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Rending Limbs. To help the evolution along, more and more top athletes who traditionally would have wound up on the striking force suddenly found themselves channeled into the defensive crews. Examples abound. Many observers feel that Dick Butkus, 29, the ferocious middle linebacker of the Chicago Bears, has year in and year out been the finest football player in the N.F.L. Bruce Taylor, the No. 1 draft choice of the San Francisco 49ers in 1970, had been Boston University's leading scorer—as a defensive back. Most impressive of all are the incredible giants who toil in the trenches, the 260-and 270-lb. defensive linemen who are often as fast as their teams' running backs. The key player on last year's Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys is eleven-year Veteran Defensive Lineman Bob Lilly. "Mean Joe" Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Claude Humphrey of the Atlanta Falcons are the class of their respective teams. Nothing underscored the defense's mushrooming superiority as much as the selection last year of Minnesota Viking Tackle Alan Page as the N.F.L.'s Player of the Year. It marked the first time that a defensive player had won the award.
Meanwhile, back on the college gridirons, the hottest game around was being played by such teams as Oklahoma and Alabama, with their flashy "wishbone" offenses. Football fans cheered the college pyrotechnics even as they were becoming restive at the sight of the pro defense methodically stifling the pro offense week after week. Clearly something had to be done. Commissioner Rozelle called a huddle of a hand-picked "Competition Committee," which included one of the most respected coaches in the game: Paul Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals. Brown's proposal for improving the game had the simplicity of genius: moving the hash marks 3 yds. 1 ft. 9 in. closer to the center of the field (leaving them the same lateral distance apart as the goal posts).
Such a move means a lot more to the tone and texture of a game than it would seem. The hash marks are used to position the ball on the playing field after it has been downed either out of bounds or too close to the boundaries to permit reasonable play. Moving the hash marks closer to the center of the field has given offensive players—particularly wide receivers and running backs—more room to maneuver, while the defenses have more ground to cover. Also, field-goal kickers now enjoy a better angle.
After three weeks of play, statistics indicated that there has been a shift in favor of the offense. Last season the total number of points scored on a weekend averaged out to 503; the figure thus far is 542. At this time last year, running backs had gained more than 100 yds. in one game only nine times; the same feat has already been accomplished 17 times this season.