Rarefied Air?
Don Coryell Forever Changed Pro Football’s Passing Game, So Why Is He Still Not In The Hall Of Fame?
For years, the worn poster sat in a box. It was nestled next to old issues of Sports Illustrated, Topps football cards, and VHS tapes. Wrapped in an almost-disintegrated rubber band, unrolling it instantly transported you back to 1979. That was the year the San Diego Chargers fielded their most complete team and the one that seemed most primed to win the franchise’s first Super Bowl.
The bottom of the poster, under where the players are standing, now has white creases like spider veins. But the blue letters, in Army-issued stencil font, are still legible:
BOMBS AWAY.
Under the Nike logo on the top right corner stand three men dressed in brown bomber jackets. The one on the right has a gold bar over the visor of his captain’s hat with the Swoosh in the center. He smiles under his beard while holding a football in his right hand. The player on the left wears the same outfit and protects his ball in the crook of his arm. He’s so sturdily built, you’d think it impossible that anyone could get it out of his hands, anyway. The man in the middle has a set of World War II headphones around his neck over the same white scarf as the other two. He has a canvas cadet hat with the flat visor angled upward. He smiles as he holds a ball loosely at his waist. Surprisingly, his trademark googles are nowhere to be found. All three players wear gold football pants with solid blue lightning bolts down the side.
These weren’t the exact pants worn by the San Diego Chargers that year (the actual bolts were white and outlined in blue), but they were close enough that Nike eventually had to discontinue the poster. It’s hard to imagine a time that Nike would have to answer to anyone, but even the Topps football cards back then had bolts on their helmets blotted out for trademark purposes. I remember first seeing the poster on the wall of a sports store while I was shopping for sneakers with my mom. Living in Westchester County, NY, this was like finding a bar of gold in your backyard. She begged the owner to let us buy it, but he wouldn’t budge. He told us that he’d had many such offers of late and that it wouldn’t be fair. Everyone knew that the Chargers had the coolest uniforms in the NFL. Even Daniel LaRusso had their jersey when he moved to California in The Karate Kid. It wasn’t until a camp friend of mine mentioned that his uncle owned a shoe store that I got one of those precious posters. I immediately tacked it to my wall over my bed and moved it from room to room until I got my own studio apartment twenty years later. Eventually, it had so many different push pins in its corners that I needed to put layers of scotch tape under the holes for the next hanging. That’s how it ended up wrapped in that ancient rubber band.
The poster featured Kellen Winslow, John Jefferson, and Dan Fouts, but could just as easily have read “Air Coryell.” That’s what everyone still calls the Chargers of that era. Don Coryell, who died in 2010, was the coach whose innovations not only powered the Chargers but revolutionized the NFL. Countless coaches and their offensive formations owe their existence to him. Maybe Nike should have put him on the poster, since two of the three men on it are in the Hall of Fame. Quarterback Dan Fouts was enshrined in 1993 and tight end Kellen Winslow two years later. Wide receiver John Jefferson enjoyed no such longevity but was arguably the biggest star of the three when the “Bombs Away” poster came out. In fact, he was the only one to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, back when that really meant something.
Don Coryell has been a Hall of Fame finalist six times without getting in. The most obvious reason was that he never reached, let alone won, the Super Bowl. However, that didn’t keep Fouts or Winslow out. In fact, Fouts became the first quarterback to get in without a championship and he was inducted unanimously.
The Chargers also featured another receiving star, Charlie Joiner, who also would not only become a Hall of Famer but would retire as the NFL’s then-lifetime leader in receptions and yards. Of course, he had been at it since 1969. He was even old enough to have been drafted by the AFL. The former Grambling star didn’t have the megawatt charm of Jefferson, otherwise maybe he could have been on that poster. He also didn’t wear Nikes, another thing that set him apart from his “Air Coryell” teammates along with his Dolemite-style moustache.
At Don Coryell’s funeral, the recently deceased John Madden noted his absence from the Hall of Fame. "You know, I'm sitting down there in front, and next to me is Joe Gibbs, and next to him is Dan Fouts, and the three of us are in the Hall of Fame because of Don Coryell." Choking up and then pausing, he continued, "There's something missing."
Before becoming famous as the coach of the Raiders, Madden was once the offensive line coach at San Diego State under Coryell, just as Joe Gibbs was Coryell’s offensive coordinator for two seasons before winning two Super Bowls coaching the Redskins. Don Coryell hasn’t sniffed the Hall of Fame but its official website still has a page dedicated to his accomplishments. He is credited with bringing the now-common “I” formation, (where the quarterback, fullback, and halfback line up behind the center in an “I”) into the pro game from his days coaching high school in Hawaii in the 1950s. After Coryell left his USC staff as an assistant, John McKay used the formation to win a pair of national championships in the 1970s. Coryell was thankfully inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
Beyond his offensive innovations, Coryell turned around not one, but two, moribund teams. Before Don Coryell coached them, the-then St. Louis Cardinals hadn’t reached the postseason since 1948 when they were in Chicago. With a staff that also included Gibbs, Coryell led the Cardinals to three straight double-digit win seasons and consecutive division titles. Their quarterback, Jim Hart, became the NFL Player Of The Year in 1974 thanks to Coryell. However, Hart maintained that owner Bill Bidwell, a notorious cheapskate who would eventually move the team to Arizona, wouldn’t give Coryell the budget or autonomy to succeed. Bidwill, who once lost Joe Namath in a bidding war with the Jets, let star running back Terry Metcalf go to the Canadian Football League in 1977. In a feature the following February, Sports Illustrated reported a full-on mutiny by the players over the owner’s stinginess. Bidwill and Coryell weren’t even on speaking terms after the season and a “mutual settlement” was eventually reached to let him go. Coryell returned to San Diego, where he had gotten his start as head coach of the SDSU Aztecs for 12 years after leaving USC. He became Chargers coach on September 25, 1978, the same day as the infamous PSA Flight 182 crash in San Diego.
