Chuck Knox on the 1976 NFC Championship

The following excerpt was taken from former Rams coach Chuck Knox’s book, Hard Knox:

Pat Haden started the last five games of 1976 going 4-1 to help us finish our regular season at 10-3-1. We win the first playoff game in Dallas and then we’re back in Minnesota for another try at the Super Bowl. I’m thinking, Now is the time.  

It was the time, all right. Time for our third big game flop. During the heat of this championship game, on third-and-two from the Vikings two-yard line, we ran a reverse with Ron Jessie. He dove and landed in the end zone, but the officials say he bounced first. So we don’t score and stopped inside their five-yard line on third down, and we wind up going for a field goal. The kick is blocked, Minnesota’s Bobby Bryant scoops it up and runs 99 yards for a touchdown, and we lose again 24-13.

And now everybody is asking, How come you didn’t go for the touchdown? I answer. How was I supposed to know the kick would be blocked? How did I know that little mistake would occur? You go for a touchdown, any number of things can happen–fumbles, interceptions, anything. Football not being an exact science, a field goal is just about as exact as it gets. Either you make it or you miss it, period. (ed: Knox was heavily criticized for his decision by L.A. Times sports columnist Jim Murray)

Like I said before, I live a lot by history. I lived by it that day and it cost me. And it hurt. I was getting tired of being second-guessed. I was getting tired of having no answers. By this championship game, the criticism was coming down on me like bits of hail. What hurt the most though, was that after our third championship loss, I knew my players were having some of the same doubts as everyone else. 

I offer no apologies. Considering what I took over in L.A. the risk-free offensive philosophy only made sense. I had to teach some of these young guys to go to war with themselves before they could go to war with others. We had to worry about ourselves first. Without that confidence, we would never have advanced in any championship game in the first place. And I can guarantee one thing: these guys were a lot happier losing in the NFC finals with me than never playing past Christmas with other coaches.

The “Dark Ages” of Rams Fandom

If you’ve been a Rams fan for a while–as I have been for over 35 years–then congratulations, you’re still alive and kicking and hopefully your mental health is (sort of) intact. We’ve gone through some tough times, haven’t we? As philosopher Freidrich Nietzsche was quoted as saying, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” More specifically I’m referring to the infernal suffering of the “Tony Banks Years.”

Banks played for the Rams from 1996-98 and was unexceptional in every conceivable way, not once leading the Horns to a playoff spot, and sporting a horrendous 14-29 record. The quarterback was criticized for his poor decision-making and lack of leadership and was often booed by the fans. He was also known for his inability to make plays when needed most. (I must add that the transcendent and inspiring Kurt Warner was a third-string backup on the ‘98 team, sitting behind Banks and then 38-year-old, broken-down 49ers castoff Steve Bono. Yikes. Also, he was not related to Sonny.) 

Even today the words Tony Banks conjure images of mediocrity and little demons with pitchforks poking me in the ass. It’s almost uncomfortable to let the words roll past my tongue, like uttering his name is an evil incantation. I remember people would ask me what team I followed and when I’d respond they’d mostly just stare with a look of confusion and pity. A few even told me that they had never even met a Rams fan in person and then heckled without impunity even though the team was a bottom feeder that had been exiled into irrelevancy for almost a decade. 

There are other names, of course, that you may or may not know, all of them part of the Dark Ages: Robert Delpino, Lawrence Phillips, Chris Miller, and June Henley. Henley, only known to the most psychotic of fans actually led the team in rushing the only season he played in 1998 with an anemic 313 yards. The perfect metaphor for a sad sack organization, he retired with a toe injury and then got busted for stealing televisions and beer from WalMart.

The Rams have had a history of ups and downs, with periods of great success followed by years of disappointment. But through it all, Rams fans have remained loyal and resilient, cheering the team on no matter the outcome. ( also, despite being bamboozled by vivacious, bottle-blonde, black widow owner Georgia Frontiere) In the face of the darkness of the Tony Banks years, we could always take comfort in the fact that we were united by a common bond – our love for the Rams. We chose to be Rams fans, and we chose to be loyal no matter how crazy or irrelevant we seemed….and not always with mental health intact.

