1964 Profile: Y.A. Tittle

Quarterback
No. 14
LSU
"Soon to be 38, Y.A. Tittle will be playing the final season of his two-year contract and, possibly, his final NFL season.
Last season he set an NFL record with 36 touchdown passes while completing 221 of 367 for 3,145 yards - the first time he's ever led NFL passers. Y.A. was the unanimous All-NFL QB for the second straight season.
He's starting his 17th pro season, including two years with Baltimore of the old All-America Conference. Born October 24, 1926, he was All-America at LSU.
He operates an insurance firm in the off-season."

-Dave Anderson, Pro Football Handbook 1964

"Master of all is Y.A. Tittle, the amazing man from New York by way of Marshall, Texas, who set the record for touchdown passes (36) and led NFL tossers with 221 completions in 367 attempts for 3,145 yards and a 60 percent accuracy mark.
What makes him click? Uncanny throwing ability and innate sense on reading defenses. He's unlike any other quarterback in that there's no consistency to his play-calling tactics, and he makes his fakes and pitchouts with both hands on the ball. Y.A.'s throwing technique is unique: he keeps only his fingertips on the ball and no part of his palm comes in contact with it."

-Don Schiffer, Pro Football 1964

"The Bald Eagle was never more gallant. With a hostile sell-out crowd at Wrigley Field howling for blood, aging quarterback Y.A. Tittle continued to play despite his injured, pain-wracked leg; desperately trying to toss just one more touchdown pass that would give the New York Giants a victory and the NFL championship. But the Chicago Bears' rock-hard defense couldn't be stopped. Harried, rushed, dumped all afternoon, Tittle suffered a severe knee injury after being hit by linebacker Larry Morris. In the end, the Bears triumphed, 14-10, and some writers, disregarding Tittle's courageous performance, hinted Y.A. couldn't win the big ones. Bristled Giant coach Allie Sherman: 'He was great on one leg. He's the only man around who could have played the second half with a leg like that. He's won more big games than any other quarterback.'
The evidence would seem to support Sherman's statement. Early in the 1963 season the Giants were clobbered by the Steelers, 31-0, when Tittle was sidelined with an injury. Then, with the Eastern Conference championship hanging in the balance, Tittle guided New York to a 33-17 victory over the Steelers in the last game of the regular season, completing 17 of 26 passes. In October he completed 21 of 31 tosses as the Giants stopped the Cleveland Browns, 33-6, in another key game.
The six-foot, 195-pound quarterback led the league with 221 completions in 367 attempts. His 36 touchdown heaves set a new record, breaking the old mark of 33, held by a guy named Y.A. Tittle.
Now 37, Tittle played his college football at LSU. He joined the Giants in 1961 and has quarterbacked them to three straight Eastern Conference crowns. Says Tittle: 'This winning is quite a tonic. Why it might keep me going until I'm 50.' "

-Bill Wise, 1964 Official Pro Football Almanac

"Still going strong at his advanced age, Y.A. seemingly is going to go on forever tossing those touchdown bombs of his. The twisted knee he suffered during the championship game with the Bears is in tip-top shape once again, so young Mr. Tittle is out to break some more records as he did in '63.
Besides connecting for 36 TD tosses, an all-time NFL mark, Y.A. paced all National Football League quarterbacks in three of the four categories used in the passing rankings. He thus captured his first individual title since he turned pro with the All-America Conference Baltimore Colts in 1948.
Since joining the Giants in 1961, Tittle has been named to the All-NFL teams selected by the UPI, NEA and N.Y. News in each of his three campaigns with the club."