The team had been previously led by Tommy Prothro. Hall of Famer Bill Walsh, who would win three Super Bowls as coach of the 49ers in the following decade, had been Prothro’s offensive coordinator in 1976. Walsh’s pet project was quarterback Dan Fouts, who originally became the starter when Johnny Unitas was finally put out to pasture during his lone season with the Chargers. Fouts struggled on a team that won two and five games in his first two seasons. In 1975, the team lost its first eleven games in a row. But Walsh’s arrival in 1976 forced Fouts to refocus on his fundamentals and he and the team improved. However, Walsh left to coach at Stanford and the team traded for quarterback James Harris from the Rams. Harris made more money than Fouts, who asked to be traded as a result. When the Chargers balked, he announced his retirement at age 26. He sat out the first 11 games of the 1977 season, not for more money, but in an attempt to hoping to win his vocational freedom.
In a bizarre turn of events, the man whose name along with Coryell’s would define the Chargers, testified in court how far they were from Super Bowl contention. He felt he was capable of leading a team to a championship, so he asserted under oath how bad the Chargers were in order to secure his free agency. He lost his case, but the team he returned to was about to avoid a losing season for the first time since they were in the AFL in 1968. He started the final four games of the season. The team started 1-4 the following year, which led to Prothro’s resignation. Coryell’s first practices with the team survive through grainy news footage on YouTube. In royal blue coaching shorts hiked high under his crisp Chargers polo, he skulks through the players’ workouts. In a true sign of the times, one of his assistants is actually coaching without a shirt. But his appearance and his soft lisp-laden voice belie Coryell’s intensity and commitment to changing the culture in San Diego.
“I’ll just do everything I possibly can to help contribute and hopefully help them win,” but assure the interviewer that “he doesn’t plan any big changes.” It’s hard to imagine anyone believed those words. After a sunburned Fouts was asked about Coryell’s reputation as a master motivator, he responded it would be evident “soon enough.” The YouTube montage then cuts to Fouts decked out in a V-Neck Charger sweater over a wide-collar shirt:
“He’s had some input so we’re going to try a few of his plays and they’re good plays, I can tell you that right now.”
Coryell’s plays were more than good, they seemingly came from the future. While the rest of the NFL ran a smashmouth, run-first offense, Coryell was willing to pass on every down. His offense put pressure on the defense by giving receivers two or three different options as to when and where they could break off their route. Don Coryell didn’t invent the “route tree,” but was the one who first popularized it. In the words of John Jefferson, defenses “might have the proper coverage to stop that first route, but when we changed it, we had them beat.”
“They really were an interesting duo, Coryell and Fouts,” says Chargers historian Todd Tobias, who has written the only book on the “Air Coryell” Chargers to date. “Fouts was a no-BS kind of guy and though Coryell could be intense, he was one of the nicest people in the NFL. On the outside the two appeared to be polar opposites, but in reality they had such a respect and understand of each other that when it was coupled with their mutual talent and drive to succeed, it produced perhaps the most exciting offense the league has ever seen.”
Coryell’s offense had many moving parts, literally. Coryell expanded on those principles by putting receivers in motion. 1978 saw the NFL introduce the “Mel Blount Rule,” named after the Steelers cornerback. The rule meant that defenders could no longer touch receivers after they were five yards downfield. This was intended to make football more exciting, especially for television viewers. When the Knicks’ “ugly” defensive style came within a John Starks jumper of winning a title in pro basketball’s first year without Michael Jordan, the NBA made a similar rule change in 1995.
Putting the players in motion also had the advantage of allowing the quarterback to determine if the defense would be playing zone or man-to-man defense. Coryell would often cite Fouts’ intelligence as the reason he was able to make so many pre-snap reads.
“If I had a quarterback with different skills than Dan’s, I’d have to run a different offense. I’d be crazy not to. Danny’s a great reader. He’s good at finding his receivers. So this offense is ideal for him.” During his Hall of Fame induction speech, Fouts (who was presented by Coryell) put the credit back on his coach’s shoulders and reinforced his ability to tailor his offensive scheme to the strengths of his players.
“I am lucky to have played for a coach who could cut through all that coach speak and lay it out in the simplest of terms. You’d come over the sidelines in the crucial time out late in the game and the other assistant coaches would be saying, ‘well, you have to read the defense, throw it to x to z try to get it into the seam if not then you dump it off to the halfback and da’ da’ da’ da da.’ And, he’d grab me and he would shake me and say, ‘dammit, just throw it J.J. (John Jefferson).’ I would, he'd catch it first down and then we’d score.”
Many times, Jefferson would do more than catch it. He had 13 touchdowns during his 1978 rookie season, leading the league and setting a rookie record. “Air Coryell” could go deep from any place on the field. “J.J.” was an instant superstar. For many of those touchdowns, Jefferson himself was airborne. He could stretch his arms like a superhero while somehow keeping his feet in bounds. One-handed catches and hauling in deflections were standard for Jefferson. The protective goggles he wore only made him seem even more futuristic. When he appeared on the August 20, 1979 cover of SI, the caption was simply “The Touchdown Man.”
Jefferson’s acrobatic style couldn’t have been more different from the guy who threw him those touchdowns. If J.J. was from space, then Fouts was from the forest. After playing for the University of Oregon, he kept a ranch in the state and grew a beard that spilled out from beneath his chinstrap. His Bunyanesque appearance seemed even more exaggerated since all his jerseys were ripped at the collar as if the regular conventions of pro football couldn’t contain him. He even moved differently than other quarterbacks. After receiving the snap, he backpedaled rather than turning to his side to drop back for the pass. The contrast of his hulking frame retreating with almost a dancer’s gait was quite a sight. It almost looked like he was tiptoeing away from the defense.
But once he was in the pocket and safely behind his blockers, he became anything but delicate. Fouts always looked like he was throwing a deep pass even when he wasn’t. The ball looked like it must have weighed fifty pounds the way he heaved it. He brazenly told Sports Illustrated when they put Jefferson on the cover “We’re going to throw the ball and we don’t care who knows it.” He had good reason for his confidence in Coryell’s approach. In his first year coaching the team after Prothro’s resignation, the Chargers won seven of their final eight games. The only loss was when Fouts was sidelined by an ankle sprain. Their resulting 9-7 record represented their first winning season since 1969. That was back when Charlie Joiner came out of college. But after coming to the Chargers from the Bengals in 1976, Joiner sensed something special was happening. “This team never knew how to win. Coryell’s so intense that he just transmitted it to us.”
