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Eruptions & Clusters. Around the league this season, the pros are displaying a variety of play that college football cannot match. Canny, veteran quarterbacks such as Philadelphia's Norm Van Brocklin, 33, and Pittsburgh's Bobby Layne, 32, still dominate their teams. With a tricky, lateraling attack, the Chicago Cardinals can erupt for clusters of points. Last year's champion Baltimore Colts can field a covey of stars led by young (26) Johnny Unitas, a onetime reject from the Pittsburgh Steelers who is rated the best quarterback in football, throws touchdown passes from the shelter of the league's finest offensive tackle, mammoth (6 ft. 3 in., 275 Ibs.) Jim Parker, 25. If a man does get by him, Parker contritely reassures Unitas in the huddle: "Johnny, it won't happen again." The Colts also boast End Raymond Berry, who is slow and small (6 ft. 2 in., 190 Ibs.) as pro ends go, so near-sighted he wears contact lenses during a game, but has proved so twinkle-toed a faker that he has caught a league-leading 48 passes in eight games.
Not since the 19303, when Bronko Nagurski was crumpling lines for the Chicago Bears, have football fans seen such a numbing fullback as the Cleveland Browns' young (23) Jimmy Brown. Magnificently muscled (6 ft. 2 in., 228 Ibs.), Brown has a sprinter's speed, strength enough to carry along a brace of tacklers. When he hits defensive backs with a low shoulder, he can send them cartwheeling. Last year Brown smashed 1,527 yds. in twelve games to shatter the league ground-gaining record by a fabulous 381 yds. And even the lowly Los Angeles Rams, at the bottom of the Western Conference, can offer Halfback Ollie Matson, 29, whose stride is rated the most beautiful in football, a smooth flow of power that whisks him through the frantic flurry of broken-field blocks and tackles with deceptive ease. On a team that is going nowhere, Matson has broken loose so often that he averages 5.4 yds. per carry.
No Lard. But this is the year of the defense. The mighty Cleveland Browns are as good at stopping touchdowns as making them. Even with its league-leading offense, the champion Baltimore Colts have wallowed badly at times this season because its faltering defense failed to back up the N.F.L.'s most formidable tackle: Gene ("Big Daddy") Lipscomb (6 ft. 6 in., 288 Ibs.), who riffles with heavy hands through enemy backs ("I keep the one with the ball"). Last week, once again tackling hard and low, the Colts hit the San Francisco Forty-Niners so hard that they allowed only three first downs, put balding Quarterback Y. A. (for Yelberton Abraham) Tittle in the hospital with a possible fractured knee. Final score: Baltimore 45, San Francisco 14. The victory moved the Colts into a first-place tie in the Western Conference with the Forty-Niners, who have themselves bounced back from a 6-6 season last year largely because of a revamped defense.