The Refrigerator Is Hot Stuff--and So Is the NFL This Season

With three minutes left and the ball on Miami’s one-yard line, the New England Patriots inserted 295-pound offensive tackle Steve Moore at fullback last Sunday.

Steve Grogan faked to Mosi Tatupu, who followed Moore into the line, and Grogan rolled untouched into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

After the game, a reporter asked Moore what appliance he wanted to be known as--”Refrigerator” was already taken.

“My name,” he said, “is Steve Moore.”

Call 1985 the Year of the Refrigerator.

Call The Refrigerator a shot of adrenalin for the tired National Football League.

Last year it couldn’t do anything right. This year it can’t do much wrong.

TV ratings are up for the first time in three years. Attendance is up. Most important, the NFL is a hot topic again.

The Refrigerator, of course, is William Perry, the 300-pound plus Chicago Bears’ rookie defensive lineman who wears a size-60 jacket to cover a 48-inch waist and who was vilified as “a wasted draft choice” last summer by defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan.

“If he’s not America’s team, he’s certainly America’s kitchen appliance,” says Terry O’Neil, CBS executive producer for football coverage, who has decided to televise the Bears to most of the nation whenever he can.

“He’s one of the things that’s right with the NFL and we’ve grabbed a door handle and are going along for the ride.”

On Monday night, Oct. 21, Perry ran for a touchdown on national television and turned Green Bay linebacker George Cumby into a bowling pin with two touchdown-clearing blocks.

On Tuesday morning, Oct. 22, everyone asked, “Did you see that guy?”

In a month of brainstorming, Commissioner Pete Rozelle, his public relations staff, and three networks couldn’t have dreamed up the fuss Perry generated. The “Today” show called, Johnny Carson called, David Letterman called . . .

On Sunday, Nov. 3, Perry lined up at fullback again, went in motion and caught a 4-yard touchdown pass over the unfortunate Cumby. TV stations throughout the country showed highlights, guaranteeing that nobody would repeat last year’s conventional wisdom -- that the NFL had become stodgy, boring and unimaginative.

Perry was a booster rocket at a time the NFL was already propelling itself upward.

Beset with competitors from the United States Football League to video cassettes, boring games in prime time, and its image tarnished by the 1982 strike, the NFL’s TV ratings dipped for three straight years. At the same time, the USFL had begun a bidding war that increased NFL salaries more than 50 percent in two years.

But the USFL, in financial trouble and dormant until at least next fall, isn’t much of a factor anymore. The bidding war ended, salaries decreased 15 percent and many of the USFL’s best players trooped over to the NFL.

Then the season began.

Attendance, which averaged 59,919 per game last season, second highest ever, has improved to 60,317 over nine weeks in 1985. That mark is behind only 1981. The 902,128 fans who attended games during Oct. 27 and 28 were the most for any weekend ever.

After half a season, TV rating were up 7 percent on CBS and 14 percent on NBC. ABC’s prime-time ratings were up 19 percent in nine weeks and were topped by the Refrigerator game, Bears-Packers, on Oct. 21.

Meanwhile, the league itself has become a major topic of conversation.

If it wasn’t Perry, they were talking about Pat Tilley of the Cardinals, spiking the ball at the 1-yard line as he cruised in for a touchdown. And in most NFL cities, fans speculated what member of the home team might best be used at the Refrigerator position.

“It’s like it used to be in the ‘70s,” says one league official. “You’d go someplace and people would want to talk about what they’d seen on television that weekend. For the last few years, they’d stopped doing that.”

Why?

“It’s a cyclical thing,” says Rozelle. “We’ve had these peaks and valleys in the past. We’ve also had better matchups and closer games in prime time and that helps.”

Another reason could be that the five teams in the three biggest markets--the New York Giants and Jets, the Rams and Raiders and the Bears--are either leading or tied for the lead in their divisions.

Most important are the unbeaten Bears. A heartland team, it features not only Perry but personalities such as running back Walter Payton and Jim McMahon, the Kamikaze quarterback. Plus it has a throwback of a coach in Mike Ditka, who was fiercely defended by local fans when he got arrested for drunken driving.

“You can talk about Perry and he’s great for the league,” says Tex Schramm, president of the Dallas Cowboys, “but just like any attraction needs some stars, from a team standpoint you need star teams.

“When the Yankees were the Yankees, they meant a great deal to all of baseball. It’s good to see a team suddenly become a success, particularly a team with a lot of history behind it like the Bears.”

Moreover, as success breeds success, so do offbeat plays breed imitators.

The first Refrigerator was Guy McIntyre, a 270-pound guard who lined up as a blocking back in San Francisco’s 23-0 win over the Bears in last season’s NFC title game, and cleared the way for a touchdown. Perry first carried the ball in the waning seconds of Chicago’s win over the 49ers last month.

Last week, New England’s Moore joined the club during a game in which Coach Raymond Berry also called a flea-flicker on fourth-and-one that resulted in a 28-yard touchdown pass.

Then there is San Diego’s double pitchout to Gary Anderson--good for a 16-yard touchdown last week. And the Giants’ option to the place-kicker off a fake field goal, which went for a TD against Cincinnati.

Many of the changes the league made last winter to speed up games and make them more interesting have had little effect. Games still average more than three hours, but nobody seems to mind.

“I think our game is really pretty healthy.” said Schramm, the head of the NFL competition committee and the man behind some of the changes. “We went through a two-year spell when we couldn’tget a good game on Monday night. Now we’re getting them again and nobody’s complaining about us any more.”