Shocking to me as this is, I am much more informative/informed and more handsome too, I’m sure, about relative topics than this F’n burn out!

Bednarik hovering over his laid out victim, Frank Gifford, some five decades ago: “This f****n game is OVER!”

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0809/mlb.yankee.stadium.moments/content.11.html

Gifford circa 1960 was the NFLs poster boy – that he missed the rest of the 1960 season, the entire 1961 season, and didn’t return until ’62 (playing another position result a legally devastating hit by Bednarik) was not insignificant. A Gifford was today’s NFL QB – a group no less than Dick Butkus claims “should be wearing dresses.”

So while a Bednarik wasn’t the first or the last hard hitter, he’s remembered better than most of the others, to include such 50s legends as Hardy ‘Thumper’ Brown – all 190 lbs of him, Dick ‘Night Train’ Lane, Johnny ‘Dirty’ Sample, and a former Chief Fred ‘The Hammer’ Williamson – all of them defensive backs, unlike Bednarik.

Maybe LB Mike Stratton (Mike kept a little known & mediocre LB named Marty Schottenheimer affixed to the bench in Buffalo back in the 1960s) & his ‘hit heard round the world’ is to blame:

http://www.geocities.com/bflobuzrd_2000/stratton.html

As the 50s gave way to the 60s and the 2 leagues open war to merger by 1970, ‘making nice’ became ‘job one’. While the hammer tackle was outlawed, some folks just didn’t embrace the new pacifism.

Imagine Doug Atkins – all 6’9 280 lbs. (or more), Ray Nitschke, the two Mikes – Ditka and Curtis – a Willie Lanier etc. etc. with their mayhem tied behind their collective backs… all so that the more ‘sensitive’ man, a thinking player as twere could emerge (with the bean counters ble$$ing$.) Anything less would be “uncivilized.”

Later in the 70′s, did the ‘criminal element’ as one coach called it vis a vis a Tatum, Atkinson, etc. beget even more restraint? Perhaps, though fate/accidental injury which led to the death of a Stone Johnson for the Chiefs or the paralysis of a Darryl Stingley later are part n’ parcel a rough game, unfortunately. Others were severely injured which led to ended careers and yes some have died before & aft both the aforementioned – how much those cases be attributable to football in a strict sense is debatable and they are less publicized.

“He mentioned a few years ago that he didn’t think most of them “could tackle my wife Emma.”

- flash forward to the the wages such sins circa 2009…NFL has reaped what it has sown. QB$ must be protected by any & all means possible because their lo$$ will hurt the game$ exponentially.

Bednarik wasn’t merely referring to a 190 lb CB (like say a Deion Sanders)- Bernard Pollard came to Kaycee with a nickname- ‘Bonecrusher’ – and a reputation to match; alas, he tackles (sometimes, he does) more like a matador, hence Bernard ‘Ole’ Pollard (though Tom Brady’s leg bone, ankle bone, knee bone etc. might disagree.) Was it dirty, or wasn’t it? Only each & every subjective opinion knows for sure – upshot, the NFL’s already acted by implementing the ‘Brady Rule’ as twere.

Coming soon to an NFL stadium near you: football pants with back pockets/flags for each & every.

That statement was simply draw dropingly insightful! Was that a quote? If it was, he said it “shrinks the failure factor”, NOT, that it eliminates it entirely!

It’s obvious that the Author is not on board with the Chiefs new GM. No one could possibly replace the (in his mind) great CP.
How F’n laughable!

What GM or Head Coach hasn’t?!