You found the Wolf cast on Steelers Nation Radio and Steelers dot Com. Defensive players are smart, yes, big grudgingly, I'll admit it, Okay, just speaking in general terms here, most of them liked the trash talk. You know, then they're gonna come out and they're gonna attack like Genghis Khan with his hair on fire.
And they love it. Believe you me, they love it.
Whenever one of their nefarious blitz schemes hits home with a team meeting at the quarterback and when it does, ooh baby, you're not gonna hear the end of it for the rest of the game. And if it happened to be in a game with a say, a division rival, well you'd probably hear about it in a rematch if they dropped the sack on your watch, if it was in the first go round of the year. The Browns
had some pretty hot rushers back in the day. You know Clay Matthews, Chip Banks, Reggie Camp, the ever sneaky Bobby Golick, former Pitt Star basketball player turned football player, Sam Clancy, and certainly you can't overlook the great Carl Harriston, who had the best spin move this side of Dwight Freenie before anyone ever heard of Dwight Freenian. And that's mainly because Dwight was only five years older so at
the time. So anyhow, what really caught me by surprise in a game with the Cleveland Browns this time around was the patience by which the Browns went about their business on this day. Normally, the defense comes after you hard and fast. Man, They're gonna fastball you from the get go. They're gonna throw their best at you and get going right. But no, that's not the way it
went out this day. Sure, there were some defensive coordinators who were more patient, willing to let things play out more, and then they'd set you up before trying to drop a bomb on you. But for the most part, it was usually a Katie bar the door attack mode coming out of the locker room. Mean, it was on like a furious vintage Mike Tyson first round knockout in his heyday.
So when the week run up to this game, I had been, per usual watching an enormous amount of film on the Brownies, you know, getting into the theater of the mind. You know, it's a huge part of pro ball. You simply can't succeed at this level if you don't put the necessary time into film study. Not part of that study is to familiarize yourself with the opponent's tendencies and peculiarities, what their go to rush is and who's
involved personnel wise. And then you have basic past you have basic pass pro rules to be able to pick up the various stunts and blitzes of an opponent. This was how it worked. The twist stunts that happened right away were handled in a zone concept. Twists that were delayed were handled man on man, no passing off a rusher like on the quick twists. See, you got to have a plan, you got to work the plan, and you got to stick with the plan and hopefully that
plan comes together. Just like one of my favorite television shows back in the eighties, you know, the A Team starring George Papard as Hannibal and mister t has Ba Barracas. I love that the show always had that poignant moment where a gritting prepared would look into the camera and say, I love when a plan comes together, over and over again. I kept studying the opponent's schemes in the alarming rate at which the Browns, they'd be running that banging me
game and get home with it. And if they didn't get the sack the fender bender that the guy playing my position and the other teams I was watching would get destroyed.
So it shouldn't surprise you when I tell you.
That a high level of anxiety started building early in the prep week, along with a very conscious notation to prepare for this particular stunt. Also to be concerned with, over and above the lethal human land minds awaiting me was the individual characteristics and preferences of the players that I knew I'd be locking horns with. For instance, no stackle Bobby Gollick. Now he's shorter in stature than say a Carl Harriston or certainly Sam Clancy, but he had
a wrestling background. This dude had great body balance, with a real solid base. He would lock up with you and try to off balance you, try to get on your edge rather trying than coming down the middle of you. And he was a good hand fighter. He was always trying to get an inside hand position. At the other end of the spectrum was defensive end. Carl Harriston, he
of the pre fiend. He spin technique. He'd throw an uppercut and then try to lift or uproot you and try to get his hip alongside yours like a judoka. You know, a judo student. You know, they're very good at throwing those hip throws like oh goshi, all right, So you got to get that hip along there, and you uproot them and woom, you throw them.
Well.
After getting you to overplay his uprooting uppercut, he'd spin and you'd be left swatting at air, wondering where the heck he went. If you didn't, if you didn't punch his hip with your free hand, it was sack city, to be sure. Harrison had the uproot spin technique down pat and he had such a tight spin you were in trouble if he got that inside leverage. As we used to say back in the day, this dude could
spin in a three quart bucket. Game day in old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which otherwise was known as the Mistake on the Lake and the predecessor to the present day Cleveland Brown Stadium, suitably dubbed the Factory of Sadness, was a typical unsunny day in Cleveland. I've played in Cleveland during my career at least a dozen times, and when you add another nearly two dozen trips as a broadcaster, I encount on one hand the number of sunny days we've ever had on a game day. Schmutze was the
typical weather forecast that we seemed to play in. Joe DiNardo, the old beloved Pittsburgh TV weathermen, would call it Bertley cloudy. The sky was alternately dark and gray on this day, with periods of rain making the turf nice and muddy. You know, just a regular Cleveland type day, if you will. Now, while watching a lot of film, the stunt that emerged from the Brown scouting report was a delayed twist stunt, what.
We used to call me game.
With the defensive end going up the field, he'd plan on his outside foot go hard inside a ninety degree angle to try to earhole the guard on that side, which of course would be me in this case, and that was their favorite pass rush, that was their go to. The defensive end would try to literally try to t bone me, and to do that, it was all about the setup, which was in the purview of the defensive
tackle playing over me. Now, the key to this twist stunt was in identifying what the defensive tackle rushing me was doing. If he just bull rushed me, you know, trying to run down the middle of me, that was telling me there's no stunt coming.
Kad zookes. That's easy, That's like hitting easy button.