After Fouts and Jefferson’s breakout seasons, it felt like 1979 would be the one where the Chargers put everything together. Sports Illustrated may have put Jefferson on its cover, but in the accompanying story he couldn’t stop raving the team’s newest addition. He told the magazine that rookie tight end Kellen Winslow was the best player in the draft. He knew that first hand from having played against him when in college, but the addition of Winslow would also create more opportunities for Jefferson, Joiner, and the other Charger receivers. Winslow was so fast that Coryell already imagined lining him up as a receiver instead of tight end.
Coryell’s use of Winslow would become another trademark of the Charger offense. Before Winslow, tight ends were mainly blockers and ran primarily short routes on the few occasions that they were not. Winslow, who was big and fast as Jefferson recalled, was often put in motion with the receivers. All of these innovations created mismatches with smaller defenders. Today coaches and analysts talk about mismatches constantly. But this was far from the norm in 1979. Bill Belichick featured tight end Rob Gronkowski for years in New England, but admitted back in 2010 that all highly-paid receiving tight ends are really “direct descendants of Kellen Winslow.
Before a broken leg prematurely ended his season after seven weeks, Winslow proved he was every bit worthy of the hype. In a 31-9 win against the 49ers, Winslow moved as quickly as any running back even though he was 6’5 and 250 pounds, On one play he took a 27-yard dump-off pass and bobbed, weaved, and hurdled himself into the endzone. These were the plays that Belichick was referring to.
Another reason “Air Coryell” exploded in 1979 was because it was the first year that Joe Gibbs coached the offense. Gibbs was the first of Coryell’s assistants to eventually leapfrog his mentor into the Hall of Fame. The game where Winslow suffered his season-ending injury in Seattle left the Chargers with a 5-2 record. Fouts finished the Seahawks off that day with a 49-yard touchdown to Jefferson. This type of play was another Coryell trademark. Teams of the 1970s ran out the clock with running plays, not bombs into the end zone. One of the reasons teams stuck to the ground game to put the opposition away was to avoid letting their quarterbacks take big hits needlessly. But Fouts could take the punishment and his toughness inspired the rest of the team. When Sports Illustrated ran a feature in November on Fouts, Gibbs said “A team reacts to a quarterback in a situation like that. They’ll see him take a hit like that and say ‘Hey.’”
Fouts took that leadership role seriously. Sports Illustrated didn’t report it, but he wore a hat all week that said “MFIC,” Motherfucker In Charge. “It was comical, but that was also Fouts’ mentality, says Todd Tobias.” “He was the leader of the offense on the field and he demanded execution from his teammates.” Had I known at the time about the MFIC hat, I’m not sure I could have handled it. It was that cool. If I hadn’t seen evidence of it online, I might have thought it was just a legend.
As Kellen Winslow put it, with Dan Fouts in the huddle they believed they could do anything. He was the first quarterback ever to throw for 300 yards in four straight games in 1979. Beyond his toughness, his quick release often compensated for his immobility. He had incredible timing, which was especially important since he was often throwing it to a spot where the receiver could turn upfield after catching the pass. Nowadays, yards after catch (YAC) is recorded as one of many stats to gauge a receivers’ value. For Fouts, it was just another way to get the ball into the end zone as quickly as possible.
Charlie Joiner was ten years older than Jefferson, but you’d never have known it watching him. His Topps football card from 1979 (which rests in the box alongside the Nike poster and old game tapes) simply stated on the back that “Charlie is a stylish receiver with good hands and fine moves.” That was a massive understatement since he could dive, contort his body, and still hold onto the ball. His greatest quality, however, was that he always seemed come through in the clutch. When everything seemed to be breaking down and Fouts seemed to be out of options, “Old Man Charlie” was his “port in the storm.”
Coryell’s offense could never have functioned without good pass protection. Fortunately, Ed White and Russ Washington made the Pro Bowl that season blocking for Fouts. They were also strong while clearing lanes for Charger running backs. The Bolts were known for the pass, but were able to run between the tackles when they needed to. Buffalo double covered Jefferson in Week 3 and it was the only game of his career in which he didn’t catch a single pass. The Chargers rushed for 245 yards that day, with Clarence Williams racking up 155 of them. They also had the second-ranked defense that year with Wilbur Young, Lee Roy Jones, Fred Dean, and Gary “Big Hands” Johnson helping the team to lead the NFL in sacks. Looking at the footage today, it looks more like quarterback flings than sacks. The knock on the “Air Coryell” Chargers was always that they never had a defense, but the ’79 squad allowed the second-fewest points in the NFL. The ferocious pass rush helped two of their linebackers, Ray Preston and Woodrow Lowe, grab five interceptions apiece. Like their offensive counterparts, these guys played at a frenetic pace. Like the team’s receivers, intercepting players already running when they caught it. They were going full speed and no one went down for fear of fumbling. The pass rush from the front four got even them the nickname the “Bruise Brothers” and their own T-shirt. It was a black fist under a white bandage with all four fingers getting helmets and sunglasses. Louie Kelcher was injured in the season opener and replaced by Jones, otherwise the hand would have had to be bi-racial.
But the defense wasn’t what packed the stands that year. The shirt every fan in the stands wore was the gold “Charger Power” shirt with the helmet in the center. I was lucky enough to get one when my parents’ went on a trip to California. The strike-first offense was so ahead of its time that the team even had its own disco-fueled rally song, “San Diego Super Chargers.” San Diego in 1979 really looked like the city depicted in Anchorman. Looking at all the cowboy hats in the crowd, it was no surprise the fictitious Channel 4 sportscaster Champ Kind had one. Fouts his record setting fourth-straight 300 yard performance came against the hated Raiders, who sabotaged the Chargers’ playoff hopes the year before. To make matters worse, it was with one of the most bizarre plays in NFL history. The Chargers were up by six on the final play when Raider quarterback Ken Stabler was about to be sacked by Woodrow Lowe. Stabler attempted a forward (incomplete) pass to keep the play alive. Running back Pete Banaszak, knowing that falling on the ball would cause the clock to run out, batted it forward into the end zone, where tight end Dave Casper fell on it. The officials signaled for a touchdown as even the San Diego Chicken fell down in disbelief. The play would forever be known as the “Holy Roller.” Watching the 1977 broadcast, you can hear the announcers laughing as if there was no chance it would be ruled a touchdown by the referees. After all, there were two chances for the referees to throw the flag on Oakland. Afterwards, Stabler admitted that he had thrown the ball forward.
