1971 Profiles: Fran Tarkenton and Randy Johnson

FRAN TARKENTON

Quarterback
No. 10
Georgia
"Quarterback Fran Tarkenton almost laid to rest the talk about a scrambler never winning a title last season. Unfortunately for Fran, he had his worst game of the year in the season finale against Los Angeles and the Giants wound up second best.
Early in the year, Fran asserted himself as team leader when he demanded the right to call his own plays. After he took charge, the Giants won nine of their last 11 games. Fran 'The Scram' seemingly tried to remain in the pocket more at the start of the '70 season, but the constant threat of his running ability kept enemy defenses guessing. Tarkenton wound up running the ball 43 times and average 5.5 yards per carry.
But it was his passing that did the job as Fran finished third in the NFL, completing 56 percent of his attempts for 2,777 yards but only 19 touchdowns. He hit his peak midway through the season when he connected on 10 straight passes against the Cardinals and wound up that game with 15 completions in 18 attempts for five touchdowns and 280 yards. The ten-year veteran is seventh on the all-time passing list with 25,917 yards and joined another elite group when he threw his 200th career touchdown pass last season.
Fran is not big- he's six feet tall and 190 pounds. Defensive linemen must seal off the outside or his scrambles will kill them."

-Brenda Zanger, Pro Football 1971

"Tarkenton ranked third in the entire National Football League in passing last season, completing 219 of 389 passes for a 56.3% completion rate. He was rarely intercepted last season and the season before- only 20 times over the last two campaigns.

He's the original scrambling quarterback who proved a quarterback could run out of the pocket in the pros and survive. He has never been seriously injured- he has a remarkable instinct for sensing the presence of a lineman bearing down on him. Last season Tarkenton ran 43 times and gained an average of 5.5 yards, twice scooting into the end zone for touchdowns. He now ranks as the fifth all-time passer in the NFL.

Tarkenton was an All-American at Georgia and had the best completion record (58.4%) among college passers in 1960. He was drafted by the newly franchised Vikings in 1961 and led them to victory in their first game- against the powerful Bears. He had a falling out with coach Norm Van Brocklin and came to the Giants for three draft choices in 1967.

The son of a Methodist minister, he was named after the first Methodist minister in this country, Francis Asbury. He was born in Richmond, Va., and grew up in Washington, D.C. Married, with two children, Tarkenton is an energetic conglomerate-businessman and golfer in the off-season."

-John Devaney, The Complete Handbook of Pro Football (1971 Edition)

"Now one of the top five all-time passers in pro football history, Fran was the first round draft pick of the expansionist Minnesota Vikings in 1961. He played six brilliant seasons for the Vikings in which he became a crowd-pleaser with his scrambling type of offense.

Traded to New York, March 8, 1967, Fran has completed 825 passes in 1,512 attempts for 11,338 yards and 92 touchdowns since becoming a Giant. As a runner, he has carried the ball 474 times for 2,908 yards for an average of 6.1 plus 22 touchdowns.

Fran is in the food franchising business."

-1971 Topps No. 120

"The important thing to quarterback Fran Tarkenton in 1970 was not that he once again made All-Pro ... or that he threw five touchdown passes one day against St. Louis ... or even that he reached several new milestones on the list of all-time great passers. These were significant achievements, to be sure, but to Fran they were secondary to the fact that his New York Giants posted a record of 9-5 (the best mark a Tarkenton team has ever made) and that they were only an eyelash away from qualifying for the NFC's Eastern Division championship on the morning of Sunday, December 20.

For all his records, for all his brilliant accomplishments as a quarterback, for all the acclaim that has come his way, for all the money he has made as a top-salaried professional, there is nothing Francis Asbury Tarkenton wants more than to take a football team, his team, to the NFL championship.

It is a burning ambition with Fran, a personal goal which eluded him during his first six pro campaigns with the Minnesota Vikings and which thus far has been unattainable in New York. But last year he came close, very close.

Every professional player wants to win. This is the motivation that drives most football men- not dollars and cents.