That was why he did all those squats with manhole covered sized weights. Stack down a bar bell in the off season. Get your squat monster on, take on that bull rush, and use all that hamhock strength you're built up in the off season to shut down the rusher,
you know stuff, I'm dead in his tracks. But if he started to shake, rattle and roll or docy doe, which meaning he's throwing head fakes, he's throwing shoulder fakes, he's trying to dead leg you, you know, throwing a hesitation step type brush just prior to contact, I knew he was just setting me up for a kills shot. Him trying to occupy me without coming into contact was the trigger that told me that the dastardly delayed banging
freaking me game was imminent. And I don't want to say that twice, And if it hit home, I was in danger of being at the point of attack at the very least or depending on the offensive tackle playing next to me, about to be separated from some brain cells for a period of time because the defensive ends screaming and towards my blindside was humming, hostile, and full
of bad vibes and intentions, And so it was. On every obvious pass rush situation in the first half, I was on a def Con five alert status, you betcha. I was determined not to end up like a hood ornament or be featured on the nineteen eighty five Cleveland Browns pass rush Real look, getting caught blindsided by someone at a full gallop that was anywhere from two hundred and seventy five to three hundred pounds, I believe you me,
that was gonna hurt a lot. But even more so, giving up a sack to the Cleveland Nights and having to face Chuck Nole chin to chin in a post sack sideline soiree was even a more daunting thought than getting concussed. After all, a concussion is nothing more than a party in your head for a little while. And don't hit me with being insensitive about concussions. They're my concussions. You're free to describe your own in your own way.
And so it was all through the first half, pass rush by pass rush, I kept waiting for the banging me game to come at me. With every rush that it didn't come, I knew it had to be the next rush that they throw it at me. Then, Yet, series by series, play by play, quarter by quarter, no go. It was driving me crazy, frustrating really, because the stunt was so potentially injurious that the built up anxiety and expectations that I had gone to the game with was
kind of gurglating within me. So halftime came and went. We trooped down the tunnel from Cleveland's visiting locker room, which was nothing more than an oversized closet, oh my goodness, And actually it was designed for a baseball team, as a Cleveland Stadium was a dual purpose football baseball stadium back in the day. As I was standing in that tunnel waiting to climbing a couple of steps out of the dugout, I remember an unpleasant spell wafted it up
to my nostrils. Apparently, when the baseball players were in need of relieving themselves, they didn't bother walking all the way to the locker room. It seems the tunnel we were standing and sufficed. Now after hitting the field, I made my way across the visiting team sidelines the bench area to get the blood flowing for the second half. I was acutely aware that the Browns hadn't come out me with their version of the infamous banging me game.
Now I smelled a rat.
To be sure, I kept reminding myself of the top trigger keys to the Browns blitz game. Sure enough, right out of the gate, on the first obvious third down passing situation that we ran into in the first drive of the second half, Oh here it comes, the defensive tackle over me. Unlike the first half pass rushes started giving me the oul hypnotic eye. He came at me using a head fake, a body fake, a non rhythmic pass rush that resembled a cobra giving its probably a
hypnotic ster before striking. Oh yeah, lookout, because the bomb was about to drop on yours truly. Now, the whole week of preparation came together in a nano instant. All the film, watching all the mental gymnastics I'd done, having my head stuck in the playbook all week long, made what happened next possible.
As soon as.
I identified the rush, I quickly gave ground to assess what the tackle next to me was doing. Pete Roustoski, a converted defensive lineman who made the jumped offensive tackle, was lock and mortal combat with the heat seeking coming at my blind side human missile wearing Browns colors. Now I had a choice give even more ground and come behind Pete and pick up the defensive tackle over me. Who would be the trailer on a twist stunt, or we would exchange roles and I would take Pete's man
and he would take mine. Now, according to pass pro rules, because it was a delayed stunt, it should have been staying manned to man. But because I was so jacked and so tuned into the bang and me game coming
at me, I broke the rules. So pent up with aggression from a week's worth of watching film and fending off teammates trying to emulate the blind side shots that the Browns were trying to hit me with, I didn't wait, baby, I turned, I exploded, and like a heat seeking missile my own self, I speared that defensive end as he tried to crash my blind side. I kid you not. I drilled the dude headfirst to the midsection or more likely the groin area. But I will tell you this,
it was a wicked shot. We went down into a huge pile of humanity with arms and legs all tangled up and bodies stacking up like a bunch of cars would after a fe under bender and the fok pit tunnels.
I was ecstatic, man.
I jumped to my feet, with testosterone and adrenaline pumping through my veins mixing together, creating a potent mixture of ferocity and intensity that surprised even me. I stood triumphantly over the pile that contained the guy that wanted to t bone me. He lay at my feet, clutching his recently spirit abdominal groin area, obviously in pain. I was half out of my mind, and when I pointed him, I screamed, I've been waiting for you all game long.
My pony had just groaned and rolled over, wait for the traders come out and attend to him.
I continued to platherway.
At the noile, not feeling too well defensive end who just moments before was ready to play rock them sock them robots with my head.
Now, it's not often you get to turn the tables down a ponent like that.
And apparently I was in the midst of having an out of body experience, and I couldn't seem to zip my big yapper and go back to the huddle. So Pete Rosowsky's walking by me on his way back to the huddle, he quizzically looked at me as if I had three heads.
I wasn't one to trash talk.
Everybody knew that, and I think Pete was concerned I'd lost my marbles. Mike Webster was laughing. Tounch Ilkin, normally the trash talker of the offensive line, started laughing as I continued to shoot my bazoo off. Yeah, the whole week of watching film, taking notes, studying the scouting report, and getting extra reps on the practice field while doing the necessary mental gymnastics at night made the whole week worthwhile. At this moment, I love when a plan comes together. Well,
I'm Craig Wofully and this is the Wolf Cast. And remember I never let facts stand the way of a good story.