Northwestern University Athletics
Safety First: A Legacy of Bad Dispositions
10/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 20, 2010
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
His name was Doug Plank and he played safety for the Bears and he was so favored by Buddy Ryan, then his defensive coordinator, that Ryan named his legendary 46 package after his uniform number. He was to hitting what New Orleans is to partying and so, before every game, he gobbled down aspirin and stuck smelling salts in his pants just in case he needed to revive himself after a play. "Most football players are temperamental," Doug Plank once said. "That's 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental."
"I like that," Jared Carpenter, one of the 'Cat safeties, says when read that line. "Playing defense at all, you've got to have that fire about you. So that temper part, he's definitely right about that. . .(and) the way our defense plays, our safeties are involved in a lot of tackling. It can get pretty violent, especially playing in the Big Ten. You've got a lot of big running backs, 220, 225 pounds coming downhill. But it's been that way my whole life. That's the life of a safety."
"There is violence to the game," echoes Brian Peters, the other starting 'Cat safety and his team's leading tackler. "Anger and attitude and passion are all necessary, especially at the safety position where we're running downhill, filling holes and it's us one-on-one banging with the running backs who sometimes outweigh us, who sometimes think they're more physical than us, who sometimes try and get lower. But it's our job to bring the stick, bring the wood, just play low, play hard, play fast and out-physical the other team."
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"Top Ten Most Feared Tacklers" was an NFL Films production that ran on the NFL Network. Heading the list was a linebacker, the former Bear Dick Butkus, but number two was Dick "Night Train" Lane, who played safety for the L.A. Rams and the Chicago Cardinals and the Lions through the '50s and early '60s. He had an inordinate fear of flying and so, for an away game, he would hop the night train after the Friday practice and ride it to the city where his team would be playing. That is how he picked up his nickname. But he routinely went after a runner's head and neck back when that kind of stuff was still legal, and those tackles came to be known as the "Night Train Necktie."
Number four on the list was former '49er safety Ronnie Lott. He had no nickname, but he was tough enough to play on after the amputation of the tip of his left pinky, which had been crushed while he tackled Cowboy fullback Tim Newsome. Number six on the list was the late Raider safety Jack Tatum. His nickname was "The Assassin." Number nine on the list was former Bronco safety Steve Atwater. He too was nicknamed "The Assassin." Number 10 on the list was former Buc safety John Lynch.
That means, if you haven't been counting, fully half of the most-feared tacklers in NFL history were safeties.
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They are, by the very nature of their position, hybrids, the defensive version of the 'Cat superback. One moment they must be sleek and fleet and nimble enough to play in space and blanket receivers; the next, they must be strong and robust and rough enough to fill a lane and drop a locomotive. One moment they must as balletic as Vaslav Nijinsky, the legendary Russian dancer from the early 1900s; the next, they must be as vicious as the Bear linebacker Brian Urlacher, who himself was a safety in college. "They've got to be able to do a lot," says 'Cat coach Pat Fitzgerald. "They've got to show up in the run game. They've got to be able to play obviously in the pass game. So, yeah, I think hybrid is a good way to look at it."
"Definitely," says Carpenter. "(Defensive backs) Coach (Jerry) Brown says to our safeties all the time, we're one step away from a linebacker, a couple pounds away from a linebacker. Me personally, I played a little bit of linebacker my redshirt freshman year, so I've played down in the box a little bit. Now I've been playing in the back half for the rest of my career, so I've had the best of both worlds. So, yeah, I feel like our safeties are hybrid linebackers."
"I see what you're getting at and we do have multiple roles," says Peters. "Depending on the coverage, we can be down in the box or we can be out playing in space. It's a versatile spot that demands athleticism and mental focus and that's something we continue to harp on game after game."
And physicality.
"Definitely. The whole game of football demands physicality. It's the team that's most physical and has the most passion and executes perfectly that's going to win 99.9 percent of the time."
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Larry Wilson was a safety for the St. Louis Cardinals in the '60s. His nickname was "The Wildcat," but he is most renowned for being so tough that he once played with both his hands in casts due to broken wrists. Rodney Harrison was a safety for the Chargers and the Patriots from '94 to '08. In '04 and '06 he was voted the dirtiest player of them all in an SI poll of his peers. Bob Sanders currently plays safety for the Colts. His nickname is "The Hitman." Cliff Harris played safety for the Cowboys in the '70s. His nickname was "Captain Crash." Then there's the daddy of current 'Cat safety Hunter Bates, who stepped in for Carpenter when he was injured and merely led his team in tackles (with 11) in their win over Central Michigan. His name is Bill Bates and he operated aside Harris on many of those Cowboy teams and, says Peters, "He played like his hair was on fire."
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Back in high school Peters broke an opponent's ribs with a hit and so it is no surprise that, when asked his favorite play, he says: "I like playing the middle of the field. I like playing the post. Post routes, quick dumps where the quarterback leaves the receiver vulnerable. That's when the big collisions happen. That's when the safety can set the tone on defense."
"Last year, when we played Miami (Ohio), I was playing the nickel position, which is kind of like the safety position," Carpenter says on this same subject. "The quarterback threw an underneath drag route and the receiver didn't really see me. I came to hit him and it was like we rang each other up. We just stood each other up. It happens like that sometimes. Two big guys come in for a collision, the guy with the best temper is going to win that one."
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There is, then, an aura about this position, a legacy built by guys with bad dispositions and fearsome nicknames and reputations you wouldn't brag about over Sunday dinner at grandma's. That is the mantle now worn by Peters and Carpenter and their backups, Bates and David Arnold, and if the 'Cats are to thrive in their Saturday showdown with No. 8 Michigan State, they will most certainly have to perform with the same attitude and vigor of those famous (and infamous) legators.
For here they will bump up against a Spartan team that not only has a trio of accomplished running backs and is averaging 206.1 rushing yards per game. It also has a veteran choreographer in quarterback Kirk Cousins, who has completed 66.3 percent of his passes and thrown for 11 touchdowns against just four interceptions. "They're going to have a hat for the guys in the front seven, so the safeties got to show up," agrees Fitzgerald. "Yeah, it's going to be important they show up on Saturday."
"We step up to that," Carpenter says of this pressure now on them. "Our defense, we're usually the last group on the field when it comes to clutch time of the game. We're used to the challenge, we step up to challenges. . .so we're definitely up for the challenge."
"Yeah," concludes Peters, fairly snarling and sounding here so much like a safety. "They do have three solid backs. They have a veteran team. But it's on us as a defense and on us as safeties to bring the fight to them. It's going to be a street fight. Every Big Ten match is."
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