They Called It Football, but These Guys Belonged in Boot Camp

There has been talk that if the National Football League players go on strike and the owners continue to play with non-union labor, the quality of play will diminish.

Have no fear about the kicking. It can’t get any worse than it was in Sunday’s game between the Raiders and the Detroit Lions.

Raider punter Stan Talley averaged 26.3 yards on three punts and had another blocked.

“As far as the punt team, I don’t think I helped ‘em much today,” Talley said. “The main thing is we won (27-7) and we’re 2-0.”

Lion placekicker Eddie Murray didn’t even have that consolation. Murray is the third ranking all-time NFL percentage kicker (74.5), behind only the Steelers’ Gary Anderson and the Chiefs’ Nick Lowery. Murray has been so reliable in his eight-year career that around Detroit they call him “Eddie Money.”

Sunday he tapped out, missing all three field goal attempts. Asked if he had ever experienced such a miserable afternoon, he said: “Never.”

Let’s put it this way: Neither Talley nor Murray was in the running for a game ball Sunday.

Talley, who as an Oakland Invader led the United States Football League in punting two of three years, won a lackluster contest in training camp to fill Ray Guy’s big right shoe, without inspiring any comparisons to the longtime Raider punter.

Talley had a modestly successful debut at Green Bay a week earlier, but Sunday was a nightmare.

On his first of four attempts, Talley was rushed hard by Lion linebacker Paul Butcher.

“I felt him come across and I was actually trying to shoot it underneath him,” Talley said. “Instead, I shanked it.”

Six yards.

The result gave the Lions the ball at the Raiders’ 28-yard line, but the Lions couldn’t move the ball, and Murray’s kick was wide left from 45 yards.

Talley didn’t get off so easily the next time. Linebacker Jimmy Williams swooped in to smother the punt on his upper right arm, and wide receiver Mark Nichols recovered at the Raiders’ 12-yard line. A few plays later, Chuck Long threw a 2-yard pass to Scott Williams and Murray converted his only successful kick of the day to put the Lions on top, 7-6.

“The second one, it felt like we had pretty good rhythm on it,” Talley said “but it was a jailbreak. As the ball was coming, I felt the pressure coming right up the middle. I thought, ‘Somehow I gotta get it out of here.’ I hoped I could get it through his arms.”

By this time, the Lions were swarming over the kill. Again the Raiders had to punt, but this time Talley came through, sort of.

As he kicked he was sideswiped by cornerback Rickey Smith, keeping the drive alive with a 15-yard penalty leading to--uh, well, a missed 33-yard field goal by Chris Bahr.

Bahr was good on earlier attempts from 38 and 34 yards, however.

Talley, his nerve thoroughly tested, had time to think over his misfortunes at halftime.

“As the day went on, with guys in my face, I was trying to speed it up and I wasn’t hitting it as well,” he said.”I was trying to look around and see where the rush was coming from.”

Twice in the third quarter he was asked to punt from deep in his own end of the field. He got the ball off quickly enough, but the low punts had about as much hang time as an anvil and were returned back to the Raider 34- and 46-yard lines.

Thank heaven, Talley thought later, that Murray was having an even worse day than he was. The Lions failed to take advantage when Murray was wide right from 37 yards, then had one deflected by the shoulder pad of 6-foot 8-inch Raider tackle Mitch Willis, who had penetrated the blocking screen.

“Fortunately, our defense was just unbelievably tough, because I wasn’t helping with field position,” Talley said. “They were picking up the slack.

“Those things just can’t happen. It’s something I’ve gotta take the blame for. I can learn the two-step (approach), but anytime you have a guy break free like that, you have to somehow get it out of there.”

Murray summed up his day: “I missed two and I had one blocked.”

He didn’t know if his third try would have been good without Willis in the way.

“It’s hard to tell if it’s low or not when someone comes in that good. I heard the block sound as as soon as I kicked it.”

Of the others, he said: “I kicked ‘em all right. They just went outside the uprights.”

Murray explored some possible explanations for his off-day.

There was the week of rain in Detroit, so he was unable to practice kicking off dry grass, as he would in the Coliseum Sunday.

There was distracting talk of a strike.

And there was the Pope.

“We had bad weather but we couldn’t practice in the Silverdome because the Pope was coming (to Detroit),” Murray said.

“But I can’t use any of those things as excuses. I wasn’t even thinking about the strike.”

Perhaps now Murray and Talley will have a lot of time to think about their kicking.

“It might have been tougher if we’d lost,” Talley said.