First of the Big-Time Trash Talkers

By JERÉ LONGMAN
NYT

During the famed upset in Super Bowl III, Jets cornerback Johnny Sample intercepted a pass, stopping a Baltimore Colts drive 2 yards from the end zone. Then he tapped the ball on the helmet of the intended receiver and said, “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Later, Sample tackled the same receiver, Willie Richardson, and was confronted by Baltimore Coach Don Shula, who complained that Sample had pushed Richardson over the Colts’ bench. The two men stood jawing and Sample told Shula, “I wish I had pushed you over the bench.”

As Coach Rex Ryan audaciously predicts victories, and linebacker Bart Scott rants on ESPN with the inflamed oratory of a professional wrestler, the current Jets are without rival as trash talkers in the N.F.L. But in the franchise’s history they are not without precedent.

In the 1950s and ’60s, long before cable television, Facebook and Twitter, Sample elevated the low art of football name-calling to high volume and purpose. He won N.F.L. titles with the Colts in 1958 and 1959 and played a significant role in the Jets’ lone Super Bowl victory in January 1969. If Sample was not pro football’s first trash talker, he was near the front of a very short line.

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