Isiah Robertson’s Demons and Redemption

The following excerpt was taken from Chuck Knox’s book, “Hard Knox.” Knox was head coach of the L.A. Rams from 1973-77 and 1992-94. 

Throughout my career, there was one player who brought out the uncommon in me. As in, the uncommonly stupid in me. Because of this player, I am no longer such an easy mark for troubled minds. His name was Isiah Robertson. He was called “Butch.” He was a linebacker, and he was a handful. 

Butch was an example of how, as hard as I coach them, a lot of times I flat-out don’t reach them. Let me tell you about one lovely Christmas Eve in Los Angeles. For some reason, Butch was eating at a restaurant this night, eating clam chowder. Bad chowder. It had a bug in it. He wouldn’t pay for it. 

The waitress told him he had already taken a couple of bites, and he had to pay. Poor waitress. You don’t tell a guy like Butch that he has to do anything. Even I knew that. He poured the chowder over the cash register, and then went outside and threw a brick through the window. 

Have you ever received a phone call from a troubled employee who is in jail on Christmas Eve? My wife loved this one. I was still young and dumb then. I went down and bailed him out, the first of several times. 

How I tried to reach Butch. I would sit him down–I had this one special chair in my office just for him–and he would sit there like an angel, very apologetic. Then he would leave my office and two weeks later he’d be back in that special chair. I’m sure he meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I later traded for him when I went to Buffalo because I thought he had matured and learned his lesson. Once there, he gets into a bar fight and bites off a piece of teammate Jim Haslett’s finger. (Haslett went on to coach the Saints and even Knox’s Rams for 12 games in 2008.) 

Editor: When Robertson retired from the league, crack cocaine unfortunately took over his life, and the six-time Pro Bowler found himself almost beaten to death, staring into the barrel of a shotgun wielded by a drug dealer. He’d lost his career, his family, his cars, and 14 homes. Robertson lived only because the weapon malfunctioned. Robertson eventually cleaned up and worked with recovering addicts at a residential recovery center, House of Isiah, which he founded in 1989 just outside of Dallas.

On December 6, 2018, Robertson sadly died after the limousine he was driving skidded on a rain-slicked curve on a dark Texas highway only hours after giving a motivational speech at a local high school. He was 69.

An Ass Whooping and a Merlin Olsen Book Marker

Halftime: Cowboys 33 Rams 9. I suppose it was karma for being pleasantly amused on this very blog by fans of ‘Merica’s Team (grown men in most cases) crying on national television after a loss to the 49ers in last year’s playoffs. I regret nothing. Grown men shouldn’t cry over a football game. Period. One particular namby-pamby even became a living meme after whimpering in his girlfriend’s consoling arms.(Admittedly, I once shed a lonely tear after a playoff loss….except I was 12. freaking. years. old.) 

Being the poor sport that I am, I cursed the crescendo of bullshit, turned off the TV, and decided to finish a book I’d been enjoying. I then chopped some vegetables and made a pretty hardy stew. (the secret is to cook it with hate instead of love, it really brings out the flavors. Also, add a dash of disdain and a dash of wine. Drink the rest.) I read later that the game was so out of hand that whoever was in charge of deciding such things nationally switched the game to Philly/Redskins (Commanders? Football team?) evoking memories of the “Heidi Bowl,” except that there was no amazing comeback in this one, just a whimper. And if you’ve never heard of the Heidi Bowl then congratulations, you’re probably not as old as dirt and if you want more information then you can summon the internet gods. 

What can I say about this one? Putrid, rancid, debilitating, smelly, shitty, appalling and repugnant. Sunday Bloody Sunday. I’m rubbing up against the idea that this team just isn’t very good. But life continues on…the book was entertaining if you like surrealist short stories in the vein of Hitchcock and Kafka, and the stew was tasty if you like, well, stew. All was well in the world, I had a pleasant buzz, and the temperature outside was dipping rapidly amid a persistent, dull rain.

P.S. The S.F. Gold Diggers lost their 3rd in a row at the hands of the Bungles so all was not lost. Schadenfreude.

