Weeb Ewbank

Despite his success in St. Louis, Ewbank quit his job when he was given the chance to serve as an assistant under Paul Brown, who by 1949 was coaching the Cleveland Browns, a professional team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC).[20][21] Ewbank was brought in to oversee the Browns' linemen after backfield coach John Brickels quit to take a job at Miami University and tackles coach Bill Edwards left to become the head coach at Vanderbilt University.[20] Ewbank expected to coach quarterbacks, having played the position in college, but Brown insisted that he oversee the tackles.[22] "He knew I'd have to work very hard at this job and bring a fresh approach", Ewbank said many years later.[22]

Led by quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley, and ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, the Browns won the AAFC championship in 1949, their fourth straight title.[23] The AAFC folded after the season, and the Browns were absorbed by the more established National Football League (NFL).[24] The team finished the 1950 season with a 10–2 record and won the NFL championship by beating the Los Angeles Rams.[25] The Browns reached the NFL championship each year between 1951 and 1953, but lost once to the Rams and twice to the Detroit Lions.[26]

Ewbank got his first professional head coaching job in early 1954 for the NFL's Baltimore Colts, a franchise that had started play the previous year.[27] While it was a step up for Ewbank, Brown encouraged him not to take the job and told him he would not be successful.[28] After Ewbank took the job, Brown accused him of passing information about the Browns' draft targets to the Colts.[28] Brown had insisted that he stay with the Browns through the 1954 draft, and NFL commissioner Bert Bell agreed.[29] During the draft, Ewbank allegedly sent the names of players Brown liked to the Colts through Baltimore sportswriter John Steadman, including end Raymond Berry, who went on to have a long and successful career.[29]

The Colts struggled in Ewbank's first years as head coach, posting records of 3–9 in 1954 and 5–6–1 in 1955.[30][31] In 1956, however, the team signed quarterback Johnny Unitas after he was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers.[5] Ewbank brought in Otto Graham to tutor Unitas, who complemented an improving team that included Berry, fullback Alan Ameche, halfback Lenny Moore and defensive back Don Shula.[5][32]

The Colts began the 1956 season with a 3–3 record, and calls for Ewbank's firing intensified – just as they had the previous year.[32] Team owner Carroll Rosenbloom supported him, however, saying that while he had considered a coaching change in the past, Ewbank could stay with the Colts "forever – or until he fouls up".[32] When he came to Baltimore, Ewbank had promised to create a system like Paul Brown's in Cleveland, but said he would need time to turn the team into a winner.[32] The Colts finished 1956 with a 5–7 record.[33]

The team made a turnaround the following year, posting a 7–5 record, but still finished third in the NFL's Western Division behind the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions.[34] The team improved further in 1958, winning the Western Division with a 9–3 record and earning a spot in the NFL championship game against the New York Giants.[35] Led by Unitas, Berry and Ameche, the team won the game 23–17 in sudden-death overtime.[36] Often referred to as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", the championship was watched by a large national audience on television and helped make professional football one of the most viewed sports in the U.S.[37] Ewbank was named coach of the year by the Associated Press and United Press International after the season.[6]

Baltimore finished with a 9–3 record for the second year in a row in 1959 and repeated as NFL champions.[38] The team's performance fell off in subsequent years, however, and after posting a 7–7 record in 1962, Rosenbloom fired Ewbank three weeks later.[1][2][3][39] He was succeeded by former player Don Shula, a 33-year-old assistant coach with the Lions.[39]

His legacy as a coach is mixed. Some remember Ewbank as a humble coach who had a good sense of humor and tried to stay out of the spotlight.[32][40] He could also be harsh with his players, however. Before the 1958 championship game, he gave a speech telling his stars they needed to improve and had barely made the team.[40] Unitas, he said, was obtained "with a seventy-five-cent phone call" and Ameche wasn't liked or wanted.[40] Ewbank was not universally liked by his players. Second-string running back Jack Call later said the team won "in spite of, not because of" Ewbank.[41] Other players saw him as overly easygoing, saying that while he was able to build teams up, he became too relaxed once he reached the top.[41] Hall of Famer Raymond Berry stated in his book All the Moves I Had, "What it amounts to is that Ewbank knew exactly what he wanted his team to do and how to get them to do it well... Being under Weeb's system was the number one reason why Unitas and I had the careers we had." [42]

In his autobiography, which he partially dedicated to Weeb Ewbank, Hall of Famer Art Donovan had this to say about his former coach: "When Weeb and Joe Thomas came in and introduced the keying defense—one that depended upon quickness and a players's ability to read offenses—man, I was in hog heaven. Weeb Ewbank made Arthur J. Donovan, Jr., a Hall of Fame football player. I loved him for that; I always will love him for that. I can honestly say that Weeb Ewbank became and remains one of the most important, cherished people in my life. With that out of the way, I can also honestly say that Weeb was a screwball who held insane grudges, concentrated too much on what I considered the unimportant aspects of the game, thought he was smarter than God, and deep down inside was one mean sonofabitch."[43]

Ewbank remains the longest tenured head coach in the history of the Baltimore Colts.

