NFL: Stram changed the game

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Hank Stram's greatest legacy as a coach was as an innovator.
Breaking the mold from the staid, predictable style that NFL teams played for 40 years, Stram devised wrinkles that produced three AFL titles and two Super Bowl appearances for the Chiefs/Texans franchise. - NFL Football -
"I don't know if there is anything ever new in football, but we were doing things in the '60s that teams are doing now," said Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson. "Hank came up with so many new twists and doesn't get the credit he deserves.
"He wasn't afraid to try things. Back in those days, guys didn't try anything. They pretty much stayed with what the Green Bay Packers or New York Giants were doing. Well, Hank decided let's do some things different. We were playing the West Coast offense before it was the West Coast offense."
Stram, who died Monday at age 82, created the "Offense of the '70s" with a moving pocket as a way to keep mammoth defensive linemen such as San Diego's Ernie Ladd and Earl Faison away from Dawson. - NFL Football -
He came up with the Tight I Formation, lining up the tight end behind the quarterback and shifting to one side or the other, creating a moment of indecision for the defense. He created the Triple Stack defense, putting tackles Curley Culp and Buck Buchanan over the center, which disguised the front and enabled Culp to manhandle undersized Vikings center Mick Tingelhoff in one of the key matchups of Super Bowl IV.
And Stram deployed zone defenses in the early 1960s as a way to combat the wide-open passing games of the AFL when teams were loath to defend receivers in anything but man-to-man coverage. - NFL Football -
Stram attributed that defense to the Texans' intercepting five passes in the 1962 AFL championship win over Houston.
Stram also was one of the first coaches to devote more than cursory attention to special teams and weight training.
After the Chiefs won the AFL championship in 1966 but lost to Green Bay in the first Super Bowl, Stram hired a strength coach, Alvin Roy, and introduced a weight-lifting program, long before weight training became a routine practice. - NFL Football -
"We didn't have people who lifted weights," Dawson said, "so the guy Hank had to convince was me. I was the quarterback, and the rest of the players would follow my lead. Hank had to do the sell job on me, and frankly I don't know how he did it because I didn't lift anything over 12 ounces. He said he had to have me (lift weights) for the good of the team.
"I said, 'You expect me to lift the same weights as Ed Budde and Buck Buchanan and those guys?' He said, 'Oh, no, yours will be much lighter. But you still have to go through the program with the rest of them. Hank was a great salesman,."

Randy Covitz
Knight Ridder Newspapers