My Favorite Football Story Ever...

The following is a snippet of the story which was written by Mike Wise of Washington Post.  This is my all time favorite, smash mouth football story :-)


With journeys to Canton, Ohio, being chronicled, with bronzed busts being unveiled at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, that kill-the-clock drive that crumbled the Cowboys' morale should be remembered as the real beginning, when Russ Grimm and his Washington Redskins teammates bumped helmets and moved masses of angry, physical men, who finally no longer wanted to push back.

"We're getting ready to ice the game," Joe Theismann remembered that day against Dallas at RFK Stadium, Jan. 22, 1983. "We're linin' up. And Russ and Randy White [the Cowboys' Hall of Fame defensive tackle] had been at it all day. I mean this is a war. This is a physical, UFC, battle royal.
"So all of a sudden I get in the huddle and I call '60 Outside.' And Russ looks at me and he says, 'No.' "

Which made Theismann do a double-take. 

"I said, 'What do you mean no? Joe [Gibbs] wants to run 60 Outside.' 

"He says, 'I want to run '50 Gut' right at Randy.' 

"Well now I gotta make an executive decision, you know, I'm middle management." 

They ran the play Grimm, not Gibbs, wanted. White was run over and the Redskins gained four yards. Theismann looked back toward Joe Gibbs, two weeks before he guided the franchise to their first of three Super Bowls.  The coach wanted his play run. 

"Joe signals in 60 Outside," Theismann said. 


"I step in the huddle. I go, 'Spread right, short motion, 60 Outside.' 

"Russ goes: 'Didn't you hear me? No!' 

"I said, 'Okay, fine.' We run 50 Gut again." 

And White goes to the ground again. First down. 

"Next play, I don't even look at the sidelines anymore," Theismann said. "We ran like 11 consecutive 50 Guts. It was just Russ Grimm against Randy White and we were going to absolutely pummel him to the ground. When I think of Russ Grimm and all the memories, this was his moment." 

"I always felt the huddle wasn't a democracy," Theismann added, "until that particular time."
Former Redskins tackle George Starke reminisced by telephone Thursday night as he awaited his storm-delayed flight from Washington to Canton. "Nine of those times we ran it right up Randy's [behind]," he said. 

Before every play, Starke recalled, ornery center Jeff Bostic looked at White across the line. "He said, 'Randy, you better dig in, we're coming again right at you,' " Starke said of Bostic. "He had a nasty . . . attitude. I loved Jeff. 

"Then after every play, Mark May would kick Randy White in the butt because he didn't like him," Starke recalled. "Randy would punch Russ, who would get angry. Then we'd do it all over again." 

After the Redskins scored to put away the game, amid the vibrating stands and bellowing roars, many of the Cowboys left the field before the game was over. 

It is almost 30 years later, and the people who were either there or watched on television still ooze with the same basted-on memories and utter reverence. RFK, circa 1980s, was their Iowa cornfield, where they've been waiting to play catch with their father since."