Their Days Are Numbered : Today’s NFL Standards for Size and Speed Don’t Take Into Account a Unitas, Berry or Hornung

Before and after football practice each day, John Unitas spent hour after patient hour creating a football player--a Hall of Fame-bound quarterback--a guy named John Unitas.

That was 40 years ago. On the playgrounds and practice fields of his time.

There, morning, afternoon and evening, Unitas at first aimed for--and then played for--the old Baltimore Colts.

Endowed with no more than modest talent, he built himself into the NFL’s most famous self-made quarterback by endlessly repeating every little thing that the good ones try to do on every play.

Mostly, Unitas threw the ball to another modest talent, another industrious, self-made Hall of Famer, Raymond Berry, who endlessly repeated every little thing that good wide receivers try to do--on all kinds of plays.

All kinds, that is, except plays requiring wide-receiver speed.

At 40 yards, Berry could hardly beat Unitas, who couldn’t beat anyone.

Still, in their lack of ideal physical qualifications, they weren’t alone.

In the six or seven decades before the NFL’s coaches and scouts started setting minimum standards a few years ago, dozens of good football players who were too slow, too small, too immature, too whatever, played their way into the Pro Bowl, eventually, and oftenthe Hall of Fame.

Could they do it today? If Unitas and the others were just now turning 21 and coming out of college, could they find a home in pro ball?

“It’s doubtful,” veteran scout Mike Giddings said the other day. “They’d still be good enough to play the game, but they wouldn’t get the chance. (Most 1990s players) are so much bigger and faster and so well trained, even before their rookie training camp, that it would be next to impossible for guys like Raymond Berry and Pete Pihos and most of the other old pros.”

The NFL’s relatively new 80-man summer roster limit is a “mighty barrier today,” according to Giddings, a former NFL coach whose Newport Beach scouting firm serves 12 pro clubs, two in each division.

“In the old days, there were often 100 or more players in a typical training camp,” he said. “If you were talented but undersized in those days, or a hard worker like Unitas, they might bring you in from a college team as a free agent. But no more.

“Today in the average 80-man camp there are 53 veterans, 11 or 12 draft choices and possibly 10 young (retreads) from other teams and camps. The (retreads) have become one of the biggest sources of supply.

“That leaves only five or six places for the college free agents who didn’t get drafted--if that many. Today, if you don’t meet at least the minimum standards on their charts, they won’t even look at you.”

Today, accordingly, the league couldn’t wait for Unitas to create Unitas, as he did in the 1950s, when, standing under 6 feet 1 and weighing well under 200 pounds, he played on semipro teams when no pro club would hire him.

Nor would the modern NFL be likely to give Raymond Berry--or Steve Largent--the time to demonstrate that there is still room at the top for slow, diligent wide receivers.

It probably wouldn’t accept Danny Fortmann, either, or Willie Wood or Jim Otto or Fred Biletnikoff or Pete Pihos or Jack Ham or Cliff Harris or others who, in other years, earned Pro Bowl or even Hall of Fame distinction though lacking size, speed or other credentials.

It might not even accept Paul Hornung, a Heisman Trophy winner at Notre Dame, still the NFL record-holder in single-season points scored. A college quarterback but no pro quarterback, Hornung, who on the field had more moves than speed, was converted to running back in an era when the NFL had the leisure to make such conversions.

Leisure-time hunches are out now. Pressure is in.

The NFL, in fact, is playing a new ballgame in the 1990s with a new kind of carefully measured faster, stronger performer.

“There are precise speed and weight minimums at all positions,” said actor Bradford Dillman, a personnel hobbyist who works with the San Francisco 49ers during the NFL’s draft season. “Say you’re an offensive tackle. If you’re less than 263 pounds, they won’t let you in training camp this year.

“They’d even throw (Hall of Famer) Forrest Gregg back--the guy Vince Lombardi called the greatest player he ever coached. Forrest weighed a bare 250. Goodby, Forrest.”

As for the ability to hustle, the minimum 40-yard speed is 4.6 seconds, for example, for wide receivers with a D body build.

“D is an ideal body,” analyst Duke Babb said at the national scouting combine office in Tulsa, Okla. “A is short and light, B short and heavy, C tall and light.”