-Complete Sports 1964 New York Giants

THE TORMENT OF Y.A. TITTLE
"The blue parka was pulled up around Y.A. Tittle's bald head but it couldn't hide his tears.
The old quarterback was weeping on the Giant bench in the final few seconds of the National Football League's 1963 Championship Game. Photographers knelt near him and angled their cameras at his face. But then one of the Giant staff stepped in front of Y.A. Tittle. The photographers glared at the man and backed away. The photographers were doing their job when they were shooting pictures of Y.A. Tittle crying. But the Giant man was doing his job, too. He knew Y.A. Tittle needed privacy at that moment.
The NFL Championship represents a crusade for Y.A. Tittle. His inability to capture that championship has tormented him for years and, unless he captures it this season, it may torment him for the rest of his life.
On that day in December when he was crying on the bench, the Giants lost to the Bears, 14-10, and he had lost another opportunity, perhaps his last, to play on a championship team. This season he will be 38. He doesn't have much more time. He might retire after this season. 'I don't know what I'm going to do next year,' he says. 'I'll figure that out when this season is over and I see how I feel.'
How he feels will depend on how the Giants make out. Because there is nothing in football as important to Y.A. Tittle as being the quarterback of the NFL's championship team.
'I'm supposed to know all the answers,' he says of his reputation as pro football's finest quarterback, 'except the answer to the biggest game of them all'- the Championship Game. Y.A. Tittle has been trying to win the Championship Game the past three years. Losing to the Bears was 'the greatest disappointment of my life in football. Going into the game I was firmly convinced we were going to win.'
Looking to this season, Tittle calls the NFL championship 'my personal, driving ambition.' But he proved last December what it meant to him when he tried to win the championship on one leg.
In the second quarter, he hobbled off the field with torn ligaments in his left knee. But at the start of the second half, his knee shot with cortisone and novocaine, he hobbled back. He never should have been playing. If he hadn't been playing for the championship, he would have NOT have been playing. Chances are, he would have missed two or three more games. But in that Championship Game, Y.A. Tittle wasn't chickening out. Unsteady on a frozen field, his knee wouldn't permit him to set properly before throwing. Two interceptions wrecked him. But Y.A. Tittle didn't alibi. It's his nature to share the credit. It's also his nature to take the rap by himself.
'There was no doubt in my mind we were going to win, at least before the game,' he says, 'but then to play poorly, like I did, I felt I had personally let down millions of people because I have to go back to myself and say that two key interceptions on screen passes led to the two touchdowns the Bears scored.''
Things seem to happen to Y.A. Tittle in the Championship Game. Last year it was the knee. The year before, against the Green Bay Packers in New York, it was the weather- whirling winds which made it impossible to pinpoint his passes. The Giants lost, 16-7. In 1961, in Green Bay, the Packer offense didn't give him a chance. The Giants lost, 37-0. As a result, some skeptics have come to believe that Y.A. Tittle 'can't win the big one' but Tittle's record refutes this. His record, that is, in other 'big' games, which have put the Giants into the Championship Game.'
'He's won I don't know how many big games for us the past three years,' says Giant coach Al Sherman. 'Anytime I'm going into a big game I want Y.A. Tittle for my quarterback.'
Tittle won a 'big game' against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the final regular season game last year. Win it and the Giants would be the Eastern Division champions. Lose it and the Steelers would be the champs. Tittle, completing 17 of 26 passes for 278 yards, won that 'big game' but when it was over Sherman wasn't talking about Tittle's passing. Instead, the coach was saying, 'Y.A. made some tremendous calls out there. We wanted to control the ball and we did. Y.A. kept them off balance with their calls.'
Y.A. Tittle does everything a quarterback should. And he does it well. So well that he makes it look easy.
'It's a matter of feeling,' he says. 'You have to be in this league a long, long time before you get the feeling.' He is now in his 15th NFL season, his 17th pro season (counting two with the Baltimore Colts of the old All-America Conference). 'You have to remember things and at last, you get a feel of what it's all about. If you learn it by studying movies, a good smart college quarterback could learn all you've got to learn in three weeks and then come in and be as good as the old heads. But they can't. Because you look at seven or eight different teams each year and they have a different feel and a different look and you have to learn to look at them and know that this team does this and another does that. It takes time to learn all this.'
Tittle learned it quicker than most. But the old Baltimore Colts were a bad team. In 1951 he was dealt to the San Francisco 49ers. They were a good team, but never quite good enough. They never won the Western Division championship, for example- another argument for the irresponsible critics who claim Tittle can't win a 'big game.'
He won about seven 'big' games last season for the Giants. And after the Steelers had been beaten in the regular season finale, he said, 'this was my sweetest year. We had to come back from behind to win and we did. We were two games behind early in the season. Then we caught up. Then we dropped a game behind, then we tried again. It was up and down and now we finally won it. That's why it's been my sweetest year.'
Two weeks later, the year turned sour for Y.A. Tittle. But until the Championship Game, he had earned rave notices from opponents throughout the NFL.
One day in November, after Tittle had demolished the Philadelphia Eagles, Nick Skorich, then the Eagle coach, sat in his dressing room office and shook his head. 'Tittle picked us apart everywhere,' he said. 'He's the best in the game today and nobody- a Norm Van Brocklin, an Otto Graham, a Sammy Baugh, I don't care who- ever had a better season than he's having.' At the time Y.A. Tittle appeared on his way to winning the NFL Championship Game for the Giants. When he didn't, he spoke of Otto Graham.
'To me,' Y.A. Tittle says, 'Otto Graham is the most successful quarterback of all time because a quarterback is supposed to win. And Otto Graham was a winner with the Cleveland Browns.'
So far, Y.A. Title can't be remembered as a 'winner.' He knows it better than anybody. He knows, too, that the clock is running. Only an NFL championship will end his torment."