The Raiders would always be in the Chargers’ way. In Week 9, they gave the Bolts their only blowout loss of the year, 45-22. Things looked really bleak in Week 11, when they went down 14-0 at Cincinnati. But Fouts led a comeback that featured a 4th down and 20 completion to Charlie Joiner. The win against the Bengals led to a national television date the following week against the defending Super Bowl champion Steelers. The team was 8-3, but needed to beat Pittsburgh to prove they had truly arrived. As if the game couldn’t get any bigger, they got a huge emotional boost before kickoff. Kelcher, out for the year, brought out kicker Rolf Benirschke for the anthem and coin flip. Benirschke was five weeks removed from a life-saving surgery. Originally injured on a late hit from Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes, Benirschke had suffered three broken ribs. He miraculously kicked the following week, but was told he needed emergency surgery for Crohn’s disease. After having 10 inches of his large intestine removed, doctors discovered that he was actually suffering from ulcerative colitis. He had most of his colon removed in a second surgery as a result. For the kickoff, a frail Benrishcke who had shrunk to 123 pounds, had to be practically carried to midfield. Kelcher held his hand, but had told the kicker in private he’d pick him up if needed. The roar from the crowd was so intense it seemed impossible for the Chargers to lose that day.
“The image of an emaciated Benirschke and massive Kelcher walking off the field holding hands after the coin toss was something of a rallying point for the team and the city,” recalls Tobias. “It told people that this was a team in every sense of the word, and San Diego loved that. And that both guys were such wonderful characters didn’t hurt either.”
On this day, they did not disappoint. If you were watching the game in your living room back in New York, you only noticed that the score was 35-7. But it was the defense that beat Pittsburgh, as the Chargers forced eight turnovers. Special teams ace and short yardage specialist running back Hank Bauer hurtled himself into the end zone for one of his eight touchdowns on the year for the final score.
In order to make the playoffs for the first time since the 1960s, the Chargers needed to beat the Broncos on Monday Night Football. They rose to the occasion as Fouts broke the yardage record for a single-season set by Joe Namath. On touchdown pass to Charlie Joiner that set the mark, you can hear the classic booth of Howard Cosell, Don Meredith and Frank Gifford exclaiming what an amazing accomplishment it was. Fouts’ passed for 4,082 yards and Charlie Joiner and Jefferson each had 1,000 yards of them. Jack Murphy Stadium went bananas as the Chargers won the AFC West. Howard Cosell shouted “Oh the fans!” as only he could, whil Charger owner Gene Klein, decked out in a letterman jacket and “Charger Power” T-Shirt, walked off the field with Don Coryell.
This was the kind of football I wanted to play at recess. The rush-heavy style of the Steelers and Cowboys required blocking and running plays, anyway. As Fouts put it, “The first thing in our offense was always the bomb. It was built into almost every pass play, where the quarterback initially looks for that chance to hit the big one. And I think if you start with that premise and then work your way back toward the line of scrimmage, that's the Air Coryell offense."
At 12-4, the Chargers had the best record in the NFL and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Their first opponent was the Wild Card-winning Houston Oilers. The Oilers were without their starting quarterback Dan Pastorini and future Hall Of Fame running back Earl Campbell due to injuries. As a result, the Bolts were installed as 8-point favorites for the December 28th game.
In a Sports Illustrated article the week after, “The Stolen Signals Caper,” legendary writer Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman outlined how the Oilers were able to decipher the Chargers’ offensive plays to pull off the upset. This wasn’t based on anonymous “sources,” nor was it even against the rules at the time. As the article stated, they stole them fair and square. Oilers defensive coordinator Eddie Biles first discovered that the plays were first phoned down from the Chargers’ press box from coordinator Joe Gibbs. Then Coryell or Jim Hanifan, his trusted assistant from his Cardinal days, would use hand signals to relay the play to Fouts. Oilers’ Head Coach Earl “Bum” Phillips had his son (and future head coach) Wade, simply focus his binoculars on Hanifan from his perch in the Oilers press box and relay the play to middle linebacker Gregg Bingham.
“Everybody didn’t know,” Bingham said. “I was the only one who knew. It just told me what defense to put us into. It’s not the kind of thing you want everybody knowing, or pretty soon the Chargers are going to figure out what’s happening. My job was to put us into the right defense--I guess you’d say the perfect defense.”
Coryell and Fouts played down the signal-stealing after the loss, but the statistics speak for themselves. Fouts threw five interceptions that day as safety Vernon Perry, signed out of the Canadian Football League before the season, snagged four of them. Perry had three interceptions the entire regular season. It didn’t help that Fouts never really changed the plays called in from the sideline. Then again, why would he since they had made him the AFC’s Player of the Year? But Coryell’s plays had him throwing balls into double coverage constantly against Houston. The broadcast footage reveals that Perry and Co. were often waiting for the ball to arrive. The Oilers, who would lose to the Steelers the following week, had pulled off the greatest upsets in recent history according to NBC color man Merlin Olsen. To make matters even worse, he referred to the “Oilers” as the “Raiders” at first. Sadly, that upset was a year away as the same Steeler team the Chargers had blown out won their fourth Super Bowl of the decade.
To their credit, Coryell and the Chargers dusted themselves off for the 1980 campaign. That may have been Bolts’ best shot to win it all, with a formidable defense to accompany “Air Coryell.” Louie Kelcher returned to the lineup and made the Pro Bowl alongside Fred Dean and Gary Johnson. Never before had three defensive linemen been named Pro Bowl starters and the team led the NFL with 60 sacks. Johnson racked up 17 ½ on his own. The man they called “Big Hands” would later reveal that owner Gene Klein had received a death threat after Johnson knocked Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski out of the Philadelphia game. The Charger owner later admitted to Johnson that the call came in during the first half, but Klein didn’t want to tell him during such a dominant performance. The death threat isn’t quite so surprising if you’ve ever met an Eagles fan, but Johnson later found the lug nuts on his tires loosened later that season. The Chargers’ fourth defensive lineman, Leroy Jones, had 11 sacks and made the Pro Bowl as an alternate. Still, it was that offense that grabbed the spotlight for the Chargers. In the words of NFL Films’ John Facenda, nicknamed “The Voice Of God” for his dramatic delivery, the team had “The Power.” His narration opened the Chargers’ official highlight film of that season:
Deep in the canyon of Mission Valley there lies the most potent source of strength in professional football. For here reside the San Diego Chargers, possessors of “The Power.”
