Ernie McMillan—A Pro's Pro

 By John Turney  

Ernie McMillan

St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame tight end Jackie Smith called his longtime teammate Ernie McMillan  a "professional football player's professional football player."

Smith first saw an athletic player who also had a tremendous work ethic coupled with leadership.

He was probably the first of the tall, athletic offensive tackles that became the norm in the NFL, a predecessor to Rayfield Wright, Ron Yary, and George Kunz - who were 6-5, 6-6, weighed 255-260 pounds and could run the forty in under five seconds and could have played tight end if they dropped twenty pounds.

The 6-6, 255-pound McMillan was in their class athletically but toiling on mediocre teams he didn't get as much national notice.

For fifteen years, playing for a franchise that was up and down, mostly in the middle in terms of wins and losses, he still managed to garner postseason honors in eight consecutive seasons from 1964 through 1971. 

He was a first-team All-Pro in 1967 (NEA), second-team All-Pro in 1964 (New York Daily News), 1965 (NEA), 1966 (AP and UPI), 1968 (NEA and UPI), 1969 (New York Daily News), 1970 (NEA) and in 1971 and was All-NFC (UPI), as well as being a Pro Bower four times along the way.  

Hard work and desire took McMillan from a talented player to an elite player. His first coach Wally Lemm said at the time, "He's a student of the game. And he has no peer as a pass blocker." McMillian explained "we have a wonderful film library at the Cardinals. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of it."

In 1967 his coach next, Charley Winner, was effusive about McMillan's abilities saying that his 1966 season graded out at 96 percent in pass protection. And though he didn't give a number he said it was better than any year that Hall of Famer Jim Parker had and that he'd know since he'd been on the Colts' coaching staff during the bulk of Parker's career.

A check of Weeb Ewbank's old Colts records shows that from 1957 through 1961 Parker's overall grades were between 83 and 89 percent so there is some documentation of Winner's claim.

So why didn't the Hall of Fame committee ever notice him?

Hard to know.

In that era, it was the right tackle that had the tough assignments, not left tackles, that came later. The left ends dominated the game in the sixties and seventies and that meant McMillan faced some of the best defensive ends of all time - Gino Marchetti, Willie Davis, Deacon Jones, Carl Eller and Jim Katcavage among others.

He had the reputation for hustle -  getting downfield on blocks and also finishing blocks on running plays. He was always in great shape and run well for a tackle - like Wright, Yary, and Kunz.

Perhaps he lacked a lot of team success and that is why he went unnoticed.

A few teams were pretty good early in his career but it was not until 1974 that he played on a 10-win team. That was when Don Coryell's Cardiac Cards won the NFC East. That was also the year he unselfishly moved from right tackle to left, to accommodate Dan Dierdorf and did it without complaint and made the transition well. 

Said his line coach Jim Hanifan to the AP, "He's having an excellent season, an excellent season. he hasn't been beaten this year. Not by Ed Jones. Not by Cedrick Hardman. Not by Verlon Biggs."

Even so, he was released in the 1975 preseason and was quickly picked up by Bart Starr's Packers and he played his final year in Green Bay and even tried to play in 1976. He just did not want to give up playing the game he loved and wanted to play his sixteenth season at age 38 but Starr had a first-round rookie slated to play in McMillan's spot. 

So he was released and his next move was to get into coaching and scouting.

In all, the Cardinals co-captain played 190 games - more than all but five Hall of Fame offensive tackles, starting 184. he didn't miss a game due to injury until his thirteen season when he was 35 years old (he did miss some games as a rookie but that was due to military service).

He was first-team All-Pro the same number of times as Winston Hill and his second-team selections are also similar to Hill's as well. 

Maybe had he talked more, perhaps promoted himself he might have gotten more attention from the media.  But McMillan was not that guy saying in 1973, "Whoa, I'm not going to talk about myself . . . you know me."

Others did. He was enshrined in the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame and is a Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Inductee as well. 

So will McMillan ever get a shot at being discussed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame? 

Hard to know.

He certainly should.