Lambs Into Lions

...THE LAST QUARTER
			OFFENSE		DEFENSE
TEAM	STANDING	MAULE 'S PRE-SEASON RATING	YDS. RUSH	YDS. PASS	YDS. RUSH	YDS. PASS	OUTLOOK
EASTERN DIVISION
BROWNS	1	2	1,324	1,133	1,093	927	Great running of Jim Brown , surprising passing of Tommy O'Connell combine with usual great defense to put Browns on inside track to title.
GIANTS	2	1	1,405	1,429	1,144	1,034	With Old Pro Charlie Conerly having one of his best years, and with their tough defense, Giants could take title again if they beat Browns Dec. 15.
STEELERS	3	4	613	1,422	1,024	982	Only a nearly total lack of a ground offense has kept Steelers back. Tough defense, adequate passing, Buddy Parker's genius should keep club third.
EAGLES	4	6	1,158	676	1,235	1,423	Loaded with talented newcomers, the Eagles took a long time to shake down but may improve on their place in the last three games of the year.
REDSKINS	5 (TIE)	5	1,314	1,303	1,245	1,758	The Redskins , hobbled by a weak pass defense, have been unable to get maximum use of good offense, will have to wait for next year, new blood.
CARDINALS	5 (TIE)	3	1,079	1,290	1,479	1,188	With soft spots at linebacker and in the defensive line, the Cardinals have had trouble containing any opponent, should stay in the cellar.
WESTERN DIVISION
COLTS	1	6	1,352	1,640	787	1,591	Brilliant passing of John Unitas , backstopped by one of league's best defensive lines, abetted by strong running has Colts in front—to stay.
LIONS	2 (TIE)	3	1,271	1,665	1,340	1,259	A rash of injuries deprived the Lions of offensive strength at midseason; it may be too late to weld strong offense for stretch drive.
49ERS	2 (TIE)	4	1,146	1,545	1,590	1,796	Too thin to tango, 49ers feel injuries to key offensive, defensive personnel and are fading fast after bristling start, should drop deeper.
RAMS	4 (TIE)	1	1,564	1,278	1,383	1,274	Erratic Ram offense, equipped with fine personnel, has sputtered too often, defense has been leaky. Rams may move up a notch with two home games.
BEARS	4 (TIE)	2	1,274	1,430	927	1,373	Porous pass defense negated Bear running attack during early season; as pass defense gains savvy, Bears may approach preseason rating.
PACKERS	6	5	1,117	1,295	1,470	1,501	Shy a really topflight quarterback and in need of a solid running attack, too, the Packers have had a long season which will be even longer.

As the season started, the Chicago Bears had the best offense in football with the exception, maybe, of the Los Angeles Rams . The San Francisco 49ers , always able to move the ball, had a defense, too, for a change. Baltimore's Colts had a tremendous running attack and a bright, new star to soup up their passing in John Unitas . The Green Bay Packers looked as tough as the Packers of old.

All this was true back in September. The Detroit Lions , strong contenders for the Western Division championship in 1956 until the Bears whomped them in the final game of the season, came into the 1957 season like lambs. They had lost a head coach, their famous pass defense leaked touchdowns, the running attack moved with the speed of a man walking through tar, and the prospect in general was sad.

Now, with three games left in the season, the Lions are a game out of first place, because of last Sunday's unexpected loss to the Bears, who had died an early death from a series of shots in the pass defense; the Colts and the 49ers had previously shared first place with the Lions , but for the 49ers the tenure was a brief one. The Rams , recovering slowly from a disastrous start, are out of contention, and the Packers , after their muscle-flexing of the exhibition season, have subsided slowly into last place.

But the big surprise is the Lions . Not to the 39,844 Detroiters who bought season tickets to see them play this year; the faithful have a deep belief in their rowdy, hell-for-leather football team. The eminence of the Lions is no surprise to one Bobby Layne , a confident, chunky, blond Texan who leads a full life on and off the field and who, more than any other one man, has set the mood for a team which may be called the Gashouse Gang of football. " Layne is not the best passer in the league by a pretty long margin," a Detroit observer remarked the other day. "He's certainly not the best runner, either. But he damn sure is the best winner." Layne had an off day Sunday, and as usual the Lions followed his lead, losing to the Chicago Bears 27-7.