'You talk money before a training camp opens,' says Fran. 'But once they blow that whistle, money has no place in a pro's mind. The motivating force then is the desire to be an accomplished athlete who does his job well.'

Tarkenton has done his job well over the past decade, so well in fact that he now ranks No. 5 among the all-time quarterback greats. Ahead of him on this list of elite passers are Sonny Jurgensen, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr and Len Dawson, all of whom have played four and five years longer than Fran.

Despite his place in this galaxy of NFL stars, though, Fran is still without a championship. It is the one piece missing from the almost-complete picture of his professional career.

Winning a championship may not be an obsession with Tarkenton but he confesses that it is very important to him as a professional with a great deal of pride. What he doesn't say, of course, is that he is irked by the oft repeated charge that ' ... Tarkenton can't win the big ones.'

That's why the 1970 season was memorable for Fran. The blond scrambler rallied his New York club from a near-disastrous 0-3 start, guided it through a sizzling six-game winning streak in mid-season, and got to the very threshold of the divisional title on the last day of the season. In all his years, Tarkenton had never come this close. The brass ring was there for him to grab ... but before he could reach it, the Los Angeles Rams defeated New York, 31-3, and Dallas, not the Giants, became Eastern champion.

It was a disappointing and frustrating climax to a great campaign but to ever-optimistic Fran Tarkenton, there was a strong basis of hope for the future. Maybe the championship had slipped from his grasp in 1970 but there would be 1971 ... and 1972 ... and then another season. And perhaps somewhere down the road, there would be the coveted championship.

'Every season I start out believing that the Giants will make it to the title,' says the slim 31-year-old quarterback. 'If it doesn't work out that way well- I aim for the following season. A quarterback must be positive in everything he does. More importantly, he must translate this positive attitude to his teammates.'

The question is whether Tarkenton can spare the years that may be required to attain his goal. Physically, he could continue to play football indefinitely. He is a wonderfully conditioned athlete, always in fine shape. But lucrative outside business interests beckon, perhaps even a career in politics, and Tarkenton soon may be faced with the decision of whether to pursue his dream of a title or to leave the game and accept new and broader challenges.

Fran has become a wealthy young man, thanks to pro football. He has amalgamated his interests into a holding company, Tarkenton Ventues, Inc., which employs over 30 people, including an attorney, Tom Joiner, to whom Fran reportedly pays more than $40,000 a year. Fran also has investments that include a 50-unit apartment house and 50 acres of land near Atlanta. Tarkenton Ventures, Inc., involves two franchises, one of them a chain of fast-food restaurants called, appropriately, 'Scrambler's Eating Village.' The second and by far the more important financial commitment is Learning Foundations International, which has been described by one of its founders as '... a tutorial program of individually prescribed instruction which is electronically presented.' Tarkenton's group already has invested over half a million in this concept.

Despite his reputation as a flowering business tycoon, Fran prefers to be known first as a pro quarterback.

'Football is my life,' he says. 'There will be time for the other things later.'

The Tarkenton of 1970 who led coach Alex Webster's Giants to nine victories in 14 league games, including a dramatic conquest of the arch-rival New York Jets, a pair of sensational wins over St. Louis and an upset of Dallas, was somehow different from the Tarkenton of other years. Maybe more in control of himself and his team. Maybe a bit slower and more conservative. And certainly much wiser. He engineered a disciplined offense for the Giants, mixing his own quick aerial strikes with the explosive ground thrusts of Ron Johnson. It was a winning combination and it almost got New York into the playoffs.

Only two NFL quarterbacks connected for five touchdown passes in a single game last season. Craig Morton of Dallas did it against Houston and Fran Tarkenton achieved this total with a 15-of-18 performance against St. Louis, including completions on his first 10 passes. Fran's one-game percentage of 83.33 was the third-best in NFL history.

The Giants' veteran quarterback also had one of the other top-ten single-game performances of 1970- 23 completions in 34 attempts for 320 yards and a touchdown against Washington.

'I believe,' says coach Webster, 'that Fran is a better quarterback now than he's ever been. He has a great football mind, a fine feel for the game and a better passing arm than most people think.'

