Those
more recent converts to professional football as it's played in Seattle will likely regard Josh Brown as the Seahawks' ultimate kicker.
And there's no doubt that the "Vinatieri of the Left Coast" (as
he was dubbed by yours truly in Pro Football Prospectus 2007) will always
be remembered for his clutch kicks and reliability - especially in 2006, when
he booted four game-winning field goals and saved the team's season.
But
with the aid of historical perspective, it's clear that when it comes to Seahawks
kickers. Mr. Brown will have to go a long way to equal the accomplishments
of Norm Johnson. Seattle's kicker from 1982 through the
1990 season, Johnson had a ride in Seattle
that coincided with the first great era of Seahawks football. He saw it all
- from the last gasps of the Patera era, through Mike McCormack's brief tenure
as coach, to the hire of Chuck Knox and the near-Super Bowl seasons, through
the Behring purchase and the franchise's eventual downfall.
By
the time the Behring machine had almost exported the Seahawks to Southern California,
Johnson was long gone, and his second acts with Atlanta
and Pittsburgh were, in some ways, even more fulfilling
than his time in Seattle. They say
that home is where the heart is, though, and Johnson returned to the Emerald
City after his playing days were over to build his
business and charitable concerns. A successful real estate agent and a pointman
for the Boys and Girls clubs in Kitsap County, Johnson's new life and happy
family prove that not only is there life after football, but that satisfaction
can be found in all sorts of ways.
Johnson
isn't a Seattle native - he was born in Garden Grove, California on
May 31, 1960. Dad Howard was a football coach, and young Norm became involved
in athletics very early on. “It was pretty sunny, and everything was outdoors,
and we were less distracted with technology that we are today," Johnson
recalled. "I played all kinds of sports growing up. I got my first interest
in football from my dad (Howard), who was quite successful at Corona Del Mar
High School and Morningside High School in Inglewood. I
only played one or two years of Pop Warner, but I was big enough that - they
went by weight down there – I was always put with kids who were a year or
two older than me. I think I was too young, and not ready, and I just didn’t
enjoy it. Through junior high, we didn’t have any pads or anything when we
played football – we played flag football, and it wasn’t until ninth grade
that I really put the pads on and began playing contact football.
"I
played a lot of soccer, so when we put the pads on, I wanted to do a lot of
punting and kicking. I didn’t get much competition, and I was pretty good
– well, quite good, I guess, for that age – and just kept kicking
and playing football. I played everything else, too – basketball and baseball
– and I would just go from one sport to the next."
Football
was the priority by the time he went to UCLA in in
the late 1970s. "Well, my dad went to school at UCLA," Johnson said
when asked why he chose the Bruins. "He went to both UCLA and UC Santa
Barbara. Santa Barbara no longer
has a football program, but he is in the Hall of Fame for football there.
I was reasonably well-recruited, but I didn’t know where I wanted to go. Oregon
and Colorado were interested in me. At the end of the recruiting process,
UCLA became interested in me, and that’s where my focus was – the place I
wanted to go."
Johnson
enjoyed his time at UCLA and recalled one humorous memory. "We used to
wear those cut-off jerseys on hot days – they don’t do that much anymore.
Freeman McNeil used to wear those all the time, and he was our running back.
He was running down the sideline in one game, and somebody grabbed his jockstrap.
That’s all the defender had to hang on to. The jockstrap broke, but it unraveled,
and Freeman ran for a 70-yard touchdown with a 70-yard streamer of unraveling
jockstrap behind him. Something that stands out in my mind that was pretty
darned funny."
Less
entertaining for Johnson was his undrafted status after he graduated. Several
NFL teams expressed an interest, but as Johnson said, the scouting then wasn't
what it is now. "We had Combines in those days,
though I was never invited to one," he said. "I’m sure it’s
more technical and scientific now. They were timing people and measuring the
strength back then, but I’m sure they’ve taken it to a new level.
"I
actually had seven teams after the draft that were interested, and I remember
wondering of I was going to be drafted – I would get calls (from teams)
saying, 'Hey, were thinking of taking you in the sixth round, would you be interested
in playing for Detroit?' I can’t
remember all the teams,. Or, they would say, 'Would you mind being signed as a free agent?' By
that time, I was more interested in signing as a free agent – was encouraging
people not to draft me, because the, you don’t have a choice. And I knew
by the end of the first day that there was some interest out there, and I'd
be better off with some flexibility in my choices. Although,
as an undrafted free agent, you have limited flexibility – but it worked
out well in my case. I actually had a few teams vying for me, and it
turned out to be a pretty good situation."
A
good situation indeed, but there would be bumps before things straightened
out. Johnson signed with the Seahawks in 1982, which would be McCormack's
first year as Director of Football Operations, and Patera's
last year as coach. There was also the small matter of a 57-day players
strike, which ran from September 21. The Seahawks came back from the strike
with a new interim coach and a bright future. For Johnson, it was "a
whirlwind. As a rookie, boy – you’re just wide-eyed and you don’t know what
to expect."