Ken Geddes… 1970’s Rams Linebacker and Educator

Isiah Robertson was sobbing silently, Ken Meyer was whispering consoling words into James Harris’s ear and Fred Dryer was calling the officials “donkeys.” The Los Angeles Rams were frustrated and they were angry.

But none felt the sudden pain that Ken Geddes, a Ram linebacker, felt when he received a telephone call after the 14‐10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the 1974 NFC Championship.

“A friend of his family called and said his dad died this morning,” a Rams’ executive said as Geddes cried uncontrollably in the shower, a pair of teammates holding him around his broad, soap-covered shoulders.

As the news spread around the locker room, the players’ voices became softer and their feelings turned, at least, for the moment, from the outcome of the game that ended their season instead of extending it to the Super Bowl.

********

Geddes grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., the fourth of 17 kids. Before he was a teen, he worked after school at a door manufacturer and a soda bottler. He picked blackberries and sweet potatoes. He helped his mom do other people’s laundry. “It was something that we did,” Geddes says. “I never thought about being poor.”

In seventh grade, he quit going to school every day. A math teacher suggested Boys Town, the Nebraska school mythologized in the film, with Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan, saying: “There isn’t any such thing in the world as a bad boy.” Geddes had seen the movie. He wanted to go.

At 13, he boarded a bus, alone. He arrived, west of Omaha, to discover Catholics were real. He’d never seen one — and figured the movie had made that part up. Once settled, Geddes flourished. He played on the basketball and football teams — state champions, both — and joined the student government, working his way up to commissioner. As a senior he ran for mayor of Boys Town, losing by one vote.

He went on to college, at Nebraska, where he played nose guard and linebacker, and earned a degree in education.

Geddes played eight years in the NFL; his biggest contract was $250,000, spread over three years. He worked the offseasons — in Seattle, as an assistant manager at Jack in the Box. He also secured a real estate license. He planned for life after football, determined not to lose all he’d gained. “I knew what it was like, not to have,” he says.

A foremost proponent of education, Geddes’ daughter is an assistant principal at a Seattle-area high school, and his son teaches math in Middle School. When Geddes himself retired as a middle school counselor in 2011, his school dedicated a bench to him, inscribed with his trademark greeting: “Good morning! Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours!”

The SOB’s Beat Us Yet Again

Breaking records!

“I don’t give a shit about no goddamn Rams”–my grandfather

If you don’t think the Rams/49ers rivalry is real then you haven’t been watching football for very long and I must petition you to read the above quote again. My grandfather was a die-hard 49ers fan and absolutely hated the Rams. For years, I would beg him to take me to a Rams game (The “Big A” was a mere 15-minute drive) and he outright refused until my grandmother finally demanded that he take me. It turned out to be a pre-season game against the Packers and we had terrible seats behind the goalpost. You couldn’t see anything if teams were driving on the opposite side of the field. The Rams won 16-13, in a butt-numbing affair and I believe the Packers QB was Don Majkowski (say that 3 times fast) slightly before the “Brett Favre Era.” 

My grandfather descended into eternal darkness in that same city where we saw that football game a little over a decade later. My family had called me in Sacramento and told me to hop on the next train because he wasn’t long for this earth. He died a few days later. I miss him, even though typically when someone has been gone for a long period of time they seem more like an abstract idea than an actual person. You only seem to remember quips and flashes of moments. He still oddly never speaks to me when he materializes in my dreams and his appearances are becoming lesser and lesser.

A friend came over to watch the game and I told him we could drink beer and, “re-organize my record collection,” with a wink and a nudge. Of course, that’s if you want to call two lousy milk crates a record collection. He asked me if I had anything that wasn’t over 20 years old, but I didn’t. Most of what I owned was gritty, stripped-down rock and roll and punk from the wilder reaches of the 70’s and 80’s–admittedly not very nuanced. 

 This time the game was played not in Anaheim but in Los Angeles proper, the city that lends itself to noir, from Skid Row to the Sunset Strip–that sex-fueled, quasi-paradise with a lobotomy where numbness is a virtue. The field was about as fake as half the vocations and breasts filling the crowd, (complete with cancer-causing rubber granules) but it sure did look nice on television!

