Dolphins’ Runners Can Hold Heads
High
(edited article)
By Edwin Pope
Sept 18, 1967
It
wasn’t all fun and games. Nobody had smiled when regular quarterback Johnny
Stofa was carried off in the first quarter with a fractured right ankle.
Particularly
Bob Griese hadn't smiled. He was Stofa's replacement and he never had played
in a regular-season American Football League game.
"Ah,
right at first, when it happened, I was a little nervous," said Griese.
"But after I got in there I felt OK. After all, that's what you sign
up for — to play. I never wanted to freeload on this club. Anything I can
do to help, well, I’m here for that."
What Griese did was turn in one of the finest performances in the Dolphins' one-year-and-one-game history. He hit 12 of 19 passes for 193 yards.
"Better
yet," said Head Coach George Wilson. ''Griese seldom lost his poise.
One of the things he does so well — and did so well today — was that quick
toss out to Auer or Haynes. He's the fastest quarterback we have on that maneuver.
It's important to give the running back that extra step on the defense."
* * *
Left
unanswered in the happy confusion over the Dolphins' leading the Eastern Division
of the AFL for the first time ever was the question of what the Dolphins do
for a No. 3 quarterback.
With Stofa
out two months, Griese in as No. 1 and Rick Norton as Griese's backup, the
natural assumption is that the management will go looking for a third
man.
George
Wilson Jr., who quarterbacked the Dolphins to two of their three victories
last year, is now out of football and employed by a local business firm. Logically
he would be available.
His father, the coach, had no comment on any expectations that the Dolphins would pick up his son.
General
manager-managing partner-president Joe Robbie did have a comment.
"It
is possible that we will pick up a third quarterback," said Robbie. "But
George Wilson Jr. will not be back."
There was,
however, a brief exchange between Robbie and the senior Wilson in the dressing
room, and it did not seem to be in the nature of a congratulatory chat.
And there the matter rests for the day, anyway.