“The Power” made the 1980 San Diego Chargers the most productive team in NFL history. San Diego gained more yards than anyone else while fielding a defensive unit that reduced opponents to rubble. The Chargers were football’s most talented squad, sending more players to the Pro Bowl than any other team. San Diego was also the first club to average 400 yards a game in a dozen years. They were the only NFL team to repeat as a division champ and they came within an eyelash of going to the Super Bowl. To gaze at the Chargers is to look at pro football’s future. For Don Coryell any time is the right time to put the ball in flight.
The soundtrack then gave way to techno sounds that seemed more appropriate for the move The Warriors, released the previous year. The beeps and boops highlighted the futuristic nature of the Charger offense, but the clips did that all on their own. In Week 2 at home against the Raiders, John Jefferson caught a four yard touchdown to give the Bolts the lead. It remains one of the greatest catches ever. He leaped toward the back of the end zone, caught the ball with one outstretched hand, while somehow keeping both feet in bounds. He ended the game in overtime with an almost as iconic reception. Jefferson out-leaped Lester Hayes, who led the NFL in interceptions that year. Jefferson landed at about the Oakland 3-yard line as Hayes just stood over him in disbelief. He was so stunned that he had taken the ball away that “J.J” rolled untouched into the end zone, giving San Diego a 30-24 win. Jefferson led the NFL in receiving yards and touchdowns that season while Hayes won Defensive Player of the Year. His hands were also covered with “Stickum,” an adhesive that Raider wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff had first made famous in 1977. Like the Oilers signal stealing, and the Raiders’ own “Holy Roller” play, the substance was legal in 1980. However, the NFL outlawed it the following season and Hayes’ interception total fell tremendously.
That season Jefferson, Joiner, and a now-healthy Winslow, became the first two receiver/tight end trio to gain 1,000 yards in the same season. Fouts went on to shatter his own NFL record from the previous year. The Chargers were already 4-0 record when they added running back Chuck Muncie in a trade. He had rushed for almost 1,200 yards with the Saints the year before, but was dogged by rumors of cocaine use. According to New Orleans quarterback Archie Manning, Muncie slept through the meetings that he even bothered to attend. The fact that his nose was taped under his thick Henry Kissinger-style glasses didn’t exactly put the drug rumors to rest. But Gene Klein and Don Coryell thought that taking him from a winless team to undefeated one might work out for both the club and the player. It most certainly did. Once Muncie was acquired, the offense started using a single set formation with him the backfield alone behind Fouts. Now when defenses used extra defensive backs to stop the pass, the offense could counter with the run. Joe Gibbs later suggested that this was "the evolution of the one-back offense."
The threat of Muncie, with his signature giant bar running down the front of his helmet, opened up opportunities for Fouts’ other weapons. Like Winslow, Muncie was surprisingly fast for a guy that big. He could run by you, but often seemed like he was running right over you. Besides his off-field issues, the only flaw in Muncie’s game was his propensity for fumbling. In his first game against the Bills, he coughed up the ball on the goal line as NBC had “cut away for bonus coverage from your locally televised game.” If you were watching the Jets in your parents’ living room with the hope of seeing your now-favorite team on TV, you were horrified to see them lose in such heartbreaking fashion but suspected that this might be part of a pattern. This was not one of the games later preserved on video cassette for my personal archive.
After a second straight loss, the Chargers took on the struggling Giants. This was the game that hooked me on the team. The passing game I saw on my TV mesmerized me the way people recall seeing Elvis or The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Dan Fouts passed for 444 yards and it was the first time in NFL history that 2 wideouts and a tight end (Jefferson, Joiner, and Winslow) went over 100 yards in the same game. Every time Fouts dropped back and pump faked, announcers Hank Stram and Lindsey Nelson would shout in anticipation. Just like the Monday Night crew, (or Dick Enberg, Bob Trumpy, Don Criqui, and Curt Gowdy from NBC) they knew something exciting was about to happen. “Here it goes!” they’d shout as Fouts went deep once again.
The Chargers beat the Giants 44-7, but it the last touchdown that was the most memorable. After making the catch, backup receiver John Floyd escaped for a 31-yard touchdown while both Giants defenders ran into each other. I knew I had to follow this team to the end, wherever that was.
Once again, the season came down to the last game on Monday Night Football, this time against the Steelers. Chuck Muncie gouged “the Steel Curtain” defense for 115 yards, more than any running back that season. Rolf Benirschke, who had valiantly returned to the lineup that season, hit 4 field goals and the Chargers won the AFC West again. They were set for a rematch with the Bills, who also won 11 games that year. Fortunately, the Chargers were the top playoff seed, due to the NFL’s intricate and often perplexing tiebreaker system. Instead of travelling to Buffalo, they would play at home and would continue to do so as long as they won. However, after the loss Houston the previous year, there was still reason for concern.
By halftime, it seemed like those fears would be realized as the Chargers were down 14-3. Fortunately, Chuck Muncie atoned for his fumble during the regular season and rushed for 114 yards and his touchdown cut the lead to 4 in the second half. After a Benirschke field goal, Dan Fouts found another backup receiver, Ron Smith, who had only one catch all year, for a 50-yard touchdown. The Chargers had already turned the ball over twice before in the quarter, so Smith’s touchdown felt more like relief that victory. As the Washington Post reported:
“After these three failures, and with time running out on the Chargers' first playoff victory in 18 seasons, with San Diego Stadium rocking to the roar-pleadings of 52,028 Super-Charged Fans (as they call themselves) -- with victory again available, but under the severest pressures, Fouts threw his 37th pass of the day, a smoking strike flying 120 feet into Smith's mitts at the 20-yard line.”
