The Morall of the Story

The current NFL season has been labeled “The Year of the Back-up Quarterback”  - nearly half of the NFL teams started a back-up quarterback in week 17 this past weekend.  Some of these teams simply grew tired of their starters’ poor performance and decided to roll the dice with someone else.  In other cases, the starter was injured earlier in the season.  Some teams have done well with their back-ups, while others have not.  But if you really want to talk about THE greatest back-up quarterback of all-time, you have to turn back the calendar to the 1970’s when a back-up quarterback out of Michigan State University backed-up not one but TWO future Hall of Fame NFL quarterbacks.

Earl Morall played for 21 seasons in the NFL, which is an impressive accomplishment in its own right.  He was a three-time Super Bowl champion, one-time NFL champion (pre-Super Bowl era NFL football), and NFL MVP in 1968.  He played for six different NFL teams, but he is perhaps best known for serving as the back-up quarterback for Johnny Unitas and Bob Griese, both legendary Hall of Fame quarterbacks for the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, respectively.  First, during the 1968 NFL season, Morall came in to replace injured Johnny Unitas , guiding the Baltimore Colts to a 13-1 record and the NFL Championship.  Unfortunately, the Colts lost to the upstart AFL champion New York Jets in Super Bowl III (remember Joe Namath’s famous guarantee?).  Nobody remembers that Morall - the back-up quarterback - started Super Bowl III, though Unitas would come in the game late to try to rescue a victory from the jaws of defeat.  Alas, it was not to be.  Joe Namath and his Jets would win and achieve immortality.  Morall would redeem himself, again for the Colts, in Super Bowl V, coming in to replace an injured Unitas again.  This time, Morall and the Colts were victorious.  

Morall made several starts for the Colts during the 1971 NFL season, but he moved to the Miami Dolphins the following year (where he again played for Hall of Fame coach Don Shula, who had coached him when he played for the Colts).  Morall came in to replace an injured Bob Griese on October 15, 1972 - at the time the Dolphins were undefeated.  Morall would start and lead the team to win the next 9 games for the undefeated Dolphins, the first time that any NFL team finished the regular season without a loss.  He would start the first play-off game against the Cleveland Browns, as well as the AFC championship game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, though Griese would come in and finish the game.  Griese would start and win Super Bowl VII.  With the win, the Dolphins completed the only perfect season in NFL history.  What is often forgotten is how many games Earl Morall played that year for the Dolphins!

Imagine having a back-up quarterback like Earl Morall!  The important lesson of today’s post (the Morall of the story, if you will) and perhaps the current NFL season is this - never be caught unprepared! Always have a back-up plan.  Make sure that you have developed the next layer of talent in your organization so that they can step up, when necessary, to replace one of the leaders in your organization.