A five-man syndicate led by Sonny Werblin bought the New York Titans franchise of the American Football League (AFL), an NFL competitor, as part of bankruptcy proceedings in 1963.[44] Shortly thereafter, the team changed its name to the New York Jets and hired Ewbank in April as its head coach and general manager.[45][46] Ewbank took over a team that had not had a winning record in its first three years of existence and hired a coaching staff that included Chuck Knox, Walt Michaels, and Clive Rush, all future head coaches.[45] When he was hired, Ewbank said he had a five-year plan to succeed in Baltimore, and "I don't see why we can't build a winner here in five years."[45]

While the Jets won their first three games with Ewbank as coach, his first several years were unsuccessful.[45] The team, meanwhile, had to deal with numerous logistical issues stemming from its second-tier status among New York's sports teams.[45] The Jets switched stadiums from the Polo Grounds in Manhattan after the 1963 season to the new Shea Stadium in Queens, but shared it with baseball's New York Mets.[45] Concerned about possible damage to the stadium's natural turf, the Mets would not allow the Jets to practice at Shea, forcing the team to hold practices at the Rikers Island jail complex.[45] The Jets posted 5–8–1 records for three consecutive seasons (1963–1965).[47][48][49]

Despite limited on-field success in Ewbank's first years, the Jets began to put the pieces of a winning team in place.[45] In 1964, they outbid cross-town NFL rival New York Giants for Matt Snell, a top running back prospect out of Ohio State.[45] Linebacker Larry Grantham became a consistent All-Pro selection and safety Dainard Paulson had 12 interceptions in 1964, which remains a team record.[50] An even bigger coup came in 1965, when the Jets signed Joe Namath, a star quarterback at Alabama under coach Bear Bryant.[51] The St. Louis Cardinals selected Namath as the twelfth overall pick of the NFL draft, but Namath later said he chose the Jets in part because he got along with Ewbank and was impressed by how he had developed Unitas while with the Colts.[51]

Namath quickly became a star for the Jets. The team improved to 6–6–2 in 1966 and 8–5–1 in 1967, when Namath became the first to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a single season.[52][53][54] By 1968, Ewbank's team was becoming one of the top teams in the AFL. All of its main starters returned from the year before, and the Jets brought in All-Pro guard Bob Talamini from the Houston Oilers.[55] The Jets started with a 3–2 record, but won eight of nine to finish the regular season 11–3 and win the AFL East Division by four games.[56] One of the Jets' losses in 1968 was on the road in mid-November against the Oakland Raiders that later came to be known as the Heidi Game.[57] After Jim Turner kicked a field goal for the Jets that gave them a 32–29 lead with just over a minute left to play, NBC cut away from the game to a scheduled broadcast of the children's movie Heidi.[57] The Raiders went on to win the game by scoring two touchdowns in the final 42 seconds.[57] Ewbank's wife Lucy called the locker room to congratulate him on the win, only to learn the team had lost.[57]

The Jets' first-place finish in their division in 1968 set up a rematch with the Raiders – the defending AFL champions and winners of the AFL West – for the league championship.[57] Namath threw three touchdowns as the Jets won 27–23, putting them through to the third World Championship game, a matchup between the winner of the AFL and NFL now known as Super Bowl III.[57] The Jets were 17-point underdogs to the Colts, who had continued to succeed after Ewbank's departure with Unitas at quarterback and Shula as head coach.[58] Nevertheless, Namath publicly guaranteed a Jets win before the game, which rankled Ewbank.[59] Ewbank liked that the Colts were favored, thinking it would make them complacent, and did not want to agitate them by boasting about the Jets' chances.[58]

Ewbank and the Jets played an unconventional game against the Colts, opting for an uncharacteristically conservative strategy in part because star wideout Don Maynard was nursing a hamstring injury.[60] Also on film, the Jets noticed the Colts while talented on defense, were very predictable. They did not shift out of a defense once it was called from the sideline. So Namath called most of the plays at the line of scrimmage after viewing the Colts' defense instead of calling the offensive plays in the huddle. The tactic worked against the Colts, and the Jets built a 16–0 lead going into the game's fourth quarter by relying on Snell's running and Namath's ability to complete short passes against a steady Colts' blitz.[60] Snell had 121 yards on 30 carries.[60] The Jets' defense, meanwhile, held back a Colts offense that scored 460 points throughout the team's 15–1 regular- and post-season record up to that point.[61] New York intercepted four Baltimore passes, three thrown by Earl Morrall, who was substituting for an injured Unitas and one by Unitas who entered the game in the second half.[62] The Jets won the game 16–7, aided by Ewbank's familiarity with many of the Colts' players and strategies.[60]

The Jets had a 10–4 record in 1969, but lost a divisional playoff to the Kansas City Chiefs.[63] Ewbank was named the AFL's coach of the year after the season, but the team did not post a winning record in any of the following four years.[6][64][65][66][67] In December 1972, Ewbank announced that he would retire as head coach after the 1973 season, saying he wanted to spend more time with his wife.[68] He continued as general manager, however, and was named the team vice president.[68] Charley Winner, the former coach of the St. Louis Cardinals and the husband of Ewbank's daughter Nancy, was appointed as his replacement in early 1973.[69] The 1973 Jets season is the subject of the book The Last Season of Weeb Ewbank by Paul Zimmerman.[70] After the team lost seven of its first eight games in 1974, Ewbank resigned as vice president and general manager.[71] He agreed to coach quarterbacks at Columbia University in 1975.[72]