He
did have fond memories of his first NFL coach, though. "I have to give
Jack Patera a lot of credit. He stuck with me when I was a rookie, and gave
me my first job. I wasn’t fortunate to play for him very long, and I had been
looking forward to that, because he liked doing a lot of things with his special
teams. He lasted three games until that strike, and there was no more Patera.
"The
thing that I remember – in college, I played for Terry Donahue. Well, with
all the coaches, you’d call them, 'Coach'. It was 'Coach Donahue', or 'Coach
Kay', or whatever. So I remember passing Jack Patera in the hallway and saying,
“Hey, Coach”, and he’d say, “Hi, player” (laughs). I know that he knew my
name, but he wanted to be called by his first name, which … coming out of
college and high school, you would never think about calling your coach by
his first name! The pros were a bit different."
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DENVER
- SEPTEMBER 23: Place kicker Norm Johnson #9 of the Seattle Seahawks
kicks the ball against the Denver Broncos during the NFL game at Mile
High Stadium on November 23, 2003 in Denver, Colorado. The Broncos defeated
the Seahawks 34-31. (Photo by Mike Powell/Getty Images) |
A
more traditional and hard-nosed approach began in Seattle
on January 26, 1983, when Chuck Knox was named Seattle's head coach. A mere expansion team with a few good moments
until Knox' hire, the Seahawks were about to go on a two-year journey that
few could have expected. However, Johnson said that he sensed something different
in the air from the start of Knox's tenure. "I remember a lot of excitement
back then," he said. "Bringing in Chuck Knox and his reputation
for winning and such – there was a lot of excitement. It was still early in
my career – ’83 was only my second season – and I was still a young buck.
I just remember a lot of energy. We had a high draft pick, and we were able
to get Curt Warner, who I had a lot of respect for having watched him in college
… just a lot of excitement.
"I
think we probably played above our heads at times back then, because we had
the belief that we could do it. We did a lot with guys where you would say
– hey, compare them to other players. Not so much Curt, but when Curt went
down, people would expect our season to be over. But we had guys like Dan
Doornink come in and make a lot of great plays. People like
that, where you’d say, “How would you rate him in the NFL as far as running
backs?” and I think people would rate him pretty low, but man – he really
worked for us. There were a lot of players who really shined for us who weren’t
the “superstars”. Dave Kreig was a new, undrafted, untouted
quarterback. That’s what I remember. We went a long way on guts and emotion
and belief."
Indeed
they did - the 1983 Seahawks, behind Warner's 1,774 total yards, Krieg's
efficiency and a defense that wouldn't quit, put together a 9-7 record and
saved the best for the postseason. Beating the Broncos in the Wild Card round
and the Dolphins in the Divisional frame, the Seahawks were only an AFC Championship
meltdown against the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Raiders away
from their own shot at the big brass ring. 1984 was even better, as Seattle
overcame the opening-day loss of Warner and put up a 12-4 record despite a
"leading rusher" (David Hughes) who gained 327 total yards on the
ground. The '84 squad was probably the best Seahawks team until the 2005 Super
Bowl version. Defense and special teams ruled the day - the Seahawks led the
NFL in interceptions with 38, put four defensive Pro Bowlers in Hawaii, and Norm Johnson had his first great season,
hitting 20 of 24 field goals. After getting Wild Card revenge against the
Raiders, Seattle lost to the Dolphins
and trundled forward to a very long postseason drought. Still, Johnson couldn't
forget those halcyon days.
"(Knox)
brought in some of his old veterans (from the Rams) and really changed the
chemistry – I think that all worked," he said. "Chuck knew what
he was doing, and the players saw that and bought into it. Whether it was
true or not, they bought into the belief that they could win, and looking
back, it was true. Chuck knew where we stood physically or talent-wise in
the league, but he also knew that teams could play above their heads and win
if they believed. He know how to being that out in his players – at least
in the beginning."
But
from 1985 through the end of the decade, the Seahawks put together a 52-43
record, missed the postseason entirely in their next best season (10-6 in
1986), lost playoff games in 1987 and 1988, and fell into a start-stop mediocrity
in which Knox's focus on fundamentals was derisively deemed "Ground Chuck".
In August of 1988, Behring completed the purchase of the team, and the roll
stopped soon after. The Seahawks were eliminated from the playoffs in the
last game of the 1988 season, and Tom Flores was named the team's general
manager soon after. More and more, Johnson recalled,
Knox lost control of the team he was coaching.