-Dave Anderson, Pro Football Handbook 1964

WHAT THEY WHISPER ABOUT TITTLE
"Y.A. Tittle sat on the stool, head bowed, rubbing a pulled left knee, streaks of dirt showing on his wet face. This was the dressing room of the New York Giants at Wrigley Field last December, a few minutes after they had dropped their third straight championship game. 'I just couldn't run,' Tittle was telling a reporter. 'After my knee was hurt I couldn't get back there fast enough to get set and I had to hurry too much.'
In another corner of the room, disappointment twisting his boyish face, coach Allie Sherman faced a ring of reporters. He bit off his words. 'Anybody,' he said, 'who says Tittle can't win the big ones just doesn't know football. He's played and won more big ones in the last three years than anyone.'
Sherman had brought up the subject. Some of the sports writers had said, in so many words, that Tittle didn't the big ones. Yet the thought was implicit in this loser's dressing room, for it has followed Yelberton Abraham Tittle, Jr. for all his professional life.
You heard it in Baltimore in the late '40s when Tittle was throwing for the Colts. 'Belt Tittle early,' said opposing linemen, 'and you don't have to worry about him. He'll stay in the pocket and he won't roll out on you.' In 1948 Tittle led the Colts into a divisional playoff with Buffalo- and lost.
You heard it in San Francisco where Tittle quarterbacked the 49ers for almost a decade. 'He always finishes second,' they said. 'He's never taken a team all the way.' In 1957 he did bring the 49ers to another divisional playoff- against Detroit. The 49ers were leading 27-7 in the second half, and then, said Tittle later, 'we just fell apart.' The Lions won 31-27.
You heard it in New York when he quarterbacked the Giants in championship games two straight times and got beat. In neither game could he lead the offensive unit to a touchdown. His critics cited all the passing records he'd set- seven touchdown throws in one game- and sneered, 'Tittle is the greatest touchdown passer of all time- who never threw one in a title game.'
You heard it last season before Tittle's fifth playoff game. A Bear lineman said Tittle was a good passer, but then he added with a knowing wink: 'We blitz him pretty good- and he knows it.'
On the eve of the championship game, the Pittsburgh Steelers' huge lineman, Lou Michaels, made the charge specific: Tittle, he said, was a chokeup who couldn't win the big ones.
Tittle heard the talk. His first pro coach, Cecil Isbell, saw him at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel before the game and later told a friend, 'This is the one he wants. I've never seen the boy so high.'
After the game Tittle didn't try to hide the disappointment still scalding him inside. 'The Bears are a good team,' he said, 'but I was firmly convinced that we were going to win that football game. There was no doubt in my mind.'
There was little doubt in many minds that the Giants would win. Possessing a mediocre passer in Billy Wade and with the running attack stripped of its big gears by injuries, the Bears seemed to own only a fine defense. It seemed certain that Tittle would score more touchdowns against that defense- say two or three- than the one-lunged Bear offense could score against the strong Giant defense.
The Giant defense was sturdy: the Bears' two touchdowns were set up by interceptions of Tittle passes, Wade having to march a grand total of only 34 yards for his 14 points. Tittle did score one touchdown early in the game on a 14-yard pitch to Frank Gifford, and in the second period he picked up a field goal on Don Chandler's 13-yard boot.
But Tittle's knee was hurt in the second quarter. He came back, limping, in the second half with the Giants ahead 10-7. Late in the third period, with the ball on his own 24, he threw a short flare pass to the right sideline. The Bears' big Ed O'Bradovich plucked it out of the air and ran to the 14. Five plays later the Bears' put-put-putting offense scored on a two-yard sneak by Wade.
Now behind 14-10, the Giants went to the air to try to win their first championship in five tries. Tittle would throw 29 passes in this game but complete only 11.
And five would be intercepted.
The last interception came with some seven minutes left. Del Shofner, Y.A.'s favorite target, went straight downfield on a fly pattern as Tittle's 37-yard-old arm cranked up and let fly the ball. It spiraled toward the end zone where two men converged on a collision course: Shofner and the Bears' Richie Petitbon. High into the air climbed Petitbon; he clutched the ball hard to his chest for the Bears' fifth interception of the day.
Back upfield Colonel Slick, as the pro call Tittle, whipped off his blue helmet and flung it to the ground. He limped off, the bald head shining in the cold sunlight, seeming to collapse on the Giant bench. In photographs later, you saw that he was crying.
It takes no great imagination to know how he felt. You only have to look back at the man. 'When Y.A. was seven years old,' says his older brother, Jack, 'we'd be playing marbles, tops or football, anything you want to name, and he'd keep on playing until he won or tied me.'