In the NFL of two or three decades ago, nobody asked about B builds, or even D. Although there was probably as much talent then, proportionately, as there is now, sports science was in its infancy.

The main difference: Until recently, there were few scouts to quantify talent, speed, strength, optimum weight or anything else.

“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, we only had one full-time scout for the whole country,” said Hall of Famer Sid Gillman, the 1950-59 coach of the Rams.

Hall of Famer Mel Hein, reviewing his long career with the New York Giants, said: “They didn’t pull out a watch and time us linebackers. They just watched us on pass defense.

“I could cover a (wide receiver), so they said I had good speed. If a linebacker could only cover a running back, he had average speed. If he couldn’t couldn’t cover anybody, the coach made a note, and looked for a new linebacker. That’s how they used to measure physical qualifications.”

In some respects, that was the better way, in Dillman’s view.

“The best receiver of all time, Jerry Rice, has never run well for the stopwatch,” he said. “However, Bill Walsh wasn’t a prisoner of (scouting standards). Walsh said that Rice had ‘functional football speed,’ so he drafted him anyway.”

Giddings’ firm, Proscout, Inc., which evaluates the NFL’s 1,500 active players weekly, views the world from somewhat the same perspective.

“We’re not in the physical-qualifications business,” said Mike Giddings Jr. “We want the answer to one question: Can he play on Sunday?”

This year’s most prominent example of a player who has met every test but that one is Eric Swann of Hartnett High in Lillington, N.C. Though Swann never played college football, the Phoenix Cardinals said they made him a first-round draft choice because of his “ideal physical qualifications for a defensive end.” At 6-4, he weighs 311 pounds and stops the watches in 4.9 seconds for 40 yards.

But even before mini-camp this spring, Swann was injured in a Phoenix workout, and has already undergone knee surgery.

In recent years, Gillman has noticed many other fully qualified failures.

“The trouble is that the physical-qualification charts can become a substitute for in-depth scouting,” the former Ram coach said.

Even so, the failures have not daunted the scouts who scout with bench-press numbers and stopwatches.

“You measure physical qualifications for a very simple reason,” said Tex Schramm, who presided over the Dallas Cowboys for 30 years en route to the Hall of Fame, which he will enter this summer. “The laws of averages are on the side of the guy that watches the numbers.

“Everybody knows there are exceptions. (Bear linebacker) Mike Singletary was an exception. Mike goes under 6 feet--well under the minimum--and yet, everybody would take him now, knowing what you know now. Singletary is a brilliant exception, but the point is that in the draft, you’ll go broke drafting exceptions. The odds are with the guys that measure up.”

In the week of the draft, for example, Giddings said, the odds are that the only running backs who succeed will weigh at least 192 pounds.

“The only every-down back in the game today under 192 is (Cincinnati’s) James Brooks,” he said. “Brooks is a marvel at 180.”

Using such reasoning, Gillman, if asked, would have cautioned the Raiders against drafting Notre Dame’s 175-pound sprinter, Raghib (Rocket) Ismail, last month.

“You can bring back punts and kickoffs at 175,” Gillman said. “What you’ve got to prove is that you can hold up on plays (from scrimmage).”

Modern science, he said, doesn’t have all the answers--and the same may be true in other sports. One example is baseball’s speed gun, the device that measures the velocity of a pitched ball.

“I think it’s one of the worst things to ever happen to baseball,” said veteran manager Whitey Herzog. “If you had the radar gun then, guys like Catfish Hunter and Tommy John would never have gotten a chance.

“There’s a lot of things that go into a pitcher other than throwing a baseball 90 m.p.h.”

Similarly, a lot of things go into a football player besides pounds and speed. But tell that to a 1990s scout.

From San Francisco, Dillman, author of a forthcoming book on the draft, “NFL Personnel Game: A Modern Encyclopedia,” said the league’s biggest size-qualification changes have been in the offensive and defensive lines.

“The Green Bay team that won the first two Super Bowls 25 years ago was a big one in its day,” Dillman said. “However, the Packers would have been out of their depth against the team that won the last Super Bowl, the New York Giants.

“Every Giant (blocker) would outweigh every player in Green Bay’s Super Bowl line by at least 30 pounds--including Willie Davis. At left tackle, the Giants’ Jumbo John Elliott would outweigh the Packers’ Lionel Aldridge by 60 pounds.

