“When I first came into the NFL, they didn’t have any protection for the passer - and they didn’t want any, really. Nobody wanted a passing game. They wanted football to be a running game and a defensive game. Coaches told their players, ’When the passer throws the ball, you put his ass on the ground. If you have to chase him for 20 yards, put him on the ground.’
“Hell, they’d chase me back 25 yards or so. I’d complete a short pass, and the receiver would be running all the way downfield, 75 yards away from me, and I’d still be fighting [defenders] off. It looked so damn silly.
“So [Redskins owner George Preston] Marshall called me into the office one day and said, ’What if we could get a rule put in that after a passer threw the ball, that they couldn’t run him down and knock him around?’ I said, ’Do that and the passer will play about 10 years longer than he used to.’ And he picked up the phone and called [the Bears’] George Halas, and George went for it, and they put the rule in.”
On dealing with overzealous opponents:
“I can’t even remember what team we were playing, but this guy had been raking my face up pretty good with his hands - he may have just been hittin’ at the ball - and our linemen wanted to run a bootsie on him [a play designed to punishing an offending player]. But I didn’t want to waste a down if I knew it was going to keep us from getting a first down or something, so I told ’em, ’I’ll pick the right time. I’ll tell you when. Just turn him loose and let him come.’
“Later on we pick up 8 yards on first down. We’ve got 2 yards to go and three plays to pick it up in. So I figured this would be a good time to waste a play. The line lets the guy through, and I throw a pass that hits him right in the forehead, underneath the edge of the helmet. And I think it cut off the blood to his brain maybe because he just stood there momentarily … and then fell flat on his face. It scared me, really. I thought I may have broken his neck. But then he started moving a little, and I felt better. He never did go out of the ballgame. The next play, he came in just like he did before.”
On his brief minor league baseball career:
“After my first year with the Redskins [in 1937], I went to training camp with the St. Louis Cardinals. Mr. Rickey sent me to Columbus [of the International League] to start the season. That was the first time I ever saw Ted Williams, playing for the Minneapolis team. He was just a big boy, really, at the time.
“He could hit the piss out of that ball, you know. But he’d go out in the outfield, stick his glove in his pocket and do exercises out there. He’d look over his shoulder, see the pitcher was on the mound ready to throw, turn around and be ready. I’d never seen anybody do that in baseball, calisthenics and all this stuff. He’d do it every inning.
“We had some older ballplayers on our team, players who had been up in the majors for a few years. I’ll never forget how those [guys] hated Williams. ’That bush league [expletive deleted]!’ they’d say. They hated for baseball to be treated that way. People would boo at him, and he’d stick his finger up. But, you know, I saw him when he was great.”
On the art of quick kicking, a Baugh specialty:
“You’d use a rocker step. From the single wing, as the ball’s coming to you, you step back, step [forward] and then kick. You’d kick it just the same as any other kick except you’d kick it lower … and you’d kick it down the middle of the field. Normally when you punted the ball, you’d go for the sideline. But on the quick kick, you’d just try to get it over the safety’s head.
“I never had one blocked. We were good at keeping other teams from knowing when we were going to do it. Except for the Steelers when Bill Dudley was playing for them. To this day I don’t know what Dudley had figured out, but I could never quick kick on him. Before I’d kick it, he was already going backward [to catch the ball].
“Later, when he came to the Redskins, I went up to him and said, ’Bill, tell me something that may help me. How did you know when I was going to quick kick?’ And he said, ’[Heck,] I can’t tell you.’ And he wouldn’t tell me! But, boy, he was a good football player.”
- Excerpted from a 1994 interview
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