In 1961, when he pitched the Giants to a last-minute 34-31 victory that clinched the Eastern title, he rushed off the field at Yankee Stadium and into the Giant clubhouse. He grabbed a phone on a wall and put through a call to his wife, Minette, at their home in Atherton, California. 'Honey,' said Y.A. when he heard her voice, 'we won it.'
They both began to cry; neither could stop until the operator cut in and said 'three minutes' and then they both began to laugh.
'Y.A. always wants to win,' says his good friend from the 49ers, Hugh McElhenny. 'He wants to win in everything. Even in cribbage. You got to watch him while he's pegging up the points.'
'Y.A. is a fine fellow,' says another old friend for 49er days, Ed Henke, a defensive end last year with the Cardinals. 'But I wouldn't want to have him out to the house for dinner the night before a game. He's the kind of guy who'd steal your playbook to beat you.'
But does he try too hard to beat you in the big ones? Is Y.A.'s desire to win so strong that he 'chokes up'- not with fear but with emotion- in the big ones, jamming the clockwork precision of thought and action that a master quarterback must have?
You go back and look at some of the big ones that Tittle has played for the Giants. In 1961 he went up against the juggernaut Vince Lombardi had fashioned in Green Bay. The Giants were ground into fine bits, 37-0. After it was over, Tittle smiled and said, 'I've had my share of pats on the back. Now let them criticize me. I have it coming. It was just a miserable performance. The whole team was miserable. The Packers were great. We were beaten by a great team.'
No excuse, no search for a way out by a man who thought that his own weakness had let a team down. If Tittle felt that he had choked in playing this big one, his words did not reveal it.
Then there was the championship game against the Packers a year later, this time in an ice-studded Yankee Stadium- the temperature near zero, the wind a cutting scythe that swept erratically across the field. The Giants were losing 10-0 in the second period when Erich Barnes blocked a Packer punt and end Jim Collier fell on the ball in the end zone for a touchdown.
With the huge Stadium crowd roaring for Packer blood, the tide of the game seemed suddenly to have turned in favor of the Giants. The big Giant line held Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung on three running plays and the Packers had to punt. But Sam Horner fumbled the ball on his own 42. It was recovered by the Packers, who pounded to the 29, from where Jerry Kramer kicked a field goal to put Green Bay ahead 13-7. Kramer kicked another in the fourth period and the Packers won, 16-7.
Later Sherman called the fumble the key to victory. 'When they got that,' he said, 'they took the chance of a tie away from us. We no longer had the field goal working for us, if we could make one.'
The Giants, he was saying, had to go for the touchdown, and Tittle- who had thrown a record number during the season- could not throw one (although he did connect with 18 of 41 for 197 yards).
Fans came away from the Stadium mumbling through chapped lips that Tittle couldn't throw them in the big ones. Forgotten was Bart Starr's failure to complete a touchdown pass on the wind-swept field. But again Tittle took the criticism humbly. 'I never said I was the greatest or best quarterback,' he said.
This season, after his third straight championship loss with the Giants, Tittle knows he'll hear the whispering of his critics. 'It bothers me,' he said one day this summer at his home in Atherton, where he has an insurance business. 'But it doesn't bother me way down deep. I mean, you have to expect that sort of thing. It's like the pitcher in baseball. If the team wins, he gets most of the credit. If the team loses, the pitcher gets most of the blame. You read all sorts of things how great Y.A. Tittle is when we win; you'd think I was out there all by myself. But when we lose, you hear how terrible I am, and again they're forgetting I'm just one man on a field where everything's got to be working right if you're going to win.
'I remember some really great games I've played. But receivers dropped passes, blocks were missed, things like that- and we lost. I remember other games when I knew was off in my passing, but receivers made miracle catches, the defense played tremendously for us- and we won. I'd played better when we lost, but if you listened to what people said, I'd been great when we won, lousy when we lost.
'Still, what players, the press or the fans say about me, that's their business. I never let it bother me. As much as possible, I try to separate myself from that kind of talk. I'm not the kind who's ever going to get into a controversy with a reporter or another player about something that's said or written about me. I have loads of other things that are really worth worrying about.'
