During his tenure, neither the fans nor the team appreciated the grit, heart and athleticism that Mudbone brought to the field. When he ran on the field during pregame introductions at the Kingdome, the 12th Man booed lustily. Ground Chuck's autobiography Hard Knox--published in 1988, when Krieg was still the starting quarterback--mentions Mudbone only twice, in both cases to cite interceptions he threw that doomed Seattle in the playoffs. Knox benched him a few times, and the front office kept trying to upgrade the position through trades and the draft, but Krieg kept battling back and winning the starting job by winning games.
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| 3 Pro Bowls, 3 playoff berths, Ring of Honor, division title,,, |
Krieg was a phenomenal athlete. In the late '80s, the Seahawks came to my school--Thomas Jefferson High School in Federal Way--to play a charity basketball game. No one expected it, but the best athlete on the court was not anyone tall or fast. It was Mudbone, playing point guard like a half-pint Steve Nash in short shorts, nailing shots like a cold-blooded assassin.
I wrote most of the Wikipedia article on Krieg, which pretty comprehensively recounts other cool stuff about Mudbone.
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Happy Birthday also to my man Gregg Johnson--born the very same day in 1958--a reserve cornerback for Seattle from 1981-83 and again in 1986. He played for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL in between, and ended his career with the Cardinals in 1987, their last season in St. Louis.
@ Brian:
ReplyDeleteAh-ha! So YOU wrote the entry. Please tell me Why O Why you left out the "NFL Career Passing Stats" section most QB articles have?
Favorite all time Seahawk. Ever. And I can remember being sad when he replaced Zorn (mainly because I had a Jim Zorn jersey as a small child). I love football today, in no small part, due to watching Dave Krieg.
The structure of the article--including the link to his stats and the enumeration of his records--predated my contribution, and I don't know how to fix it.
ReplyDeleteMy contribution was replacing a shamefully brief (two-paragraph!) summary of his college and professional career with the longer, season-by-season narrative.
I was a kid, too, when Krieg replaced Zorn. I got mad and hated Krieg on principle for a long time. I remember clipping Krieg pictures out of the Seattle Times and tacking them to the dartboard for target practice and blaming him every time the team lost. Unit I figured out that he was a big part of the reason we won so many games under Knox, and came to admire his guts, resilience and leadership (strike beard!). I was puzzled that many older Seahawk fans never seemed to catch on until after the football gods punished us with Kelly Stouffer, Dan McGwire, Stan Gelbaugh and Rick Mirer.
Yeah, considering how productive (and resilient) he remained for other teams, and the really terrible QB play we had subsequent to his departure, it was obvious Krieg wasn't "the problem."
ReplyDeleteWas that a Tom Flores/Ken Behring move?
I heard an interview with him once in which he recalled hearing the Seahawks had drafted a QB in the first round (I think McGwire) and being both surprised (he'd been expecting some offensive line help...some things never change!) and realizing his time with Seattle was drawing to a close and being disappointed...he thought they had at least another playoff run in 'em.
Sad.
I too remember being bewildered by Seattle repeatedly wasting premium drafts picks on quarterbacks. As an O-Line guy, Knox should have known better. He wasn't GM, but he had influence... until Behring bought the team.
ReplyDeleteI think Ground Chuck didn't really understand quarterbacks. Krieg was by far the best he ever coached, but I have no evidence that Knox ever really appreciated him.
As for the Behring/Flores reign of error, it was hard to tell if they were really that dumb, or it they were intentionally wrecking the team to make it easier to move down to California.