Did
Knox take heat for decisions in which he wasn't involved? "You know …
(pauses) … I’ve often wondered that," he said. "Not the
heat part, but I’ve often wondered how much control he lost when Behring
and Tom Flores came in. For example, I left and it wasn’t long after that
Chuck left. We were in the same conference – I went to Atlanta
and was really successful and he went to the Rams. We’d end up talking
before games, and he’d say that he didn’t want to draft (John) Kasay,
and he wanted to keep me, but it wasn’t his choice. I guess I have no
reason not to believe, I guess there’s no reason he’d tell me that
(if it wasn’t true). I don’t know, but I think there was a good
chance that he lost some control. And that might have been why he left,
As
for Behring, Johnson was succinct in his evaluation of where the blame really
belonged. "He just dismantled that team," Johnson said. "And
instead of keeping well-liked players, or keeping the excitement going, he
brought in his bean-counters and cut costs. I think that showed on the field,
and I think that showed in the support he got from the community, and when
you start losing support in your community, things just start spiraling downhill.
The negative press – I think everything contributed to having poor seasons."
As
Johnson intimated, the end was near for the kicker and his coach in Seattle. Knox signed a two-year extension before the 1991 season, but
he and the team agreed to end his time with the franchise after that final
7-9 season. Oddly enough, it was the '91 draft that told both men they would
be gone. For Knox, it was the disastrous decision to select San
Diego State quarterback Dan McGwire in the first round. For Johnson, it was
the fourth-round selection of Georgia kicker John Kasay.
The
writing was on the wall, but as Johnson remembers, the way the Seahawks went
about ending his time with them was far less than truthful. There was an alleged
training camp battle between the two kickers, and Flores
released Johnson right before final cuts. Johnson had to sit for three weeks,
wondering if his career was over, before the Atlanta Falcons came
calling.
"I
felt that I did a lot for the Seahawks," Johnson said, when asked why
he wasn't treated fairly. "Never did anything to make them look bad,
and I bled green and blue for a long time. But when they drafted Kasay, it
was obvious that I wasn’t going to be on the team. No matter how well I kicked,
and that was the best training camp I can remember. The bad thing for the
Seahawks was that Kasay and I became good friends, so I knew what they were
saying to him. But they would be talking to me – basically lying to me – and
I knew what was going on. I did not appreciate being lied to.
"During
that training camp, when I was kicking very well, there were other teams interested
– one of them was Houston – and Jack Pardee, the
Oilers’ coach back then, was talking about me. But
the Seahawks kept me around in case John got hurt in training camp. He didn’t
get hurt, and at the last minute … the problem is that in the NFL, especially
for kickers, there are inly so many spots open.
Well, a team wants you in their corral in training camp. They’re reluctant
to make a trade, or release somebody and bring somebody else in cold, right
before the season starts and after the last cut. So, was trying to get released
the entire time I was in training camp, and they kept saying, “Oh, no – it’s
a race,” and, “It’s a competition” and this and that, and I knew that they
were jerking me around. Because I knew stuff behind the
scenes. I found out after the fact that they actually said that they
were keeping me around as an insurance policy, and I didn’t feel that I deserved
to be treated that way.
"So
when they cut me at the last minute – five minutes before the dadline after they couldn’t trade me, teams pretty much had
their final season rosters. Now, you’ve got to sit out and wait for a space
to open. And my thought on that was, here was a guy that played for your team
for nine years, and he should be shown a little bit of respect. When there
are people out there that are interested in him, and he can go on and continue
playing and being treated fairly by being released early – I had seen teams
do that for players they respected. They didn’t do that for me, and I didn’t
think that was fair.
"I
wanted to go to Houston in the worst
way because I knew I wasn’t going to be here, and I knew that they needed
a kicker. Warren Moon was there, and they were talking line it was their best
chance to get to a Super Bowl. They were another dome team, and they were
going places. So I said “Hey guys, let me go I’ve got a place to go – you
drafted Kasay, that’s fine Just let me go. I agree that he’s a good kicker,
just treat me fairly and let me move on.” By the time they did release me,
Houston had signed Al Del Greco (Ed. Note: Al
Del Greco and Ian Howfield kicked for the Oilers in
1991), so I had to sit out weeks that year, and I just didn’t think that
was right.
"I
can also see it from a team standpoint, but I think there’s a time and place
to show some fairness to the individual. Looking back on it, I was glad to
land (with the) Falcons. We had a lot of fun, and it kind of re-energized
my career."
After
nine years, Norm Johnson's NFL journey had just begun.
Stay tuned later this week for the
conclusion of our story, when Norm Johnson talks about the second half of his
NFL career, the remarkable Jerry Glanville, his trip to the Super Bowl, and
how he found that when it comes to Seattle, you really can go home again.
Thanks to Mark Olsen for his assistance.
Doug Farrar is the Editor-in-Chief
of Seahawks.NET, a staff writer for Football Outsiders,
and a contributing author to Pro Football Prospectus 2007. Feel free to e-mail him here.
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