He laughed pleasantly, a man obviously at peace within himself, delighted by the great joys that have come his way these past few years, resigned to the few disappointments. Yelberton Abraham Tittle, Jr. is a professional in many ways apart from being a professional quarterback.
You leave Colonel Slick's home in Atherton, though, and you think about Allie Sherman's words last December: 'He's played and won more big games in the last three years than anyone ... '
Y.A. Tittle would never mention them to you, but there were three big ones last year ...
There was a Sunday at Yankee Stadium early in October. The Sunday before, the Browns had beaten the Giants, 35-24, inflicting the second defeat of this young season on the Eastern champions. Now the Giants were playing Tom Landry's Cowboys and with little Eddie LeBaron throwing darts, the Cowboys ran off the field leading at halftime, 21-17.
'What could have been a bigger game for us?' recalls Allie Sherman, remembering the Giant clubhouse at halftime. 'We'd already lost two games. I told them, if we lose this one, it's all over. The season's finished, right now.'
The Giants came out for the second half blitzing in on LeBaron, shutting him out for the rest of the afternoon. Tittle hit Shofner for one touchdown, threw his fourth of the afternoon to Phil King, and the Giants came off the winners, 37-21.
Then there was that Sunday afternoon a week later at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. Cleveland had run off a streak of six games without a loss, and now they were two games back of the second-place Giants in the Eastern race. Let the Browns win this one and they were three-quarters of the way home.
On the second play of the game, Sam Huff recovered a Jimmy Brown fumble. The Giants couldn't go over, but Chandler kicked a 29-yard field goal. A few minutes later Jimmy Patton intercepted a Frank Ryan pass and wiggled his way to the Cleveland 23.
Tittle brought the team out of the huddle and the 84,000 jammed inside the Stadium were up on their feet, roaring for the Browns to hold. Tittle bent over the center, the hawkish face appraising the defense. What he saw made him change the play and now he was hollering an audible and, as he says, 'hoping the boys could hear me over the noise.'
Shofner, for one, heard, and he ran a tight circle and suddenly there was the hole in the Browns' linebacking area that Tittle had seen. Shofner caught the pass and fled untouched into the end zone.
'I must have called thirty audibles in that game,' says Y.A. matter-of-factly, not for a moment even hinting what you know is true: that by changing so many plays at the line of scrimmage, he was subjecting himself to backbiting criticism if the plays backfired in this one. But they didn't backfire. The Giants won, 33-6, and the rest of the league, looking at the game films, suddenly no longer feared the Browns.
The third big game was the Giants' final of the Eastern Conference race. They'd won 10 games and Pittsburgh had won only seven, but because the Steelers had three ties that didn't count in the standings, Pittsburgh could win the title with a victory. 'Everything we've done so far,' Sherman told the Giants in the clubhouse, 'will go for nothing if we lose this one.'
The Steelers had beaten the Giants- whomped the Giants, really- earlier in the season by a 31-0 count. But Tittle, injured, had missed the game. In this game he was healthy, and the Giants- using exactly the same game plan they'd used earlier against the Steelers- won easily, 33-17. Tittle completed 17 of 26, and two of those completions scored the Giants' first two touchdowns. He had won another big one.
He didn't win the biggest one at Chicago. But after that game, when you heard the talk about how the Bears had Tittle's number, you remembered a Giant-Bear game in 1962 at Wrigley Field. Before that game there had been the same talk among the Bears: smack Tittle early in the game and you don't have to worry about him.
On the first play of the game, Tittle took off on a naked rollout to his left. The big bad Bears came in and smacked him down. Tittle got up and threw and ran the Giants to a 26-24 victory and afterwards, sweating in the clubhouse, he said, 'Dammit, we showed them.'
Yet the whispers will go on the Tittle can't win the big ones, that he can't beat the top teams, that you can get to him. Of course, the records do show that he has never been on a championship team. But neither Al Kaline in baseball, Wilt Chamberlain in basketball, or Jimmy Brown in pro football. No one says they don't win the big ones.
Ask Tittle about the whispers and he'll smile in that easy-going, relaxed way of his, and he'll tell you, 'All I can say is, we've won an awful lot of big ones.' And indeed he has.
But recently Tittle put his answer another way. Speaking to Don Smith, who wrote Y.A. Tittle, I Pass (Franklin Watts, $4.95), Tittle smiled and, perhaps thinking of the Steelers' Lou Michaels, said, 'I don't know but it seems to me that the guys who say I don't win the big ones, they're watching at home on TV when I'm playing in them."

