Jacoby Is Supreme Up Front

You may recall, if you remember your history, a time when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, eager to pack it with friendlier folk, referred to the Supreme Court of the United States as the “nine old men.”

He meant it pejoratively. But whenever I look at the Washington Redskins, that same description keeps running through my mind. I mean, for a football team, these guys put me in mind of nothing so much as nine old men and the Supreme Court. They should play in robes.

They kind of play football the way a court rules. With a sort of impersonal dignity, almost bloodlessly, as if it weren’t a game but a hearing, a succession of whereases and parties of the first part and writs of certiorari. The Buffalo Bills vs. the United States of America. That sort of thing.

They all look monolithic. Venerable. They never show any emotion. Their games are as dry as writs, majority opinions, depositions.

They’re all big. They never smile. They’re mechanical. Robotic, almost. They work the way old men do--efficiently, tiredly, calmly. As if they’re doing something they’ve done a thousand times before.

They just kind of look over the other team with bemused detachment. Almost as if they were mechanics and it was a piano that needs tuning, a refrigerator that needs fixing, a field that wants plowing.

Then they go about taking care of business. They sort of bend your arm without changing expression. They never look surprised at anything you do. They go about their work with a kind of bored nonchalance, as if it means nothing more to them than changing a light bulb.

You get the impression they’re all about 7 feet tall and weigh 325 pounds. They look more like a skyline than a football team. They’re indestructible.

Take Joe Jacoby, for example. This is not a man, it’s a building. It should have escalators. He’s another Washington Monument--6 feet 7 1/2, 320 pounds. You could ski him. He’s almost a glacier.

Somehow, he typifies Washington. When I look at him, I know he’s a Redskin. They have a whole team full of Joe Jacobys. Their names are Russ Grimm, Jeff Bostic, Jim Lachey, Mark Adickes. There are about nine of them in the offensive line, counting backups. They’re all the same guy. They blot out the sun.

The townspeople call them “the Hogs” because they just kind of sit there and wallow until the ball is snapped. Then, they just kind of grunt and snort their way through you, over you, under you. They never really leave the sty. They just bury you in it with them.

An offensive line is the French Foreign Legion of football. They’re as unknown as Bedouins. They could all be wanted for murder.

But they win football games. These are the guys that put the Washington Redskins in Super Bowls every couple of years. The rest of the team is simply window dressing.

You watch Jacoby on the line of scrimmage and he reminds you of a wily old boxer. He has all the moves. He makes them, but he’s never in a hurry. You just feel sorry for the guy across from him. You know that, in a minute, Joe is going to lift him in the air like King Kong with Fay Wray, hang him out to kick and squirm for a minute until the play goes by, then drop him with a thud and wander calmly back to the huddle.

Jacoby does it almost apologetically. He looks as if he has to resist helping the guy up, dusting him off. It’s all in a day’s work to Joe. Just another day at the office.

The Redskins’ passing doesn’t scare you. Their running attack doesn’t either. But their Joe Jacobys scare you. It’s like seeing a mountain move. After hearing it rumble.

Joe Jacoby is a pleasant enough fellow when he isn’t in a crouch waiting for the snap count. He’s got this big wide face, round as a pizza. These wide eyes that can take in about 340 degrees of field. If he were any bigger, he’d need a turret.

He’s the chief justice of this pro football Supreme Court. The associate justices are Bostic, Grimm, Lachey, Mark Schlereth, Raleigh McKenzie, Adickes, Ed Simmons and Don Warren. Behind these the quarterback is as safe as Ft. Knox.

You close your eyes, you could imagine them an outlaw gang in a mountain cabin somewhere, cleaning their guns. They are a close unit. They operate together like a lava flow once the ball is snapped. They turn a line of scrimmage into rubble. They know each others’ moves like a ballet troupe.

Super Bowl jitters do not appear to be any part of their arsenal. Joe Jacoby draws Buffalo’s Leon Seals, a 270-pound behemoth who answers to the nickname “Dr. Sack” on Sunday. Jacoby is as unworried as a sleeping cat. Since he spends his Sundays butting heads with the registered assassins of the league, the likelihood is that Leon will finish the day as “Dr. Sick.”

Jacoby and these pork-choppers have been in the business of knocking down the pass rush for 11 or 12 years now. Those tired old eyes have seen it all. They know their law. They’re the final authority. Nine old men--five starters, four backups. Football’s Supreme Court. Prepared to hand down a final decision against Buffalo’s Bills. They should read ‘em their rights first.

* THURMAN THOMAS

The NFL’s Most Valuable Player is again claiming he hasn’t received his proper due. Notebook, C10.