Word: lineman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Professional football scouts are keen-eyed examiners whose charts detail how far a quarterback can throw, how fast a halfback can run the 40-yd. dash, or how many pounds a lineman can bench-press. The pro scouts' assessments of this year's football players were the basis for this year's college All-America team (see SPORT). In their reports, the scouts often single out talented yet unpublicized college players who go on to stardom in the N.F.L. One of TIME'S 1971 choices, for example, was an obscure University of Michigan guard...
Reggie McKenzie, now an offensive lineman with Buffalo. McKenzie is part of the front four who are known as the "Electric Company" because they turn on "the Juice." The Juice, of course, is O.J. Simpson, who was a running back on TIME'S 1968 team...
...Pittsburgh, planning starts every Tuesday morning at the Steelers' offices in Three Rivers Stadium when Joe Greene and Co., including back-up lineman Steve Furness, gather with Defensive Line Coach George Perles to go over movies of the previous Sunday's game. Screening a specially edited reel that covers only defensive play by Pittsburgh, Perles, 41, a former Michigan State tackle, shows his players their mistakes in a numbing montage of slow motion, stop-action and reverse-run images. On Wednesday, films of the next opponent come under scrutiny. The group focuses on the abilities of each offensive lineman...
These reserves of strength and speed are harnessed in physical techniques used to bull past blockers. All four start with the head butt, driving their helmets into the heads of the opposite offensive linemen like bull moose battling for their lives. Once the offensive lineman has been hit, each man has a specialty. Greenwood likes to use the "slip" move, pushing past his blocker. White prefers to knock his opponent aside with an "uppercut" shove under the shoulder. Holmes is a master of the "club," using one of his blacksmith forearms to belt a blocker to the side...
That same year, another lineman made the cut: Joe Greene. Arriving overweight after a contract holdout, the Steelers' first-round draft choice looked like a pushover to some Steeler veterans. As soon as he started blowing by blockers, they knew better. They also learned that off the field Joe is a sensitive, gentle friend, still trying to overcome natural timidity and live down the image that he is a bully. (He got his nickname, which he does not like, while playing football at North Texas State University, where the team was called the "Mean Greens.") "I come off as being...