Rams lose 30-23. This was a contest that seemed to be about the team of today versus the team of tomorrow. These squads have caused each other’s collective fan base so much trauma and dissonance as the Niners have beaten us 9 straight regular-season times even though we broke their decrepit hearts (and made Deebo Samuel cry on national television) in the 2021 NFC Championship. But today the heartbreak belonged to us…once again. 

When it was all said and done, I wasn’t angry. Nothing was broken or thrown and I was glad that we had hope, an optimistic outlook on the season and the future of this team. It was a thrilling, visceral time despite the loss, and isn’t that what sports are all about? If my grandfather were here today, (probably smoking a Marlboro and trash-talking) I would delightedly tell him, “I don’t give a shit about no goddamn 49ers.”

***

The namesake of this blog is now a follower on Twitter, (or X or whatever the hell you want to call it) and if you choose to do so you can follow me here. And remember proper ganja is better than propaganda.

Rams Send the SeaHags Back to the Deep

I love this card

“Oh My God!”–Seattle QB Geno Smith, quite audibly, as Aaron Donald found an open crease and came barrelling down on him.

Your favorite degenerate scribe spent a lazy Sunday swilling Lone Star beer and watching wily veteran Matt Stafford dissect the Seahawks’ defense as the good guys defeated the team from the land of Starbucks and Grunge 30-13. (I have nothing against Seattle by the way, it is a beautiful city and I enjoyed my time there hanging out with a pretty girl who had a penchant for cheap beer and even cheaper strip clubs. She also had a tattoo of a Nintendo controller on her inner arm. Alas, that is a story for another time.)

What caught my eye, however, towards the end of this fascinating game was a graphic stating that Puka Nucua and Tutu Atwell were the first Rams teammates under or at the age of 23 with 100 yards receiving since Del Shofner and Lamar Lundy. Wait a minute…Lamar Lundy!? Certainly whoever did this research was wrong because the Lundy I know was a legendary defensive end and a member of the much-heralded “Fearsome Foursome.”

Within seconds the invisible ether told me, to my amazement, that Lundy actually did catch 25 passes for 396 yards in 1958 and scored 6 career touchdowns. Absolutely astounding and impressive! I want to thank the probably underpaid technical graphics guy who did some splendid research, Mark from Retro Simba, (who so graciously gave me the above football card), and rookie sensation Puka Nacua. (I won’t quote his stats here because an exuberant amount of ink has already been spilled concerning it) Until next time, guys and dolls, remember to always pick up your dogshit, tip your bartender well, and if you find a toilet in your dream please don’t use it.

Ben Wilson RIP

I have a bit of somber news, readers. Sometime in early July, I sent a trading card to Ben Wilson (LA Rams fullback 1963-65) with a personal note asking him to autograph said piece of cardboard. I received a letter from his son, Alan, in late August with the following:

Dear Mr. Trujillo,

Thank you for your interest in my dad. He always thought fondly of the NFL and when he could, he autographed memorabilia. Unfortunately, he has been ill for the past year and recently passed away. I am returning your card. Good luck to you in your quest.

I want to thank Alan for his kindness, especially in his time of grief. I imagine his father was a classy individual and a good person if this letter was an indication of anything.

Ben Wilson only played one season with the Green Bay Packers, but he holds the distinction of being the leading rusher in Super Bowl II in Miami. Despite missing most of the fourth quarter, Wilson was the Packers’ workhorse, carrying the ball 17 times for 62 yards in Green Bay’s 33-14 victory over Oakland. That eclipsed the Super Bowl mark of 56 yards set a year earlier in the Packers’ 35-10 triumph over Kansas City in Los Angeles. “It was a peculiar decision by Coach Vince Lombardi to start Ben in the Super Bowl,” former Packers guard Jerry Kramer said. “The coach was playing a hunch.

Ben Wilson died in Hot Springs, Arkansas on July 29, 2023, at the age of 84

On a lighter note, below is a Burger King commercial featuring Roman Gabriel. Enjoy.

“Hunter” Dominates for the Horns

Fred Dryer doesn’t live in a house or an apartment. He usually sleeps wherever he happens to park his white Volkswagen bus the New York Times reported in 1973.

