Pope: ‘Old man’ Morrall tunes hearing aid as Dolphins don’t miss a beat to rout Chargers | Opinion
Bill Stanfill had his head down, wagging it sadly and muttering “... that tragic thing about Bob Griese ...”
Then the Dolphin defensive end snapped his head up and grinned.
“Hard to find much good to say when a quarterback like Griese gets hurt so bad. But at least my next-door neighbor Earl Morrall got a shot.
“The first time Morrall came out of the game after going in for Griese, I told him, ‘Old man, get those cataracts in motion and turn up your hearing aid, and let’s go!’
Morrall did. He had started as a professional quarterback in 1956 when Griese was an 11-year-old grade-schooler. He was just a stand-in for the Dolphins until Griese went out of Sunday’s game at precisely 1:30 p.m., possibly lost for the season with a broken bone in his right leg and a dislocated right ankle.
Ol’ Earl, who’ll turn 39 in May, shot touchdown darts of 18 yards to Howard Twilley and 19 yards to Paul Warfield.
Thus, the Dolphins retained the only perfect record in the National Football League with a 24-10 rout of San Diego. And next Sunday they play relatively weak Buffalo in the Orange Bowl.
The Dolphins dressing room was threaded with confused emotion.
A layer of melancholia over All-Pro Griese’s injury hung in the sweaty air. But it had to share that air with the Dolphins’ confidence in Morrall.
Including Morrall’s own confidence.
“I’ve been coming off the bench for a long time,” Morrall said. “Off and on for 16 years. Detroit, Pittsburgh, the New York Giants, Baltimore. Now the Dolphins. You get used to it, like a relief pitcher.
“I didn’t say anything special to the guys when I stepped into the huddle. It shook me up when I saw Griese lying on the turf so still, but I knew I had my own job to do. I just said, ‘OK, let’s get it together, let’s keep it going.’”
Twilley, a catching hero for the straight straight game, was astonished at Morrall’s matter-of-fact attitude when the quarterback first stepped into the huddle.
“Earl’s confidence was so strong you almost felt you could touch it,” Twilley said. “He took over like nothing had happened.”
Warfield, who collected his first touchdown pass of the season, was concerned with but not devastated by Griese’s injury. “It’s an awful thing to happen to a fine player like Bob. There’ll be a slight difference with him out, but not a significant adjustment for any of us to make. The record shows what Morrall can do.
“Life goes on. I got hurt in 1970 and Karl Noonan stepped in and did a great job in my place and we made the playoffs. Last year Pittsburgh had us down 21-3 and we still came back to win. You have to face adversity. The ability to do that is the essence of a good team,” Warfield said.
Coach Don Shula said flatly, “All the good things that happened in this game are reduced by what happened to Griese.”
Moments later Shula was adding, “My hat’s off to Morrall. Don’t forget he quarterbacked more victories in one season than anyone ever has. That was in 1968 when we were both in Baltimore, and we won 15 games on the way to Super Bowl III.”
Shula said he would activate Jim Del Gaizo, second-year man from Tampa, off the taxi squad. “And Marlin Briscoe, the wide receiver, played quarterback at Denver. We’ll go that way and hope Griese can come back to help us before the season ends.”
Morrall hardly steps in as a green hand, although he was unimpressive in the preseason and was not considered even close to Griese in current ability.
“We brought Earl in for insurance and it’s a good thing we did,” Shula said.
In 16 years Morrall had thrown 144 touchdown passes and whipped the ball for more than 18,000 yards.
Now he’s thrown 146 TDs and will get a lot of chances to throw a lot more.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 1:00 AM.