“Willie Davis was a hell of a Hall of Fame defensive end, but if Davis were just now coming up at 245, he’d be facing 280-pound offensive tackles most of the time, and 300-pound tackles the rest of the time. You wouldn’t see him in the Hall of Fame now.”

You wouldn’t, that is, unless he put on considerably more weight himself.

Could he?

“That’s the intriguing question,” Giddings said. “They didn’t pump iron in those days. And it’s the weights that have put the best pounds on the best players today.

“My guess is that a Hall of Famer like Danny Fortmann, who played at 207, couldn’t beef up enough to play today, but Willie Davis might.

“Steve Owen, who weighed 230, was a big tackle in 1924. You’d expect him to beef up some. But there’s no way to really know.”

You don’t know about Paul Robeson, either. Robeson, a four-sport letterman at Rutgers, played three years of pro football as a two-way end in the early 1920s against George Halas, Jim Thorpe and the other founders.

That was when Robeson’s singing and acting careers were just taking off.

One of the fastest football players of his day, Robeson is the only two-time All-American who hasn’t been voted into the College Hall of Fame.

To a man, championship players of other years, Robeson and Denver Coach Dan Reeves among them, have argued that if they could come back again, they could play again, and play effectively--regardless of speed, size or other deficiencies.

“Sure, these guys today are bigger and faster,” said Reeves, a seven-year Dallas starter who as running back and coach has been a contestant at a record seven Super Bowls. “But if we were just coming up today, we’d be bigger and faster, too.”

And better, said Bob St. Clair, the 1950s 49er tackle who made the Hall of Fame this year.

St. Clair in his time was voted into the Pro Bowl five times. Asked if he and his teammates could have played with 1991 players, St. Clair said:

“That isn’t the question. The right question is: Could these candy asses have played with us?”

Overachievers

The following achieved pro football prominence despite limitations of size, speed, strength or other measurables that would have disqualified them from consideration for current NFL drafts: OFFENSE

Position Player College NFL Team Year Receiver Raymond Berry Southern Methodist Colts 1955 Receiver Fred Biletnikoff Florida State Raiders 1965 Tackle Al Wistert Michigan Eagles 1943 Guard Danny Fortmann Colgate Bears 1936 Center Jim Otto Miami, Fla. Raiders 1960 Guard Hunk Anderson Notre Dame Bears 1922 Tackle Steve Owen Phillips Giants 1924 Tight end Pete Pihos Indiana Eagles 1947 Quarterback John Unitas Louisville Colts 1956 Running back Dan Reeves South Carolina Cowboys 1965 Running back Paul Hornung Notre Dame Packers 1957

Position Honors Receiver Hall of Fame Receiver Hall of Fame Tackle All-Decade Guard Hall of Fame Center Hall of Fame Guard All-Decade Tackle All-Decade Tight end Hall of Fame Quarterback Hall of Fame Running back Denver Coach Running back Hall of Fame

DEFENSE

Position Player College NFL Team Year Lineman Paul Robeson Rutgers Hammond Pros 1920 Lineman Gene Brito Loyola Redskins, Rams 1951 Lineman Tommy Hart Morris Brown 49ers 1968 Lineman Fred Dryer San Diego St. Giants, Rams 1968 Linebacker Matt Hazeltine Cal 49ers 1955 Linebacker Harland Svare Washington Giants, Rams 1953 State Linebacker Jack Ham Penn State Steelers 1971 Linebacker Nick Buoniconti Notre Dame Dolphins 1969 Secondary Pat Fischer Nebraska Cardinals 1961 Secondary Don Burroughs Colorado A&M; Rams 1955 Secondary Cliff Harris Ouachita Cowboys 1970 Secondary Willie Wood USC Packers 1960

Position Honors Lineman All-League Lineman All-Decade Lineman Pro Bowl Lineman All-Hunter Linebacker 2 Pro Bowls Linebacker Ram Coach Linebacker Hall of Fame Linebacker 2 Pro Bowls Secondary 2 Pro Bowls Secondary Tallest (6-5) Secondary 6 Pro Bowls Secondary Hall of Fame