Once he reached the end zone, the entire team smothered Smith even though there were still four minutes to play. It felt like the Chargers had finally shrugged off their demons. “Air Coryell” kept firing bullets, even in the darkest of moments (possibly of their own making). A final interception sealed the game and Chuck Muncie appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with 2 Bills trying to tackle him while the other tried to rip the ball out of his hands.
The Chargers had won their first playoff game since their AFL days. They were four quarters from their first Super Bowl, but still needed to get past the Raiders. Oakland owner Al Davis had been an assistant on the Chargers during their first year in Los Angeles, and in a Darth Vader-like conversion went on to become their biggest enemy. In the early 1970s, Charger coach Harland Svare reportedly once shook his first towards the ceiling of their locker room, since he was convinced Davis was bugging him. Gene Klein would even suffer a heart attack on the witness stand during the NFL’s antitrust suit against Davis for trying to move the team to Los Angeles in 1982.
All the bad blood between the two teams made the loss in the 1980 AFC Championship an even more bitter to swallow. The Raiders scored their first touchdown when Jim Plunkett’s pass went through the hands of his intended receiver right into the hands of Raymond Chester, who raced 65 yards for a touchdown. Fouts responded with a 48-yarder to Joiner, but the Chargers would never take the lead that day. They were down 28-7 on their own field. But by 6:04 left in the third quarter, they had scored three straight touchdowns to cut the deficit to 28-24. Oakland linebacker Ted Hendricks would reluctantly admit after the game that “there was some terror in my heart.”
But the Raiders then killed the clock and the Chargers’ Super Bowl dreams with three drives that produced only three points but lasted more than 16 minutes. The last one, which lasted 6:52, had 12 runs and only one pass. After two kneel-downs by Plunkett, it was all over. Dan Fouts had been forced to helplessly stand on the sideline for the entire drive with his jacket wrapped around his shoulders. Powerless to use his rocket right arm, he could only scream to his defense to give him just “one more chance” while the Raiders marched down the field.
In the words of Gary Johnson, “Our ’79 and ’80 teams were probably the best in San Diego history,” he said. “We were eliminated by the Oilers in ’79 and the Raiders in ’80. It shouldn’t have happened either time.”
The Raiders would go on that season to defeat the same Eagles team the Chargers beat during the regular season, in the Super Bowl. They were the first Wild Card team to win a world championship. The Chargers, who seemed ready to take the torch from the Steelers a year ago and begin their own dynasty, had once again come up short.
For the 1981 season, Sports Illustrated put Super Bowl MVP Jim Plunkett on the cover of its annual preview issue. Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman, who had cited the AFC Championship as a testament to “the character of the Raiders,” suggested that there was talk around the NFL that maybe the Bolts were simply too soft to win it all.
“And there's also what one rival AFC coach calls ‘a lack of toughness. They like to do things the easy way.’” Stay close to them in the fourth quarter and they can be had." The Chargers' fourth-quarter record last year, not counting ties, was 4-7, and they were outscored 77-52. This was a knock on the defense, more than Coryell’s offense. No one would be accusing the Chargers of scoring too quickly if the defense could hold a lead. In 1981, they signed ex-Washington Head Coach Jack Pardee to try to fix the defense. Ironically, Pardee’s departure from DC paved the way for Joe Gibbs to become the coach of the Redskins.
The NFL Network began their “America’s Game” series in 2006, which gave each Super Bowl Champion their own hour-long film with narration from the likes of Gene Hackman, Martin Sheen, and Ed Harris. By 2008, they launched a “Missing Rings” series that profiled the five best teams to never win the Super Bowl. Sadly and metaphorically, the 1981 Chargers got to be the first episode in the spin-off series.
Dan Fouts, Hank Bauer, and Kellen Winslow were interviewed as Tom Selleck told the story of the team. But the special was really about the legacy of “Air Coryell” more than just the 1981 squad.
That season, both Fred Dean and John Jefferson held out and Gene Klein had no interest in negotiating with either. On a lighter note, “Missing Rings” allowed Kellen Winslow to recall his role in the “Hi-Five,” the singing group formed by himself Leroy Jones, Charles DeJurnett, Jefferson, and Dean. Their double entendre-tinged single “Let’s Go All The Way” can still be found on YouTube and some of the 15,000 copies of the album “The Other Side Of Us” can be picked up on eBay. The cover features the five players in tuxedos posing in front of a stadium with a lightning bolt coming down from the sky. A woman in tuxedo tails and stockings sits behind them in the right corner. Despite the name of the single, the Chargers sadly did not go all the way. Jefferson and Dean were traded during the ’81 season. Even more amazingly, Jefferson was out promoting the group when his agent called to tell him he had been officially dealt to Green Bay.
“We hope John can get away from Green Bay during the off-season to continue our group,” Leroy Jones told a local radio station. Needless to say, the reunion never happened. But the Chargers were able to acquire receiver Wes Chandler in a trade in Week 4. Like Muncie, he was rescued from the Saints. “I think we’ve got the two best players New Orleans ever had,” Gene Klein said after the deal. Saints coach Bum Phillips, whose Oilers had broken Charger fans hearts two seasons before, was the one who advised Chandler to take the trade and join “Air Coryell.” Wes Chandler may have been even better Charger than John Jefferson. Fouts thought so after their first practice together. Chandler caught 857 yards and five touchdowns in his 12 games that season.
However, the Chargers couldn’t replace Fred Dean, who had been dealt to San Francisco. Without him, the defense dropped to 26th overall, despite Pardee’s best efforts. Only Gary Johnson made the Pro Bowl from that squad. Dean would win the Super Bowl that year with the 49ers. Bill Walsh’s “West Coast Offense,” with Joe Montana at the helm, took many of the Coryell principles but stressed short slant patterns over the long ball. Dean would win a second Super Bowl in 1984 with Johnson at his side in San Francisco and was later inducted in the Hall of Fame. Walsh coached the 49ers to three world championships and got in the same year as Fouts, 1993.
