Looking Back—The Couple of Times Jack Youngblood Played Linebacker

 By John Turney  

In the 1960s, especially in the AFL teams would mix a 4-3 defense and a 3-4 defense usually using the same personnel. One of the defensive ends would stand up and the 4-3 becomes a 3-4. 

Guys Earl Faison, Ron Nery of the Chargers; Bob Dee and Larry Eisenhauer of the Patriots probably did it the most but nearly every team did it. You could see the Chiefs' Jerry Mays do it. Rich Jackson, Ike Lassiter, and Ben Davidson did it as well.

That wasn't the case in the NFL but it did happen. One of the NFL that did was the Cardinals. Defensive end Joe Robb would stand up and play a linebacker position.

After the merger, the trend continued in the early 1970s. You can find clips of even former NFL teams doing it and of course, Miami's 53 defense was a 3-4 and Bob Matheson was the chess piece that moved.

Also in the 1970s teams began to migrate to 3-4 defense as the base, not doing it as a situational switch but full-time, at least on running downs. By the mid-1980s twenty-four or twenty-five teams were in a 3-4 base and then it began to burn back to a 4-3 and by mid-1990s there were few teams left in a 3-4— the 4-3 was back.

The Rams stayed with a 4-3 from the mid-1950s through 1982, going to a 3-4 from 1983-90. Even so, in the time they were in the 4-3 they were not all that creative with fronts, almost never switching from one front to the other like many other teams. 

They didn't do what the AFL teams did or the Cardinals did, standing a guy up, then down. It wasn't one of their things.

They would go to a 3-4 as a pass defense on occasion, and sometimes regretted it, as in 1973 when they fought their way back from a 10-0 deficit in the 1973 divisional playoff game in Dallas. 

They were starting to take over the game when Tom Landry and Roger Staubach decided to "open things up" and the Rams took Merlin Olsen out of the game and replaced him with Bob Stein.

On that play, which was third and long, the Rams go no pressure and Staubach ripped a throw to Drew Pearson that went 83 yards for a touchdown, putting the game out of reach.

When the Rams were in a 4-3 Hall of Fame defensive end Jack Youngblood played end—

Jack Youngblood as a left defensive end in a 4-3

From 1973 on he was the left defensive end 99% of the time (guestimation) but there are always exceptions to everything, it seems.

On very, very rare occasions the Rams did stand up a defensive end - Youngblood - as an inside linebacker in a 3-4 front. 

This is a clip from 1973, sideline and endzone with Youngblood playing to the left of Jack Reynolds, the right inside linebacker in this front. 

Youngblood was not asked to cover, though. He blitzed.

Nothing was ever written about why Ray Malavasi put this in. When asked Youngblood didn't know why but said, "It was not very often, thank you!". 

It could have been something to put on film for the following week's playoff game against Dallas, just something to take extra time in Tom Landry's preparation of the Cowboys' offense.

Perhaps Malavasi was actually going to use it at some point in the playoffs, though he did not do it in the Dallas game. 

But the actual answer is lost to history, all we have is speculation.

A decade later, after the club had switched to the 3-4, the Rams tried the change it up a little bit and swapped left end Youngblood with left outside linebacker Mel Owens and Youngblood was the outside 'backer and rushed while Owens 

Youngblood at left outside linebacker

We are not sure why they put this wrinkle in. Defensive coordinator did not employ it often enough to make any kind of difference but there it was.

Oddly, when Youngblood came out of college there was some talk of him playing linebacker in the NFL. He'd begun college as a linebacker at the University of Florida but that position was stacked with upperclassmen ahead of him so the was moved to defensive end.

He hit the weights and went from 225 as a sophomore to 235 as a junior to 245 as a senior. He'd even played some defensive end or an end/linebacker hybrid as a Gator—

Younblood as a stand-up defensive end n 1970 at the University of Florida

With the fact that he'd stood up at least some of the time and a concern that his weight might not stay on. Then weight-lifting was still not part of the mainstream. When Al Davis wanted to draft Youngblood with their second-round pick in 1971 John Madden argued against it, calling him "muscle beach."  

So, Youngblood told the papers that he preferred linebacker or defensive end but that he'd need to gain a little weight to play defensive end. But he thought he could play linebacker "at a solid 240 pounds."

The first-round draftee also said at the time he "could play offense". Which was not likely, he hadn't played offensive line since high school but in a Steelers scouting report, before he'd become an excellent college defensive end it projected him as possibly an offensive tackle in the NFL.

Obviously, the linebacker and offensive line switch never happened, he went to the Rams he stayed at end for 14 years. 

Well, except for the couple of times that they stood him up—for some unknown reasons.