Tarkenton's failure to make the championship game has left him open to criticism but the records bear out the fact that, over the past decade, he has been perhaps the most productive quarterback in the game.

The more stubborn of Fran's detractors might insist that records are not necessarily the measure of a man or of his contributions. But if not, what else is there to define achievement in a given era of the game? What is a fair basis if statistics cannot be used?

Tarkenton's figures attest to his greatness as a quarterback, whether you like his style or not. In 10 years he has completed 1,849 passes in 3,411 attempts for 25,917 yards, 205 touchdowns, and a completion average of better than 54 percent. The renowned scrambler also ranks among the top 20 lifetime rushers with 2,908 yards on 474 tries, including 22 touchdowns.

In four years as a Giant (seasons of 7-7, 7-7, 6-8 and 9-5) Fran shows an amazing 825 completions in 1,512 attempts for 11,338 yards and 92 scoring shots. No one has been even close to him in the same period, in either league.

Tarkenton scrambles less than he once did, especially in his frenetic early days with the young Vikings, but he still insists there is a need for a moving quarterback in today's game.

'To my mind,' he says, 'the totally immobile quarterback no longer has a place in the game. I don't think everyone should be a wild scrambler but I do believe there must be movement of some kind.

'I don't begin a play with the idea of running out of the pocket or scrambling. But my philosophy is to go for the first down with everything I've got, and if the play looks like it's turning into a disaster, well, then I believe I should get out of there and make it on my own.'

Fran believes the new trend is from the static to the mobile, from the planned to the improvised.

'We're witnessing a time of great change in professional football,' says the minister's son from Atlanta, 'to a wide-open, imaginative, fluid offense. The aim is to get the ball into the end zone in any way possible, and that includes rolling it if necessary. I'm all for this approach; in fact, it's always been my style. I'll do whatever it takes to get across the goal-line. If it's running or passing or crawling or kicking, I'll do it. And I expect everyone else on the ball club to feel the same way.'

Fran admits he's slowed down a step or two in the past couple of seasons but insists that this needn't affect his scrambling- if and when he chooses to scramble.

'It isn't a matter of speed,' he states, 'it's a matter of quickness. And I believe an athlete can maintain his essential quickness until he's forty ... and even beyond.'

Forty, huh?

This might be interpreted as meaning that Fran thinks he can play another nine seasons, which he probably does. Or at least as long as it takes to win that first NFL championship."

-1971 New York Giants Official Yearbook

"He tires out defensive linemen, is as elusive as an eel and has probably more bounce to the ounce than any quarterback in football. He's colorful to watch, improvises, scrambles, and is entertaining. What doesn't he do?

He doesn't win. Quarterbacks, like pitchers in baseball, have to do more than look good warming up. Tarkenton's trapeze act is ever so thrilling but it doesn't get results- not the consistency it takes to lead a team to a title.

Quarterbacks who run have a natural penchant for interceptions. And Tarkenton is a runner-thrower. Try firing a gun from a set position or do it on the run and see the variance in the number of times you hit the bulls-eye and miss the target completely.

Tarkenton is durable, can hold up under punishment and harassment, and even has a strong throwing arm, but his scrambling style defeats the purpose of finding the shortest distance between two goal lines. His passing figures for ten years show a percentage of completions, 54.2, and a rushing average of six yards per carry when he takes off running.

Yet, despite an individual record that looks good on paper and a pleasing manner of play, he has difficulty sustaining scoring drives. Tarkenton gets into trouble with his rambling, scrambling ways at the most inopportune times. A 'third and three situation' too often becomes 'fourth and 13.' "

-John Steadman, from "5 Most Over-Rated and Under-Rated NFL Players" (Football Digest, December 1971)

RANDY JOHNSON  

Quarterback

No. 11

Texas A&M-Kingsville 

"'In a way, we threw Randy Johnson to the wolves last year and he held up extremely well,' says Norb Hecker of his rookie quarterback of 1966. As a result of this rude indoctrination to the NFL, Hecker feels Johnson gained the kind of experience it normally would take several years to get.

