By John Turney 
Here are Larry Csonka's career stats including WFL stats—
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Was Csonka that special or was Miami's offensive that more dominant than their opponents. I watched their SB win over George Allen's Redskins. My God I had forgot how boring that game was!
ReplyDeleteLike John Madden wrote in one of his books, Csonka was a great weapon on first down. Tough to tackle and brought ferocity on many runs, especially his run against the Redskins in the SB.
ReplyDeleteFans can only imagine had he stayed with the Dolphins but Robbie wasnt about to pay him the money the WFL did. Coming back to the Giants, their offensive line and Csonka's conditioning wasnt nearly like his time as a Dolphin.
Some people dont think he is a HOF player but I disagree. His postseason play made the Dolphins a great team from 1970-74.
I think the passage of time has caused Csonka's legacy to fade. When he retired, he had the sixth highest career rushing yardage total in NFL history. Only Brown, Simpson, Perry, Taylor and Harris were ahead of him.
ReplyDeleteHe was also sharing the workload during most of his time playing under Shula. From 1970 - 73, Morris and Kiick had more carries combined than Csonka did. And in 1974, Kiick and Malone had more combined carries. Of the 146 regular season games he played, there were only 18 were he had 20 or more carries. I think his numbers would have looked even better had Shula opted to put more of the of the Dolphins' ground game on his shoulders.
Shula might have been trying to preserve him for the end of the season. As Brian stated above, his postseason play made the Dolphins a great team, and part of that was due to Shula having Csonka carry a bigger load during the postseason. In six of his 12 postseason games he had 20 or more carries and the two games where he had the most heavy usage of his career where the 1973 AFC Championship game when he had 29 carries, followed by Super Bowl VIII two weeks later when he ran 33 times.
Good call, Csonk could have had alot more TDs as well but liked to block for his buddy Kiick who had good patience and insticts for the endzone. A team player because he knew Morris wanted carries as well.
DeleteThe way the Dolphins gashed the Raiders in the Sea Of Hands playoff game, its still hard to believe the Raiders came back.
Zonk was knicked up a lot in 1974 when dolphins tried to 3-peat. His avg per carry dropped to the 3’s from the high 4’s and 5’s during the Super Bowl years. During the sea of hands game - zonk was pounded in the first half by Raiders but he wore them out. By Q4 Miami had their way running the ball and Zonk was a terror. had Benny Malone stepped out of bounds on on the two yd line in stead of scoring the TD - the Phins could have burned another 60 seconds or depleted Raider TO’s with a couple of Zonk runs up the middle before the inevitable TD. No Stabler miracle and perhaps Miami gets their 3rd Lombardi. The narrative about zonk and Miami reuniting in mid 1975 season is sad. What a lost opportunity. Robbie could not park his ego. The 75 team was darn good (10-4) and adding zonk has me believing that they would have beaten the colts in the fog bowl and made the playoffs again. The 3 giants years were forgettable but the comeback season in Miami in 1979 showed an older Athlete who went out of top with almost 900 yds and 12 TDs - more TDs than he ever had during his peak years.
ReplyDeleteThe fans LOVED zonk comeback year every time he stepped on the field.