The ’81 Chargers may have been short on defense, but the suggestion that they lacked toughness was baseless for this squad. They proved to be anything but soft. Their highlight film from the year (still in my collection) was appropriately titled “Cliffhangers, Comebacks, And Character.” They started 6-3, but the defense surrendered 83 points in consecutive games. The first loss was against Cincinnati and gave the Bengals the home-field tiebreaker should the teams meet again in January. This would, of course, be crucial later on. However, the Chargers had to immediately travel to Oakland for a rematch with the Raiders. It didn’t erase the previous year’s loss, but the 55-21 win sure felt good. Kellen Winslow caught 5 touchdown passes. He seemed to be angrily shrugging off tacklers all day and the victory sparked a five game winning streak to end the season.
The also offense featured a new wrinkle with rookie running back James Brooks out of Auburn. He was the perfect complement to Chuck Muncie, only smaller and faster. He could run, catch and was even a threat to throw on an option play, just like Muncie.
Even though his goal line touches had been taken by these two running backs, Hank Bauer remained a fan favorite and set an NFL record with 52 special teams tackles in 1981. Fouts hit career highs in touchdowns with 33 and broke his own record for the third straight season with 4,802 yards.
The 1981 Chargers are also famous for playing in two playoff games so legendary that they got their own nicknames. The first, “The Epic In Miami,” is often referred to as the greatest game ever played. Even as fans raved about the heart-stopping divisional games this year, the game against the Dolphins got more than a few shout outs from those old enough to remember it. It was that exciting, but if you were an 11 year-old watching it on TV, you were only concerned that the Chargers didn’t blow a big lead. The Bolts were a slight two-point favorite, even though Miami had the home field advantage. The Chargers came out hot as Fouts hit Chandler on a 47-yard touchdown on the opening drive. Chandler also returned a punt for a 56-yard touchdown. By the time Chuck Muncie scored from a yard out and Brooks caught an 8-yard touchdown pass, the Chargers were up 24 points in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, however, Dolphins Don Shula pulled starting quarterback David Woodley. Backup Don Strock pulled the Dolphins to within 14 points when they reached the Charger 40 with six seconds left in the half. All the defense needed to do was keep them out of the end zone and they would have a reasonably comfortable lead going into the locker room. But Miami pulled off one of the all-time surprise plays when Strock threw short to receiver Duriel Harris. As the Charger defenders converged, he lateraled it to the streaking running back Tony Nathan. Nathan ran 29 yards into the end zone as time expired. The image of him mockingly holding up the ball as during the “hook and ladder” play ensured that the Dolphins had all the momentum going into the locker room.
To their credit, the Chargers never backed down even as it seemed like it was all slipping away again. The game went back and forth in the second half and Nathan’s 12-yard touchdown gave Miami its first lead as the fourth quarter began. With the Dolphins up by 7 and on the Charger 18 yard-line, Louie Kelcher forced a fumble with 4:39 left. Joiner and Chandler both went over 100 yards that day and Kellen Winslow’s performance was nothing short of legendary as he amassed 166 yards. But it was a pass that was overthrown to him and landed in the arms of James Brooks in the corner of the end zone which allowed the Chargers to tie it up with only 58 seconds to go.
The Dolphins were still able to drive for a shot at the winning field goal. By his point, Kellen Winslow’s jersey was almost completely brown and was gasping for air on the sideline due to exhaustion and cramps. At 76 degrees with 80% humidity in the Orange Bowl, this was no surprise. But when Winslow hobbled out to block the Dolphins’ field goal attempt with only his right pinkie, the game officially went into “epic” status. As overtime approached, Winslow lay on the turf and had to be carried off. He would miraculously return to the game.
The Chargers got the ball first with a chance to win, under the NFL’s old overtime rules. But Benirschke missed a 29-yard field goal even though hadn’t from that distance all year. When the Dolphins got a second shot to win again later in overtime, it was Leroy Jones who blocked it. The Chargers got the ball back and marched down the field in an attempt to finally end the game. A 39-yard catch from Fouts’ “port in the storm” Charlie Joiner set up Benirschke for one more shot. With only 1:08 left in overtime, he made the kick. The image of Kellen Winslow with a towel draped over his head and his arms around two teammates as he hobbled off the field would forever be etched in NFL lore.
When it was all over, the Chargers once again felt more relief than victory. Sadly, their reward for surviving the “Epic In Miami” was a date in “The Freezer Bowl” in Cincinnati. The famous 1967 Cowboys/Packers championship already got the “Ice Bowl” moniker thanks to Green Bay’s -15 degree temperature that day. However, it was even colder for the 1981 AFC Championship game. The thermometer read -9, but the wind chill had the temperature at anywhere from -38 to -59 degrees. There was talk of postponing the game, but NFL decided against it. The Bengals had the home-field based on their regular season win against the Chargers and there was nothing the Bolts could do about it.
Both teams had to play in the barbaric conditions. The Chargers were just the team most affected by it. Dan Fouts could not feel the ball all day and his passes were even more wobbly than usual. He, like many Charger players, still claim to experience frostbite symptoms to this day. The Bolts were down 10-0 in the first quarter and never led, just like the previous year’s conference championship game. Kellen Winslow caught a 33-yard touchdown, but the Chargers would not score again all day. The Bengals 27-7 win, with Dan Fouts’ beard sprouting actual icicles, was the final nail in “Air Coryell’s” coffin. Hank Bauer revealed in the “Missing Rings” video that the team was also stuck for over three hours at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International airport as they tried to de-ice the Chargers’ plane afterwards. It was Sunday, with blue laws in full affect, as the team was forced to endure even more humiliation without any alcohol to dull the pain.
As Bauer later said, “You beat us. You’re going to the Super Bowl. But don’t keep us prisoner, please.”
Winslow added that after the “Freezer Bowl,” the Chargers had “run the cycle of having opportunity to win the big one.” In the strike-shortened season of 1982, as Wes Chandler had one of the greatest seasons ever for a receiver. He gained over 1,000 yards in only 9 games and racked up 260 in a December win over the Bengals. Sadly, the Bolts had a habit of beating teams they had lost to in the playoffs during the following regular season. They also beat the defending Super Bowl Champion 49ers in a shootout, 41-37. Fouts got the better of Joe Montana as Chandler made the single greatest catch I have ever seen as he hauled in a deflected ball while being dragged to the turf. Fouts won the Associated Press’ Offensive Player of the Year award in 1982, but the season represented the last time “Air Coryell” would reach the postseason.
