Larry Csonka, ’72 Dolphins have little sympathy for the Colts — a familiar foe
A saddened Baltimorean, all too obviously yearning for the glorious days of old, stopped by Larry Csonka’s locker late Sunday. “Didn’t you feel a sort of compassion for the Colts out there when the score got to be 23-0?” he asked.
Csonka stared at the man. “I’ve got a couple of questions for you,” the fullback said. “Have you ever been hit by Mike Curtis or Ted Hendricks? Did they show compassion for us in 1970 when it was 35-0 and last year when it was 14-3?”
By then, Csonka’s wistful interrogator was trying to duck away. But Csonka was in full conversational stride. He recaptured his man with another small fit of oratory.
“If those guys had been hit by a car and were lying on the street, sure I’d help them, I’d feel compassion for them. But there’s no way I’m going to feel it on a football field.
“Now, 23-0, that’s a nice feeling, but it’s not compassion.”
Truly Csonka hadn’t looked awfully compassionate, swamping the now 1-6 Colts for 93 yards and barely missing the 10th 100-yards-plus game of his five-year pro career.
“Heck, I wanted to go back in there at the end when I knew I had 93 yards and we were safe with our seventh straight win. But Don Shula just looked at me and said, ‘They’d cut my head off if I let you go back in now and you got hurt.’”
Csonka scored the Dolphins’ first two touchdowns on bursts of two yards and a yard. Neither seemed to require any prodigious effort.
“The line was blowing them to kingdom come,” he said. “On the first TD, Doug Crusan picked off Curtis, the linebacker, and Jim Kiick was one-on-one against another linebacker, and you know Jim got him.”
Did Csonka have any special feeling, scoring the Dolphins’ first touchdown here after a span of 130 minutes and 37 seconds going back to 1970? “Well,” he shrugged, “I never said I was fast.”
He’s fast enought. So are Kiick and Mercury Morris, who scored the other Dolphin touchdown. So is the Dolphin defense that set up the second and third touchdowns on Curtis Johnson’s punt block and Lloyd Mumphord’s block of Borys Shlapak’s field-goal attempt and his subsequent recovery.
That gave the Dolphin defense 10 straight scoreless quarters against Baltimore. The record stretches back even into the 14-3 defeat here last year (when the Colts did not score in the second half) and through the 21-0 whitewashing inflicted upon Baltimore in the American Conference championship last Jan. 2.
Those defenders looked every ounce the part of shutout-pitchers.
“[Defensive end Vern] Den Herder is playing spectacular football, and I don’t know whether people really realize it,” said linebacker Nick Buoniconti, who despite his deflection of credit was again the Dolphin leader.
Buoniconti agreed with San Diego defensive end Deacon Jones, who recently attributed much of the Dolphin success to their special teams.
“Those punt blocks and field-goal blocks aren’t accidents,” Buoniconti said. “Mumphord and Johnson are so fast. And we have Maulty Moore in the middle against kicks. Maulty is so strong, he doesn’t lift weights, he lifts the whole weight machine.”
However, the Dolphins’ regular defense stopped the Colts with 114 yards rushing. “That’s the key to their ball-control game just like ours,” Buoniconti said. “Maneuver them into second-and-8 or second-and-9 and you’ve got ‘em.”
Earl Morrall didn’t get into many second-and-8s or second-and-9s in operating the Dolphin offense almost flawlessly for the third game since Bob Griese was hurt. Morrall’s 9-for-15 passing shored up his figures to 24 for 36 for a 66 percent completion average. You are welcome to look for any other 38-year-old with similar numbers, or any quarterback of any age for that matter.
Morrall spent as much time shaking hands with old Baltimore pals as he did answering questions. He had spent four seasons here before the Dolphins picked him and his estimated $70,000 salary up for the $100 waiver price this summer.
“I’ve had pretty good success in here as a visiting quarterback, too,” Morrall said. He reflected upon his travels with San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit and the New York Giants before joining Baltimore. “I think this is the 10th or 11th time I’ve been in this stadium against the Colts, and I can’t remember exactly, but the record’s not bad.”
Morrall laughed at the suggestion that he was getting greedy going for a fourth-quarter touchdown on a pass intercepted by Ray May.
“No, not greedy. We had third-and-long [21 yards], and I figured I had to go for it. Fact is, that was one of the best passes I threw all day. I just didn’t see May coming up to pick it off.”
Another old friend approached Morrall with a Colt tiepin in hand. “This is yours, Earl,” he said. “Remember loaning it to me?”
“Yeah,” replied Morrall, “you keep it. What am I supposed to do with it now?”
If Shula was trying to hide his jubilation over his first victory here as a non-Colt head coach, he did a good job of it.
A writer who had covered much of Shula’s seven seasons with the Colts (1963-69) asked, “Did you see what was happening to the Colts even back when you were here?”
“What do you mean?” Shula said. “They went to the Super Bowl the year after I left. They were against us in the AFC title game last season. That doesn’t sound like something was happening to them.
“I know the Colt record isn’t good, but nobody had better take them lightly. There’s no way the Jets should have beaten them last week. How can you foresee Bubba Smith getting hurt in the defensive line, and their injuries in the secondary?
“I’m sure they have their reasons for going with Marty Domres at quarterback, and some other young players.”
Shula fended off questions as to whether he’d rather defense Domres or the benched Johnny Unitas.
“Nobody ever liked to line up against Johnny U,” he said.
“But that’s the Colts’ business. We’re just proud we have a 7-0 record and that all our guys did such a fine job today.
“And we’ve got Buffalo up there next Sunday.”