He added he has no evidence that Commissioner Roger Goodell knows about the alleged problem.
In response to Tarkenton’s allegations, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy emailed to USA TODAY a copy of the league’s 44-page policy on performance-enhancing drugs. He noted that over the past three years 75 players have been suspended for violating the policy.
“The NFL-NFLPA polices are the longest continuous and comprehensive policy in pro sports,” McCarthy said by email. “The program is independently administered by world-class experts and laboratories, and violations are addressed quickly and consistently with a mandatory suspension from play.”
Nearly 18,000 tests are conducted annually with players subject to random, unannounced testing year-round, according to McCarthy.
A few years ago, Tarkenton said, he began looking into the issue after seeing several of his former teammates struggling from cognitive impairment apparently stemming from football injuries.
“I started seeing more of my teammates … demented and that are living half a life, don’t know where they are. They’re in institutions and forgotten,” he said. “And I see these bright, young kids out there, playing their hearts out, and it’s euphoric and they’re making huge money and, bam, I see a hit and I say, ‘Oh, God.’ And we’re in denial, absolute denial.”
He said the evidence is in front of everyone’s eyes — the substantial growth of players over the past three decades, not to mention the dramatic weight loss some contemporary NFL players experience after they retire and presumably stop using performance-enhancing drugs.
“How do you think these people are so much bigger today than they were in my generation?” Tarkenton said.
Tarkenton said he researched the use of performance-enhancing drugs in football and that it often starts in high school, where “handlers” target top prospects. He said the lure of big contracts for players fuels the problem and the NFL’s vast profits deter the league from exposing the problem that also has gone ignored by TV networks and media outlets that benefit financially from the NFL.
“These kids are going to die and not live a full life,” Tarkenton said. “You can’t tell me that you can take performance-enhancing drugs and do that to your body from high school to pro football, a span of maybe 15 years, and it doesn’t have an impact on you. You just can’t tell me that.”
On politics and the NFL
Tarkenton said he began to tune out the NFL this season because he objected to the wave of player protests during the national anthem.
“Do I think they should be able to demonstrate? I do,” Tarkenton said.” But when they play the national anthem and that flag is up there, if we cannot respect that, what do we respect in America?”
A silent majority share his opinion, according to Tarkenton.
“We’re silent because if you’re not a Democrat, progressive liberal and you disagree with the progressive liberal’s viewpoint, then you’re going to be spit at, hit, ridiculed and booed,” he said. “So you know what we do? We don’t talk. We’re a silent majority.”
Yet Tarkenton was anything but silent with USA TODAY when asked about Colin Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who was the first player to take a knee during the national anthem. Tarkenton said allegations that Kaepernick has been blackballed by the NFL’s owners are “ridiculous.”
“If they thought he could play and their coaches thought (he) could play, he’d be on one of those 32 teams,” Tarkenton said.
But Tarkenton said he objected to the harsh criticism of Kaepernick and of the NFL that was leveled by one of Tarkenton’s famous friends — President Trump. Tarkenton spoke at the 2016 Republican Convention.
“It’s the way he’s always operated,” he said of Trump. “He will stir the pot, stir the pot, stir the pot. You know, he’s been that way all the years that I’ve known him.
“I’m not a fan of that. And I’m not a fan of Hollywood and the talk show hosts and Saturday Night Live. To see the vitriol that comes through on that side and Trump on his side, I think is totally uncalled for. I think it’s awful.”
On quarterbacks
Considered undersized at 6-0, 190, Tarkenton was taken in the third round of the 1961 NFL draft. He said it was a sign people doubted he could succeed in the NFL. He points out Joe Montana also was a third-round pick, Tom Brady a sixth-rounder and Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas undrafted.
“All the geniuses and draft gurus who think they know everything about football know nothing about quarterbacks. You know why? They don’t know what’s in here or in here,” he said, pointing to his head and then his heart.
“They didn’t think I was big enough, strong enough, fast enough. But in my generation, playing on all those teams, I set every passing record there was.”
He points out he held the NFL record for passing yards from 1978 until 1995, when Dan Marino broke it.
Brady is “arguably” the best quarterback ever, Tarkenton said, but he quickly adds a case could be made for Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh and Y.A. Tittle. He also expressed admiration for Philip Rivers and wondered how the seventime Pro Bowler with the Los Angeles Chargers would have fared if he had played for Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
On his life and the Super Bowl
Three decades removed from his NFL career, Tarkenton lives in Atlanta, where he runs Tarkenton Financial, a company that caters to small businesses. He said he sleeps nine hours a night and spends most of his waking hours working.
“I’m going to go out of this life running 100 mph,” he said. “If I just went off and played croquet the rest of my life … with all the seniors, that’d be a waste. I need to take my knowledge and my skills, my understanding, and share that with as many people as I can. That’s really what I do.”
But all these years later, Tarkenton said, the three Super Bowls he lost — to Miami in 1974, Pittsburgh in 1975 and Oakland in 1977 — gnaw at him.
Vikings fans still adore Tarkenton, who said his football heart remains in Minneapolis.
But on Super Bowl Sunday, Tarkenton said, he will be at home in his man cave, where he will watch on his 120inch flat-screen TV.
“I don’t want people to talk and ask me questions,” he said. “I want to watch the substitutions. I want to watch strategy. I want to watch the performance. I want to watch the ebb and flow of the game.
“I’m a surgeon watching another surgeon at work.”
At the stadium, Tarkenton said, he finds himself watching the big screen and distracted.
“It’s so much noise,” said Tarkenton, who clearly is not averse to creating a little noise himself.