The Chargers met the Steelers in the playoffs in Pittsburgh. All seemed lost when Fouts threw an interception in the end zone to Mel Blount, the namesake of the rule-change that had helped start “Air Coryell.” As John Facenda sadly stated in the highlight film from the game the Chargers might “once again find a way to lose the big one.” Fortunately, a Steeler penalty negated the turnover and the Chargers came back to win. Chuck Muncie got his second Sports Illustrated cover and the Chargers had a rematch in Miami. However, the Dolphins had assembled a great defense in the year since the “Epic,” while the San Diego defense had only gotten worse. The Dolphins jumped out to a 24-0 lead this time and the Chargers went on to lose 34-13. It was end of an era.
In 1986 team started 1-7 and Don Coryell was fired by new owner Alex Spanos. Sadly, the only time I got to see my heroes play in person was at the first of the seven straight losses. I sat with my dad in the upper deck of Giants stadium as the Chargers lost 20-7. The Giants, the team I had watched the Bolts destroy six years earlier, went on to win their first Super Bowl that season. Dan Fouts had his nose broken a few weeks later by Sean Jones of the Raiders, but continued to play with it taped up and blood all over his jersey. The “Missing Rings” video further revealed that losing wore on both him and Winslow. In the days before players were regularly “Mic’d up,” Fouts can be seen blasting his tight end for “tip-toeing like a motherfucker” (not “in charge,” we can only assume) and telling him “you’re out of here!”
No member of the “Air Coryell” offense would ever get to play in a Super Bowl, even with another team. When Fouts was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, he was the first quarterback to be enshrined without having played in a league championship game. He used his speech as a platform to not only urge the Hall to admit other such players, but also to induct the coach who saved his career.
“To me the Hall of Fame is about influence on and contribution to the game of pro football. I was lucky enough to play for and with such worthy individuals. There’s no coach that has had as big an influence on how offensive football is played today as has Don Coryell. The offense that became known as “Air Coryell” led the NFL in passing seven of eight years in a row. That statistical fact is unparalleled in the history of the game. You can look it up. And, all you have to do is tune into CBS any Sunday and you will see multiple formations, substitutions, shifting, flexing, men in motion and a strike-first attitude that Don Coryell made a routine part of the greatest passing offense in the history of football. Fouts hasn’t stopped trying to lobby for his old coach since his own induction.
Sports Illustrated’s Clark Judge, also a Hall of Fame selector, has also been keeping up the fight. As he points out, when the Hall announced it would continue a separate coaches’ category from 2021-24, with one candidate per year, it seemed like it boded well for Coryell. Madden, Gibbs, and Walsh (whose “West Coast offense used a lot of Coryell’s principles to win 3 Super Bowls) were already in. He was passed over in 2021 for Raiders’ coach Tom Flores and lost out this year to Dick Vermeil. Vermeil was a great coach, but his one Super Bowl title was as much due to Kurt Warner as it was his coaching and I’m not just citing the American Underdog movie. Mike Martz, Vermeil’s offensive coordinator that year, called Coryell “the father of the modern passing game.” "He had that Midas touch. Wherever he went, they just became explosive, like nothing anybody had ever seen. And it did eventually get the conservatism out of people. And they started to change. They started to embrace the passing game." Vermeil added “In the offense we won the Super Bowl with in 1999, “he foundation was Don Coryell. The route philosophies, the passing game … everything stemmed from the founder, Don Coryell. The genius.”
When Judge interviewed Wes Chandler last year, Chandler said his “heart bleeds” every day that Coryell isn’t in the Hall of Fame. True, never won a Lombardi Trophy, or even made it to the Super Bowl, but as Judge pointed out, George Allen is in the Hall with a worst playoff record than Coryell. He reached the Super Bowl just once and emerged with a loss. Don Coryell changed the game forever, even without a championship. If a man with his legacy can’t get into Canton, then what’s the point of having a Hall of Fame? The selection committee has two more years “on the clock” to make the right decision. Unfortunately, it seems like it is willing to let time run out.
Postscript:
Dan Fouts would say of “Air Coryell” that “We'll be judged for our failures, but also by our entertainment value. People remember us. People remember the San Diego Chargers as a team they enjoyed watching.” Having led a team that became famous on television, it is fitting that he has been involved in broadcasting since 1988. He still receives royalty checks for his cameo in The Waterboy.
Kellen Winslow was just named as one of five tight ends on the NFL’s 100 year all-time anniversary team. Like Fouts, he played his entire career with the Chargers and was also inducted into the Hall of Fame. In 2018, he filed a class action suit with the California Insurance Guarantee Association for his own “cognitive and behavioral disorders.”
John Jefferson reached one Pro Bowl with the Packers but was sadly out of football by 1985. Anyone who watched him play for the Chargers, will still tell you me might have been the best receiver there ever was.
Wes Chandler was the only other player to rival that assertion. Like Coryell, he’s been overlooked for the Hall of Fame himself, but it’s the mistreatment of his coach that upsets him the most. “Is it simply because he did not get this team to the Super Bowl?” Chandler asked Clark Judge last year. ”Is that what it’s really based on? Or the impact you had on the game?”
The San Diego Chargers finally reached the Super Bowl in 1994, but were blown out by the “West Coast offense” (another Coryell creation) of the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners were later found guilty of salary cap circumvention for their short-term signings of Ken Norton, Jr, former Charger Gary Plummer, and Deion Sanders to form their “super team.” The only Charger team to reach the Super Bowl is also notable for having eight of its players die in unusual circumstances. The franchise, now back in Los Angeles, is still looking for its first Super Bowl championship.
Ross Warner never stopped rooting for the Chargers and at least got to see firsthand as Seau led the team in a mammoth upset in Pittsburgh for the 1994 AFC Championship. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s special exhibit for fans in 2001. He gave his speech in Canton in his Dan Fouts jersey and the story became part of his first book, Drunk On Sunday. The “Bombs Away” poster is finally in the frame it so richly deserved all along.
Sources:
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1989. Wow. Tomorrow night we’ll see if DC is in HOF
At least you got the Bombs Away poster. All I had was this until 1994.