As the season started, parlous times had come upon the Lions . Buddy Parker, the solemn-faced, moody Texan who had brought the club three championships during his tenure as head coach, resigned in a fit of anger and a cloud of indigestion at a "Meet the Lions " banquet. Introduced as the "best coach in the league," Parker arose to tell the fans on hand, "I've got a situation here I can't handle any more. These ballplayers have gotten too big for me, or something. I'm getting out of Detroit football. I'm getting out tonight. So long."

Part of Parker's pique stemmed from a cocktail party given by Lion Director D. Lyle Fife. The Lion football team was brought to the banquet from its training camp by bus, and the management, aware of the club's fondness for socializing, had scheduled the bus arrival for five minutes to 7, just time enough for the players to file into the banquet hall and take their seats at the head table. Unfortunately, traffic was light that night; the bus arrived at 6:30, some of the players filed up to Fife 's cocktail party and Parker saw them there. While this certainly was not the moving reason in Parker's resignation, it helped. Parker was not a severe disciplinarian. "I'm not a policeman," he had remarked. "If I've got to ride herd on 35 grown men, I won't have time to coach."

Riding herd on the riotous Lions would, indeed, have been a full-time job. While most of the players, in common with nearly all pro football players, are serious young men using professional football as a stepping stone to coaching or careers in other fields, some of the Lions , before this season, exhibited a remarkable propensity for discovering off-the-field excitement. Back in 1953 a small group of Lions was preparing for the next day's game with the 49ers by training in a night spot called John's Rendezvous in San Francisco . A few inhabitants of the Bay area began to heckle the Detroit athletes, who promptly and efficiently cleaned out the bar, next day cleaned up the San Francisco 49ers 14-10 and left for Los Angeles , where they did battle with a few of the citizenry Saturday night in a parking lot, then battled furiously before 93,000 people in Los Angeles ' Memorial Coliseum Sunday before losing 24-37. The Rams beat the Lions twice that year; no one else beat them at all, and they beat the Cleveland Browns , 17-16, for the league championship.

The Lions seldom operate inconspicuously, at any level. In 1954 one Tulsa Bob Smith , a veteran defensive halfback, took issue with Assistant Coach Buster Ramsey, who is in charge of the Lion defense and who is one of the most astute defensive coaches in football. The argument started on the Lions ' charter plane returning from San Francisco , went on briskly at 18,000 feet and erupted into fisticuffs after the plane landed in Detroit . Smith was fired on the spot by Parker; while no score was kept on the brief encounter, it seems likely that Smith lost that too, since Ramsey, besides being a great defensive coach, is tough as a cowboy's boot.

After Parker's precipitous departure in mid-August, his chief assistant, George Wilson , was made head coach. Wilson cracked down on the Lions ; he instituted an 11 p.m. curfew for the athletes and made it stick by fines of $50 per hour for violators. He personally made bed checks at training camp to make sure the team was getting its sleep, and he ran the players unmercifully in practice. Wilson , who played end on the great Chicago Bear teams of the early '40s, is a pleasant, quiet man, but a very tough one. He laughs easily and his eyes are mild. "I joke around a lot," he said, not long after taking over the head coaching job for the Lions , "but there's only one way to play football and that is to beat down the other guy."

Wilson took over the Lions the day before the opening exhibition game against Cleveland . The club compiled a so-so 4-2 exhibition record; during the course of this not too inspired series, Wilson announced a stronger crackdown policy. A few hours later, at 4 a.m., he was routed out of bed to go to the assistance of Layne , who had been arrested on a drunk driving charge at 2:11 a.m. Layne offered to quit football to save the Lions embarrassment; Wilson , who would have been much more embarrassed without a quarterback, declined. He has never announced whether or not Layne was fined for this escapade; it seems very likely that the Texan was, however.