While Randy finished far down in the listings with 129 completions out of 295 attempts for 1,795 yards and 12 touchdowns, he displayed plenty of veteran poise and a quick release. He learned to recognize defenses quickly and how to call audibles. He also had some big days, such as the one against the Eagles in which he passed for 218 yards, and the one against the Giants when he completed 15 passes.

Randy was the Falcons' bonus pick after he came out of Texas A & I in '66."

-Jack Zanger, Pro Football 1967

"Randy was the Falcons' bonus pick in the first round of the college draft and became the starting quarterback. He completed 129 of 295 passes for 1,795 yards and 12 touchdowns.

His poise, ability and quick release justify his coach's confidence."

-1967 Philadelphia No. 4

"You really have to hand it to Randy Johnson. The lean, youthful quarterback was thrown into the NFL wars before the ink on his diploma was scarcely dry. The remarkable thing about it is that he is still in one piece.

But more than that, Randy managed to improve on his rookie performance in '67, despite the handicap of playing behind a line constantly undergoing change and throwing to different sets of receivers. Randy also played with a wracking abdominal injury suffered on one of the 34 times he was tackled behind the line of scrimmage. Still, he connected on 142 out of 288 attempts for a 49.3 completion percentage and 10 touchdowns.

The Falcons are convinced he can throw with the pros- he does have a quick release to go with his good arm. But they'd like to see him add some weight to his sleight 6-3, 196-pound frame.

Randy played his college ball at Texas A & I."

-Jack Zanger, Pro Football 1968

"The Falcons fly on the strong and accurate right wing of this fine quarterback. Last season, Randy hit a receiver for an 82-yard pass!

Randy was MVP in the Blue-Grey and Senior Bowl games."

-1968 Topps No. 203

"Dallas quarterback Don Meredith and Randy Johnson had the same problem- both broke in with expansion teams right out of college. And both have suffered the indignities of losing games, poor seasons, and a lot of injuries.

Randy had his worst year in 1968, both statistically and physically. Injuries kept him out of action, and when he returned he was sub-par. Thus the Texas A & I Little All-America selection would like to forget his 73 completions in 156 attempts, 892 yards and only two touchdowns last year, and start fresh in '69.

One of the reasons for his injuries could be his desire to run with the ball. Last year he carried 11 times for 97 yards and a touchdown. However, with a determined passer like Norm Van Brocklin coaching the team, Johnson may seek the protection of his line.

And this, his fourth season, could be his best- provided he beats Bob Berry for the job."

-Jack Zanger, Pro Football 1969

"This up and coming youngster seems to have won the starting assignment at quarterback for the Falcons. Randy has a quick release and is very accurate. Also a fine runner, he was Atlanta's second-leading rusher in 1967.

Randy holds Texas A & I passing records."

-1969 Topps No. 115

"The first two players drafted in Falcon history were linebacker Tommy Nobis and quarterback Randy Johnson. Nobis made it big; the Falcons are still waiting for Johnson.

He's had chances. It looked like he had made it last year, but he lost his job to Bob Berry, then got it back when Berry was injured. Against the Bears, Johnson had his biggest day- four touchdown passes, a 48-31 victory, and selection as NFL Offensive Player of the Week. But the following week, Johnson hurt his knee and had it operated on. He lost his job to Berry again and went to camp hoping to win it back.

At Texas A & I, Johnson had 5,428 career total offense yards. After starting for two years in Atlanta, he had been hit hard by injuries. Last year he threw only 93 times, completing 51 for 788 yards and eight touchdowns."

-Brenda and Jack Zanger, Pro Football 1970

"Holder of virtually all Texas A & I passing marks, Randy had a career mark of 5,428 total offense yards. He was selected Little All-America and the most valuable player on the winning side in three college all-star classics: the Blue-Gray Game, the Senior Bowl and Coaches All-America Game.

Randy was a bouns choice at the end of the first round by the Falcons in the 1966 draft. He was once offered a baseball contract."

-1970 Topps No. 126