Pro Football / Bob Oates : Dolphins’ Protest About Dirty Play by Easley Is Legitimate

The Miami Dolphins, who entered a protest against the brutality of Seattle safety Kenny Easley in the playoffs the other day, were making a legitimate complaint.

In his fourth pro season, the former Bruin has become possibly the dirtiest player in the league.

As the Dolphins charged, Easley has schooled himself to master a play that doesn’t belong in football. It is a vicious forearm uppercut to the head of an opponent, usually a wide receiver.

The blow is difficult for the officials to see because Easley has learned to come at his victim from the side, making it look like an orthodox tackle as he rips his arm upward to the jaw or neck.

When this happened to Miami wide receiver Mark Duper Saturday, the repair job required a group of stitches. When it happened to tight end Bruce Hardy, the 235-pounder was knocked unconscious.

The strangest thing about the Easley uppercut--which he threw five times Saturday--is that he doesn’t need it. He is a great, active, intelligent athlete who is probably the best safetyman in football.

The star of the NFL weekend was Miami wide receiver Mark Clayton, who, playing across the field from Duper, has become the better of the two Marks brothers.

Clayton pushed Seattle out of the playoffs and entrenched Miami as a Super Bowl favorite with five brilliant catches, including two that were almost unbelievable:

--Closely double-covered in the first quarter, Clayton somehow pulled in the 26-yard pass that set up Miami’s first (7-0) touchdown.

--Smothered by Seattle cornerback Keith Simpson on an end-zone pass in the fourth quarter, he jumped, knocked the ball away from Simpson and, as it came down, somehow caught it for a 33-yard touchdown.

Take out Clayton’s big plays against the careful Seattle defense, and it’s 14-10 in the fourth quarter, close enough for the Seahawks to steal. Leave them in, and it’s a 28-10 rout at that point.

Down-sized wide receivers should always keep a low profile, the Raiders’ Cliff Branch maintains.

“When you’re on the small side, don’t showboat,” said Branch, who has survived 13 NFL seasons although he isn’t a whole lot bigger than Miami’s 5-9 twins, Duper and Clayton.

“Never make a big defensive guy mad,” Branch said.

This is one thing about the game that Clayton hasn’t yet learned. An exuberant type, he feels sure enough of his talent to make fun of defensive people--with both words and mannerisms--after beating them to the ball.

But these people don’t like to be shown up. And they have the resources to retaliate. They may shrink from the Easley uppercut but not from clothesline hits and other mean plays.

Clayton is just now emerging as one of the NFL’s great athletes. He has the body control of Muhammad Ali or Julius Erving--the ability to leap and twist and instinctively complete graceful pirouettes. And under a thrown ball, he has the God-given ability to catch it at the highest point, before a taller opponent can get there.

It would be a great loss to football fans everywhere if this little 170-pound package of talent is clotheslined into extinction just because it likes to talk, too.

Miami quarterback Dan Marino eliminated Seattle by forcing the ball where a discreet passer wouldn’t have thrown it against Seattle’s superb, closely guarding defensive backs.

By nature, Marino is an attacking passer. And in Clayton he has an attacking receiver who will cheerfully go get the ball where it should never be in the first place.

They are reminiscent of the Pittsburgh Steelers when quarterback Terry Bradshaw was winning four Super Bowls.

Accused one day of hitting some “lucky big plays,” Bradshaw said: “You can’t make big plays if you don’t throw the ball.”

That is the Marino-Clayton approach precisely.

In Anaheim, it could also be the Rams’ approach with wide receivers Henry Ellard and Ron Brown. They can’t make big plays if they don’t get the ball.

The NFL is still heading for a Marino-Joe Montana Super Bowl showdown in which their extraordinarily different styles would make it a memorable football day.

The Dolphins and 49ers both won comfortably over the weekend in games that illustrated these styles to a national television audience:

--Marino is the king of the reading quarterbacks. He has the ability to stand back patiently and look over the field from left to right, or right to left, and pick out the most likely target whether his protection has given him one second or four.

--Montana is the king of the executioners. A nonreader essentially, Montana has the ability to quickly find and promptly throw to the primary receiver as designated by Coach Bill Walsh.

In the Walsh offense, Montana’s receivers are usually wide open for short passes, particularly in the first quarter before the defense adjusts. Montana is given a single target on each play and trained to hit it in a hurry.

By contrast, Coach Don Shula’s Miami offense is designed to get any of several receivers open for a deeper pass. It’s immaterial to Marino who’s there.

The interest to the fan is in the diverse ways football can be played by its greatest players.

In the conference finals Sunday, the question is whether Chicago will have enough offense for San Francisco and whether Pittsburgh can score enough to outscore Miami.

The Bears are coming West with probably more overall talent than any of the other three clubs. They clearly have the NFL’s best defensive team. And in their trick-play offense at Washington, Steve Fuller was plenty of quarterback.

It was Chicago’s Halloween plays that eliminated the Redskins, who couldn’t handle them.

For example, in what was then a 3-3 second quarter, Chicago scored the go-ahead touchdown on a halfback pass by Walter Payton.

There is, of course, nothing new about such a pass, particularly when delivered by Payton. This is one of football’s classic good plays. But precisely because it is, it wouldn’t have fooled Washington if Payton had just scurried out and thrown the ball.

What made it work was the wrinkle added by the Bears.

The play began cleverly with a fake flanker reverse. This took the key Washington cornerback out of the way.

Next, Payton’s fake run took out the strong safety.

Thus when Payton let the ball go, the receiver, tight end Pat Dunsmore, was a lonely figure in the end zone.

The Bears also worked in a Statue-of-Liberty play for Payton, a moving pocket for their quarterback, surprise shovel passes and other wrinkles.

In other words, they didn’t just hand the ball to Fuller--the sixth quarterback they’ve had to use this year--and say, throw it, Buster, we’re paying you to throw it. They gave him the help he had to have to get the upset.

Mike Ditka, the Chicago coach, and former Ram Ed Hughes, his offensive coordinator, arranged this strategy, realizing they couldn’t beat Washington with a passive game plan.

The safety that Chicago voluntarily scored against itself in the fourth quarter at Washington, creating the final score, 23-19, was second-guessed immediately by many football men.

With half the fourth quarter remaining, the Redskins subsequently could have won with either a touchdown or two field goals.

But whether it won or lost the game, a safety was probably the right call by Ditka. The Bears, who had to play most of the fourth quarter on their half of the field, had held off three surges by the Redskins in seven minutes. It seemed doubtful they could hold them off one more time.

What the Bears needed there was a bold move to break the strain of the same old pressure. And Ditka gave it to them.