“It’s not fancy inside,” he says. “I got my clothes and my bed in it, that’s all. But it’s home. Except sometimes I hole up in somebody’s house for a couple of days, up in the mountains or down at the beach.”

But as a Ram,, he conforms. Particularly under the new head coach, Chuck Knox, and the new defensive coordinator, Ray Malavasi.

“Our coaches are teachers first,” the 6‐foot‐6‐inch, 240‐pound pass‐rusher says. “With the Giants, it was ‘Let’s try this, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.’ But here things this year are really well organized. Last year, when Tommy Prothro was the head coach, guys were doing and acting the way they wanted to. There was no lesson plan. And when Tommy did say something, sometimes it didn’t make much sense.”

At a pregame meal, for example, each Ram was permitted only one boiled potato.

“Coach,” asked Dryer one day, “I think it would behoove me to have another potato.”

After a long thoughtful pause, Prothro replied, “I believe one potato is enough.”

“I walked away like I was a little kid,” Dryer remembers. “It was ludicrous.”

Now he’s permitted more than one boiled potato. He’s also positioned at right defensive end, which he prefers. Last season he played mostly on the left side after being on the right side with the Giants for three seasons.

“I feel I’m a better pass‐rusher from the right side,” he says. “I feel like I’m sneaking in the back way.”

Against the Green Bay Packers last Sunday, he sneaked in twice to tackle a quarterback in the end zone, the first player in N.F.L. history to record two safeties in one game. He isn’t likely to record another today, not with Tarkenton’s ability to avoid a tackler or to throw the ball away.

“I don’t remember ever being caught for a safety,” Tarkenton says. “But it always can happen, especially if Freddy gets a shot at me. I don’t think the Giants realized how sincere Freddy is about football, how much it means to him.”

***

I’d like to give a shout-out and a wholehearted “thank you” to Michael over at the Rams 702 Club for sending me some awesome stickers in the mail. Please check out their site for some really great t-shirts, beanies, pins, and stickers. If you’re in the Las Vegas area they have weekly family-friendly gatherings for all the games during the season. It really is a great organization, and if I didn’t live a thousand miles away I would definitely be a weekly attendee…although I’m proud to support them from afar in Texas. Keep up the good work, gentlemen!

Jim Jodat…Buddy Holly Glasses, Iron Man

So I’m watching a Rams/49ers game from 1977 when announcer Vin Scully mentions to his cohort Sonny Jergensen that the Rams kick returner is wearing coke-bottle, Buddy Holly-style glasses, which immediately catches my attention. I had never seen such a thing and was instantly intrigued. Who was this guy? (note: this was also Joe Namath’s last game as a starter for the Rams, outdueling Jim Plunkett 34-14.)

I must admit that Jim Jodat certainly didn’t look like much of an athlete, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote.

He had a squatty build and suspect eyesight, but he sure could run. The 5-foot-11, 210-pound Milwaukee native also had a fanatical work ethic and gritty determination that drove him to become Carthage College’s career leader in rushing, to play in the NFL for seven seasons, and to return the opening kickoff in Super Bowl XIV in 1980.

In 1976, Jodat was selected by the Los Angeles Rams in the 12th round of the NFL draft, the 344th overall pick. He went on to play with the Rams, the Seattle Seahawks, and the San Diego Chargers over seven seasons.

Jodat spent his rookie season on injured reserve with a sprained knee. In 1977 he made his mark on special teams since the Rams’ backfield was clogged with talented backs John Cappelletti, Lawrence McCutcheon, Cullen Bryant, and Wendell Tyler.

“He was behind a lot of great players with the Rams, but Jim was never a guy to try and talk a coach into more playing time,” Tom Brannon said. “He just didn’t have that kind of personality.”

In January 1980, Jodat appeared on the cover of The Sporting News as the special teams’ captain for the Rams. Jodat, as mentioned above, returned the opening kickoff for Los Angeles in Super Bowl XIV against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Unfortunately, the Steelers won, 31-19 after the Rams let a 19-17 lead dissolve in the fourth quarter.

Jodat died on October 21, 2015, of cancer in Lake Forest, Ca.