Throughout NFL history, most of the greatest defenses have had their own great nicknames.
The Purple People Eaters. The Fearsome Foursome. The Steel Curtain. The Monsters of the Midway. The Legion of Boom.
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Atlanta Falcons fans know all about the Grits Blitz defense of 1977, designed by head coach Leeman Bennett, defensive line coach Jim Champion, and defensive backs coach Jerry Glanville. That defense allowed the fewest points (128) ever in a 14-game season, and the average of 9.2 points per game is still an NFL record.
Now, there’s another metric that puts forth the proposition that the Grits Blitzers were the NFL’s best. DVOA, the opponent-adjusted efficiency metric invented by Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz decades ago, finally got the 1977 metrics up (hey, it takes a long time to get all the games on video from that long ago), and the Grits Blitzers had the No. 1 defense overall that season — ahead of the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys and their Doomsday defense, and the AFC Champion Denver Broncos with their Orange Crush squad.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 1977 Falcons defense is how bad the 1976 Falcons defense was. That defense had little but uncooked grits to show for itself, ranking 20th among 28 teams in yards allowed, and 22nd in points allowed. For that group to rise all the way up to second in yards allowed (behind only the Cowboys) and first in points allowed — especially with the retirement of legendary linebacker Tommy Nobis in the interim — is one of the more remarkable accomplishments in pro football history.
How on Earth did they pull it off?
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The Falcons hired Leeman Bennett to replace Marion Campbell as head coach on February 3, 1977. Bennett brought Glanville, the former Detroit Lions’ defensive assistant and special teams coordinator, to help run the defense along with Champion, the former New York Jets defensive line coach. It was Glanville who was widely credited with the blitz-heavy schemes that set opposing offenses on edge and created the nickname.
The blitzes were one part of the story, but the 30,000-foot view also saw the Falcons taking the 3-4 defensive concepts recently popularized in the NFL by Chuck Fairbanks of the New England Patriots, and Bum Phillips of the Houston Oilers, to a different level. As Bennett said that season, the Falcons of the time used five-man packages that would be more commonly seen in today’s game.
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“The main thing we’re doing differently is using an odd-man front or a 5-2,” Bennett said. “Our philosophy is to stop the run. There’s a big difference between third-and-1 and third-and-4. We try to put pressure on the quarterback, and so far, we’ve been doing a pretty good job.”
It wasn’t just that. For all of those blitzes, the 1977 Falcons ranked sixth in the NFL with 42 sacks — not bad, but not historic. Where they were completely devastating was in their pass defense overall. “Leeman’s Demons” allowed a 44.1% completion rate, and nine touchdowns to 26 interceptions — only the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Colts had more. And the Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt allowed of 1.1 is absolutely ridiculous. Basically, opposing quarterbacks weren’t even getting in the car against the Grits Blitz guys, never mind even getting the engine started.
In October of that year, Bennett had scouting reports on all his defenders, even and especially the ones nobody knew about — then or now. Among the highlights:
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EDGE Claude Humphrey (who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014): “Everybody knows about Claude, an excellent pass-rusher. They used to turn him loose all the time. He has accepted our philosophy, and stays home a little bit more to protect against the run. But he still gets his sacks.”
EDGE Jeff Merrow: “A street-fighter type, rough and ready to go get ’em. He gets the most out of his ability. A great hustler.”
Linebacker Ralph Ortega: “Plays exceptionally well against the pass. Calls our defensive signals. Has been under pressure because he had to take over a job Tommy Nobis always had until he retired.”
Cornerback Rolland Lawrence: “A winner. Always seems to be in the right spot at the right time. Last Sunday against the Bears, he intercepted a pass, recovered a fumble, and recorded a quarterback sack on a cornerback blitz.”
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Safety Ray Easterling: “A strong hitter, and real tough. Runs the safety blitz really well. Had a great game last Sunday, too. Made a heck of a tackle on Walter Payton that forced a fumble.”
Why the Grits Blitz wasn’t enough
Unfortunately, the Falcons were unable to turn all that defensive excellence into a winning record. Their offense, led by quarterback Scott Hunter after 1975 No. 1 overall pick and two-time Pro Bowler Steve Bartkowski suffered a serious knee injury before the season started and was limited to half the season in a reduced role, was about as had as the defense was amazing. The 1977 Falcons ranked 25th of 28 teams in both yards gained and points scored.
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“One of theese days,” Bennett said in late October, “our offense is going to have to start putting points on the board.”
Sadly, that never happened. The 1977 Falcons scored more than 20 points in just two games — both against the horrible New Orleans Saints, who ranked 26th in points allowed that season. The Falcons scored in single digits (seven points or less) in six of their 14 games. The offense left the defense with absolutely no margin for error, and that will always catch up to you at some point in time. Only a 35-7 win over the Saints in the season finale allowed the Falcons to finish 7-7, which given that defense, was a major disappointment.
“We didn’t score the points, and we didn’t make the mental adjustments that were necessary at times,” Bennett said after the season ended. “A busted play cost a touchdown just before the half at Los Angeles. Without that, we could have gone into the half trailing only 9-7. That could have made a lot of difference.”
The Grits Blitz was a one-hit wonder with a big legacy
Defense tends to have more year-to-year variance than offense, and you didn’t need to tell the 1978 Falcons about that. The Los Angeles Rams supplanted the Grits Blitzers as the No. 1 defense in DVOA, while the Falcons fell to sixth in that metric, and dropped to fifth in yards allowed and 14th in points allowed. The ‘78 Falcons did finish with a 9-7 record and made it to the divisional round of the playoffs, but the Grits Blitz was perhaps a remnant of an era in which the NFL’s rules (which changed radically to favor offenses in 1978) were more balanced in an overall sense.
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Still, the legacy sticks. If the 5-2 structure with frequent blitzes reminds you a bit of the 46 defense that Buddy Ryan developed to terrorize offenses in the 1980s and beyond… well, there’s something to that. Bennett lasted as the Falcons’ head coach through the 1982 season, but it was Glanville who really carried the theme forward. When he became the Falcons’ head coach in 1990, he resuscitated the “Grits Blitz” name… though the results were not quite the same. The franchise under Glanville never ranked higher than 20th in points allowed (1991), and 19th in yards allowed.
That aside, those who know and remember one of the greatest defenses football has ever seen — even if it lasted only one season — will never forget what a few coaches who want off the rails with pressure and coverage did to the rest of the NFL.
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