-John Devaney, Pro Football Stars (1964 Edition)

Y.A. TITTLE
Key to the Attack
"Football has always been regarded as a young man's game. How can anyone not in the prime of physical life stand up to the rigors and standards required week in and week out over a full season in the National Football League?
You're absolutely right when say that not many could qualify. One of these is Yelberton Abraham Tittle, the New York Giants' beloved Bald Eagle, about whom very few adjectives haven't already been written.
There is no doubt that he's the Giants' key man. So much so that it should be printed in capital letters- KEY MAN. Let's face it, without him Allie Sherman's club doesn't run on all eight cylinders. With Y.A. at the controls and pitching'em like nobody else can, the Giants look like champs.
That fact was proved beyond doubt in the New Yorkers' second league contest of 1963 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tittle, who had started against the Baltimore Colts in the season's opener, had, unfortunately, suffered a leg injury while pacing the Giants to a come-from-behind triumph. Sherman, not wanting to risk further injury, kept Y.A. on the bench for the [first] Steeler encounter.
So what happened? The Smokey City club ripped the Giants apart, 31-0. It was the first time since 1953, over a 124-game stretch, that New York was shut out.
Figure it out yourself. In the Giants' 13 other 1963 games, they tallied 448 points, second highest of all time, with Tittle in there. Y.A. seemingly was better than ever, tossing touchdown passes around like so many bean bags.
The grizzled veteran finished the campaign as the NFL's top heaver for the first time in his 14-year pro career. He led in three of the four categories used in the official rankings. Y.A. tossed a record 36, count'em, touchdown passes; connected on 221 of 367 attempts for a loop-leading 60.2 completion percentage, and led with 8.57 yards gained per attempt. In the other category of passes intercepted, Tittle third with 3.8. Baltimore's Johnny Unitas led with 2.9 and Chicago's Bill Wade was second with 3.4
Naturally, Y.A. wants to improve on his wonderful performance of 1963 and lead the Giants to a World Championship in 1964. One of the biggest disappointments of his life was that playoff loss to the Bears.
Again, that contest showed Tittle's value. After being forced from the field with a badly twisted knee during the early moments of the second period, Y.A., though fortified by injections to kill the pain during the half-time intermission, was not able to perform up to his usual high standard during the second half on that frigid afternoon in Chicago. If he had been 100%, there is no telling what would have happened. But the fact remains the Bears won, 14-10.
The Giants have been subject to much criticism for permitting the team's style of play to fall so heavily on one man's shoulders. But then again, where would they be if they were not fortunate enough to have obtained Y.A. in one of the shrewdest transactions ever made in sporting annals?
Prior to the 1961 season, the New Yorkers needed somebody to share the quarterbacking duties with aging Charlie Conerly. They managed to talk the San Francisco 49ers into giving up Tittle, their longtime signal caller, in exchange for guard Lou Cordielone, who the 49ers have since traded to the Steelers.
Though hampered by a couple of early-season injuries, Y.A. proved an immediate success for the Men of Mara as he helped the Giants to the '61 Eastern Division title.
That season saw Y.A. finish sixth in loop passing with 163 completions in 285 attempts for 2,272 yards and 17 touchdown tosses.
Tittle really came into his own in 1962, being New York's number one quarterback right from the beginning of the campaign with Conerly retired.
All Y.A. did in again leading the Giants to an Eastern Division crown was to complete 200 of 375 attempts for 3,224 yards; connect for 33 touchdown tosses for a new NFL mark (which he topped in '63), and heaved touchdown passes against Washington at the Stadium to tie the loop single-game mark.

