Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

...what was his fascination with Curt Knight? The guy was terrible. Shouldn't Allen have been on forefront of the soccer-style kicker revolution, or at least have had the sense to not attempt so many FGs with Knight as his kicker, especially any over 40 yards? Knight's 32-yard FG miss in Super Bowl VII at the start of the 2nd half was a killer...as John Facenda so eloquently put it, "George Allen's '30 minutes to live' was now down to 21". You'd figure after Knight's 1972 season (46% FG) Allen might have jettisoned Knight, but Knight came back for 1973 and had his typical season of innumerable FG attempts (42), missing about half those attempts, with his longest FG made being a tad bit over 40 yards (42).

Bryan wrote:...what was his fascination with Curt Knight? The guy was terrible. Shouldn't Allen have been on forefront of the soccer-style kicker revolution, or at least have had the sense to not attempt so many FGs with Knight as his kicker, especially any over 40 yards? Knight's 32-yard FG miss in Super Bowl VII at the start of the 2nd half was a killer...as John Facenda so eloquently put it, "George Allen's '30 minutes to live' was now down to 21". You'd figure after Knight's 1972 season (46% FG) Allen might have jettisoned Knight, but Knight came back for 1973 and had his typical season of innumerable FG attempts (42), missing about half those attempts, with his longest FG made being a tad bit over 40 yards (42).

I think Allen was much more interested in the other side of special teams... the defensive side, so to speak. He liked guys who could cover punts and kickoffs, especially if they were hard-hitters who could force fumbles.

Interestingly, Knight later blamed Allen for forcing him to use Richie Petibon as his holder: "He thought he was doing something good and it led to the end of my career." The use of Petibon was supposedly Allen's superstition, which I assume means that Petibon held for Bruce Gossett while with the Rams.

Knight's 1973 struggles were reportedly because of a leg injury, which he felt Allen didn't take into consideration.

rhickok1109 wrote:

Bryan wrote:...what was his fascination with Curt Knight? The guy was terrible. Shouldn't Allen have been on forefront of the soccer-style kicker revolution, or at least have had the sense to not attempt so many FGs with Knight as his kicker, especially any over 40 yards? Knight's 32-yard FG miss in Super Bowl VII at the start of the 2nd half was a killer...as John Facenda so eloquently put it, "George Allen's '30 minutes to live' was now down to 21". You'd figure after Knight's 1972 season (46% FG) Allen might have jettisoned Knight, but Knight came back for 1973 and had his typical season of innumerable FG attempts (42), missing about half those attempts, with his longest FG made being a tad bit over 40 yards (42).

I think Allen was much more interested in the other side of special teams... the defensive side, so to speak. He liked guys who could cover punts and kickoffs, especially if they were hard-hitters who could force fumbles.

Agreed. Allen also wanted a punt returner who "didn't make mistakes." One who caught the ball, didn't fumble, and got as much yardage as he could.

Bryan wrote:...what was his fascination with Curt Knight? The guy was terrible. Shouldn't Allen have been on forefront of the soccer-style kicker revolution, or at least have had the sense to not attempt so many FGs with Knight as his kicker, especially any over 40 yards? Knight's 32-yard FG miss in Super Bowl VII at the start of the 2nd half was a killer...as John Facenda so eloquently put it, "George Allen's '30 minutes to live' was now down to 21". You'd figure after Knight's 1972 season (46% FG) Allen might have jettisoned Knight, but Knight came back for 1973 and had his typical season of innumerable FG attempts (42), missing about half those attempts, with his longest FG made being a tad bit over 40 yards (42).

It seems to me that poor kickers were tolerated more back then. Look at Fred Cox. Should have been replaced years before he actually was.

To give credit to Allen, in 1974 he replaced Curt Knight with Mark Moseley, who wound up as one of the best kickers of his generation (and the last regular straight-on kicker). It's interesting that Moseley missed all of of 1973 and in 1972 he only played one game for the Houston Oilers (he also was with them in 1971 and in his rookie year in 1970 he was the Philadelphia Eagles kicker).

Knight was below standards of the time in 1972-73. Won't argue that.

Soccer-style kickers were still hard to find; they were still all foreign born. Likely as not a replacement would be straight on, as Moseley was. That would change in a few years.

Allen's coverage teams were always good. Average of +184 yards prevented over his 12 years as NFL head coach. That's excellent. Returns were less prominent but above average as well, +87. Also blocked 20 punts to having 8 blocked.

Jack Pardee, who followed Allen in Washington, also was known for good coverage teams.

I don't know who would be the worst there as far as coaches went. Hank Stram's teams were usually bad. He had a couple of long kickers in Wilson and Stenerud, too.

7DnBrnc53 wrote:

Bryan wrote:...what was his fascination with Curt Knight? The guy was terrible. Shouldn't Allen have been on forefront of the soccer-style kicker revolution, or at least have had the sense to not attempt so many FGs with Knight as his kicker, especially any over 40 yards? Knight's 32-yard FG miss in Super Bowl VII at the start of the 2nd half was a killer...as John Facenda so eloquently put it, "George Allen's '30 minutes to live' was now down to 21". You'd figure after Knight's 1972 season (46% FG) Allen might have jettisoned Knight, but Knight came back for 1973 and had his typical season of innumerable FG attempts (42), missing about half those attempts, with his longest FG made being a tad bit over 40 yards (42).

It seems to me that poor kickers were tolerated more back then. Look at Fred Cox. Should have been replaced years before he actually was.

Depended on how bad they were. Paul Hornung's last year as a kicker was his infamously bad 1964 when he made only 12 FGs in 38 tries. He played two more seasons but not as a kicker.

Another example was John Aveni. He had been an okay kicker for the Bears in 1959 and 1960, but with the 'Skins in 1961, he made an abysmal 5 FGs in 28 tries and was out of the league the next year. The breakdown for that year was something else: missed both his attempts from inside the 20, made 1 of 2 from 20-29, 2 of 6 from 30-39, 1 of 15 from 40-49, and 1 of 3 from 50+. Makes Hornung's bad year look halfway decent in comparison.

Curt Knight's 1973 Topps football card is interesting. It looks to me like a botched hold on a place kick in a game at Yankee Stadium in 1972. The box score on pro football reference does not show any missed kicks. Neither Brig Owens nor Knight had a rushing or passing attempt. Maybe the play was wiped out by penalty. I am out of ideas. Maybe it was a successful kick and Knight just had incredibly dorky form on his approach. Can anyone shed light on the play depicted on that trading card?

JWL wrote:Curt Knight's 1973 Topps football card is interesting. It looks to me like a botched hold on a place kick in a game at Yankee Stadium in 1972. The box score on pro football reference does not show any missed kicks. Neither Brig Owens nor Knight had a rushing or passing attempt. Maybe the play was wiped out by penalty. I am out of ideas. Maybe it was a successful kick and Knight just had incredibly dorky form on his approach. Can anyone shed light on the play depicted on that trading card?

PFR is wrong, multiple newspaper accounts show that the Redskins first touchdown in the 10/29/72 game against the Giants is followed by (kick failed).