A few thoughts about Bubba Smith, who died yesterday at 66. He may be best remembered today as an actor and television pitchman. But he made his name on the football field, first at Michigan State, then as a Baltimore Colt. Andy Barall writes about pro football history for The Fifth Down.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there wasn’t a more imposing sight in football than Charles Aaron Smith, better known as Bubba. Before a terrible knee injury in 1972, Smith was one of the N.F.L.’s best all-around 4-3 defensive ends. When he wanted to, he could dominate.
Smith was a two-time all-American for the powerhouse Michigan State teams of the mid-60s. The Baltimore Colts, with a pick acquired in a trade with the expansion New Orleans Saints, made him the first overall selection of the 1967 draft. Three of his college teammates, Clint Jones, George Webster and Gene Washington, were also among the first eight picks that year.
Smith was officially listed at 6-7 and 265 pounds, but he probably played at much closer to 300, especially early in his career. He was an unusual combination of size, speed, power and quickness. Having such long arms didn’t hurt either, particularly when the quarterback tried to throw to his right.
Because offenses usually lined up with the tight end on his side, Smith, at left defensive end, had to play the run first. On passing downs, he wasn’t just a bull rusher. He was fast enough to beat the offensive tackle wide to the outside and had good enough lateral movement to beat him with a quick move to the inside. Once that tackle was slightly off-balance, it was usually all over. The offense frequently had to keep its fullback in to give the tackle help. That allowed the linebackers to get greater depth in pass coverage.
By his second year, 1968, Smith joined end Ordell Braase and tackles Billy Ray Smith and Fred Miller to form one of the N.F.L.’s best defensive lines. That season, Baltimore allowed the fewest points in the league, 144, on the way to a 13-1 finish. In Smith’s five years in Baltimore, the Colts compiled a 53-13-4 regular-season record. He was named first-team All-Pro in 1971 and was elected to the Pro Bowl after the 1970 and 1971 seasons.
In 1972, during a preseason game, Smith was pursuing across the field when he became entangled with the yard markers along the sideline. In those years, when the action got too close, the chain crew would retreat and leave the sticks upright, still affixed to the ground. As a result of Smith’s injury, I believe, the league changed the procedure, requiring the crew, before they backed away, to remove the sticks and to drop them flat onto the ground.
The Colts’ team doctors described Smith’s knee injury as one of the worst they had seen. He was forced to watch most of that season from the sideline in a wheelchair, and he wasn’t the same player again. During his long rehabilitation, Smith was traded to the Raiders for tight end Raymond Chester. He played two years in Oakland and then two years in Houston before retiring after the 1976 season.
Smith, like many of his teammates, never got over the Colts’ shocking defeat to the Jets in Super Bowl 3. In 2007 he told NFL Films: “Until this day, they’ll have that game on and I turn away right away.” (America’s Game, 1970 Baltimore Colts)
Even their Super Bowl victory over the Cowboys two years later didn’t provide much in the way of redemption. Linebacker Mike Curtis hides his Super Bowl ring in the jacket pocket of one of his suits. Center Bill Curry recalls the win as bittersweet: “It’s the most mixed sense of achievement I’ve experienced in my career… I didn’t feel like we went down there and took care of business… We turned the ball over 7 times.” (NFL Films: America’s Game, 1970 Baltimore Colts)
Smith remembered it like this:
Now, when he (Jim O’Brien) kicks the (winning) field goal, I got depressed. I knew I was supposed to be feeling good. Finally did it. World Champions. I wasn’t feeling that way. I couldn’t really feel as happy as I wanted to feel because I was supposed to look at my other ring from Super Bowl 3 and say, Well, I got two.’ And I couldn’t do it. (NFL Films: America’s Game, 1970 Baltimore Colts)
Super Bowl 5 was the Colts’ last championship in Baltimore. In 1984, during a late-night snowstorm, they packed up the trucks and moved away. Memorial Stadium fell silent forever. The Baltimore Colts were no more.
Today, the colors are the same and the horseshoe remains on the helmet, but much of the history has been lost. Unitas. Berry. Moore. Mackey. Marchetti. Their team is gone. Bubba Smith is an important part of that heritage. As he told NFL Films in 2007: “I came to grips with it a long time ago that we wouldn’t be remembered as the Baltimore Colts. I even went to Indianapolis and they said ‘you’re the ex-Indianapolis Colt.’ I said, “No, I’m an ex-Baltimore Colt.’ “
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