Practices Hard
One of the smartest quarterbacks at picking a defense apart, Y.A. is extremely adept at checkoffs at the line of scrimmage. His favorite passes are screens to his big, hard-running backs, and the long bombs to Del Shofner, Aaron Thomas and Frank Gifford.
His Giant teammates hold Y.A. in the highest regard. Very popular, he's looked upon and respected as their leader, the man whose brains and courage can lead them. He truly inspires confidence, an intangible ingredient which marks the difference between a winner and a loser in professional football.
Even with his long experience as a passer, you can still find Y.A. practicing hard all week trying to perfect various pass plays as well as handoffs and pitchouts with teammates. He really believes in the old saying 'Practice makes perfect,' and comes pretty darn near achieving it.
Tittle was born in Marshall, Texas on October 24, 1926. An older brother, Jack, went on to play guard at Tulane.
Y.A. attended Lousiana State where he came into national prominence as a passer out of the single wing and T formations. During his senior year in 1947, Y.A. was named the Bayou Bengals' Most Valuable Player after a campaign in which he completed 49 of 96 heaves for 789 yards. Perhaps his best single college performance occurred in his freshman season of 1944 when he completed 15 of 17 passes to beat Tulane, 25-6, in what was practically a one-man effort. That was the last campaign that coach Bernie Moore employed the single attack, switching the following year to the T-formation.
Y.A., who had been All-State three times at Marshall High in football, besides being a statewide selection in basketball twice and in baseball once, won four gridiron letters at LSU. He played in the Blue-Gray games of 1944 and 1945, was selected All-Southeastern Conference in 1946 and 1947 and captured the LSU-Baldwin Award for playing the most minutes in 1945, '46 and '47.
Not long after graduation from LSU, Y.A. married his high school sweetheart, Minnette De Loach. Tittle inked a contract with the Cleveland Browns, then a member of the All-American Conference. But before the regular season, the ACC, in an effort to bolster the playing talent of the circuit's weaker outfits, distributed some of the new wealth. Tittle therefore soon found himself wearing a Baltimore Colt uniform.
Despite an extremely untalented supporting cast, Y.A. made a name for himself as one of football's finest young passers as he set the ACC clubs on their proverbial heads in 1948 with his aerial magic.
Y.A. finished third to the Los Angeles Dons' Glenn Dobbs and Cleveland's Otto Graham in total offense with 2,679 yards. In passing, Tittle tied Dobbs for second by completing 161 of 289 attempts for 55.7% and 2,522 yards. Y.A. created a new pro mark by having only nine passes intercepted. He put together a record skein of 115 tosses and 68 completions without being intercepted. During his final seven contests, he had only one toss stolen.
During the campaign in which Tittle produced what was perhaps the finest rookie season in pro annals, he also heaved 80-yard passes to Lamar Davis and John North, as well as throwing to Billy Hillebrand for 78 and 74 yards.
Y.A. also completed 69 and 65-yarders to Hillebrand and a 60-yard toss to Davis. All seven king-size completions were good for six points.
Tittle moved up to second place in total offense statistics in 1949, despite the fact that he was playing for a helpless outfit that dropped 11 of its 12 encounters. Engaging in 318 plays, most of any ACC competitor, Tittle finished with a yardage total of 2,298 to Graham's 2,892. He was runner-up to Graham in passing with 149 of 289 for 2,209 yards and a percentage of 51.2.
Y.A. again proved himself the loop's most proficient longball tosser by connecting for the season's two most spectacular aerial maneuvers. With North again on the receiving end, Y.A. hit for 80 and 79-yard scoring plays. Another, to Billy Stone, was good for a 66-yard scoring strike.

With 49ers in '51
The ACC threw in the towel after the '49 season, and with the reorganization of the NFL, Tittle found himself still a Colt but in a different league, one that he has remained a member of ever since.
Baltimore again dropped 11 of 12 in 1950, but it was far from Tittle's fault as he completed 161 of 316 tosses for 1,884 yards. Then, in January 1951, the hapless Baltimore franchise was turned back to the NFL, and all the Colt players placed in a common draft pool with the graduating college seniors. Y.A. was chosen by the 49ers, who never had cause to regret their pick. With the great Frankie Albert, Tittle formed one of the best one-two punches ever seen on a gridiron.
After Albert's retirement following the 1952 campaign, Y.A. took over as the regular, being quickly tabbed the 'Colonel' for his ability to take charge of his troops. But, somehow, through his years with the 49ers, they were never able to achieve true greatness, falling short of championship caliber for one reason or another.
Then, when 49er coach Red Hickey brought forth the shotgun formation, Y.A. knew this type of attack was not fitted for him, becoming aware that his days with the Coast club were numbered. It looked for a while that Tittle would be dealt to the Los Angeles Rams, but nothing really materialized. However, when the Giants expressed interest in Tittle's services, with help needed for Conerly in '61, a trade was quickly negotiated.
Y.A. wasn't sure that he wanted to leave the Coast for the East. After all, he was no youngster anymore. He had a thriving insurance business going for him in Palo Alto, near his Atherton home. And there was Minette and their three children, who he didn't want to leave for six months at a time.
But, of course, Y.A. did report to New York, much to the eventual dismay of Giant opponents, especially those defensive backs whose lives Tittle has made miserable with his deadeye passing and pinpoint accuracy.
Many honors have been heaped upon Y.A. during his NFL career. Besides appearing in the Pro Bowl on several occasions, representing both the Western and Eastern Divisions, Y.A. was named Pro Player of the Year by the United Press in 1957. Since joining the Giants in '61, Tittle has been collecting award after award, being named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Associated Press by a substantial margin over Cleveland's Jimmy Brown. Besides being named to the AP NFL All-Star squad, Tittle headed the first annual NFL all-star team chosen by the Players Association.
Tittle's technique and his style of play are a thing of beauty to watch. A perfectionist, he hates to throw one off the mark to a receiver even in practice. One of his maneuvers that give fans a big thrill is when he runs the bootleg- and more often than not, he gets away with it.
Tittle's outstanding pitching performance in 1963 occurred in the opener against the Colts, when he exploded for three touchdown tosses and scored the eventual winning tally via a nine-yard run after the Colts had forged to a 21-3 lead. Tittle was hurt on that scoring run and was forced to miss the following week's game in which the Giants took that horrible shellacking from Pittsburgh. Against the Philadelphia Eagles, Y.A. showed he was back in top shape by leading the Giants to an easy 37-14 triumph with a trio of touchdown tosses.
After getting the Giants off to a quick 14-0 lead against the Redskins in Washington, Y.A. directed a drive that clinched matters in the last period after the Redskins had come back within striking distance. Starting on his own two, Y.A. hit on five of seven tosses, the last a 27-yarder to Joe Walton in the end zone on a fourth-and-one play to clinch the affair.
Tittle tossed a mere four touchdowns at the Dallas Cowboys when they visited the Stadium; throttled the Browns with two touchdown heaves during a 33-6 triumph; spearheaded a Giant comeback in the final period to beat the Cowboys at Dallas on a game-winning 17-yard flip to Shofner in the final quarter; connected for two touchdown passes in a 44-14 slaughter of the 'Skins; and topped off the popular campaign [sic] by hitting on 17 of 26 for 306 yards and three touchdowns against the Steelers in the contest the Giants had to win for the Eastern title.
And now in '64, he's out to pick up where he left off. That's Y.A.T., which no doubt stands for Young and Terrific."

Complete Sports New York Giants 1964