Gosselin Book Excerpt

(Editor’s note: Rick Gosselin’s second book, “The Team That History Forgot: the 1960s Kansas City Chiefs,” is published by the University of Nebraska Press. It details the start of the franchise, the Dallas days, the Kansas City days and the AFL days leading up to the first Super Bowl — and the three-game revenge tour that followed that loss to the Green Bay Packers. Here is a sample chapter from that book:)

Chapter 13: Hank Stram

The AFL gave George Blanda, Jack Kemp, Babe Parilli, Frank Tripucka and Al Dorow the chance to do something that they never got the chance to do in the NFL.

Air it out.

All were NFL castoffs who became starting quarterbacks in the AFL’s inaugural season in 1960. All embraced the fledgling league’s aerial philosophy.

The NFL had one 3,000-yard passer in 1960 and only two others in its 13-team league who threw for as many as 2,000 yards. The AFL had two 3,000-yard passers that season and four other quarterbacks in its eight-team league that threw for at least 2,000 yards. The following season Blanda set an American pro football record with 36 touchdown passes.

The NFL remained a league powered by legs at the turn of the 1960 decade. Jim Brown, John David Crow, Paul Hornung, J.D. Smith, Jim Taylor and Nick Pietrosante remained the feature attractions on the NFL’s marquee. The NFL loved to run the football. Everyone in the AFL loved to throw it.

Well, almost everyone.

Then there was Hank Stram. A Big Tenner at heart with his Purdue diploma, Stram believed success on the football field started on the ground.

Which is why Stram stocked his shelves in 1960 with three backs each capable of 100 rushing yards on any given Sunday for the Texans – halfbacks Abner Haynes and Johnny Robinson and fullback Jack Spikes.

The fullback position was not the after-thought then as it has become in today’s NFL, filled with lead blockers and pass catchers. Fullbacks in the 1950s and 1960s were expected to carry both their weight on offense and the football. NFL fullbacks won 13 consecutive rushing titles from 1953 through 1965.

If “Ground Hank” hoped to succeed in the AFL, Stram knew he needed a pounder to complement his two gliders at halfback. Which is why he traded a projected starting safety (Austin Gonsoulin) to Denver for Spikes following the first AFL draft

“I don’t think there’s any question that you have to have a big, strong fullback – a durable guy who can dance every dance, who can play all 16 games,” Stram said. “I always felt you need thunder and lightning – that big fullback who can get the tough yardage inside and also the halfback who could get to the outside.”

The Texans were one of two teams to rush for 2,000 yards in 1960, finishing second to the Oakland Raiders. But Dallas did rush for a league-best 24 touchdowns. The Texans were the only team to rush for 2,000 yards in 1961 and one of only two teams to get there again in 1962. Haynes finished first in the AFL in rushing in 1960, third in 1961 and second in 1962 with the first 1,000-yard season in franchise history.

All the while Stram continued to eye his shelves. He drafted fullback Curtis McClinton in 1961 and another fullback – Baylor All-America Ronnie Bull — with a first-round draft choice in 1962. But Bull elected to sign with the NFL. Stram drafted bruising halfback Joe Don Looney in 1964 but lost him to the NFL as well. He drafted halfback Gale Sayers and fullback Mike Curtis in 1965 but again lost out on both to the NFL. He drafted three more fullbacks in 1966, including Walt Garrison of Oklahoma State, as well as halfback Mike Garrett. He lost all three of his fullbacks but landed Garrett.

Even if you couldn’t run the ball, the threat of the run always had to be there. And you needed backs to pose that threat so Stram kept drafting them.

“The farther you go the more balance you need to have,” Stram said. “You can’t win without good balance. You have to have a good running game and it will open things up for your passing game, You have a good passing game and it’ll open things up for the running game. You don’t win the Super Bowl with a one-dimensional attack or a one-phase personality.”

Stram was dubbed “Dapper” by his friends for his natty sideline attire. But he was dubbed “The Mentor” by his players because of his offensive creativity. Stram was always willing to stroll outside of the box.

His first major wrinkle was a formation from his college coaching days.

“We started using the I-formation in 1962 with Abner Haynes,” Stram said. “We used it against Denver and beat them overwhelmingly (24-3). It was the first time the I-formation had ever been used in pro football. One of the most prominent coaches in the game – and I won’t give you his name because he’s a friend of mine – once told me, `Dapper, that I-formation will never work in professional football. It’s a college formation.’”

But Stram continued to use the I and it continued to work for him. The arrival of quarterback Len Dawson in 1962 allowed Stram to hone his offensive philosophy even further. He remembered recruiting Dawson to Purdue and one of the major features in his game.

“Lenny was a magician,” said Mel Knowlton, Dawson’s high school coach. “He was cool and calm and worked on trying to fool people. The play-action pass was made for him.”

With Dawson now in Stram’s huddle, the play-action would become a staple of the Texans that fed off an already stout Dallas running game.

“We ran the ball so well that we felt play-action passes would give us extra time,” Stram said. “We had such big, strong offensive linemen like Ed Budde, David Hill and Jim Tyrer. Lenny was an excellent faker and we had small backs who were hidden by the fake in the backfield.”

Dawson was all in on the philosophy. He understood he didn’t need to throw the ball 30 times per game for the Texans to win. The Texans averaged 23 passes per game in 1962 on the way to their first AFL title. Dawson was willing to play to the strength of his offense.

“We had such a huge offensive line,” Dawson said. “The worst thing they did was pass block. I had a lot of time because of the play-action pass. We had a running team. We could move the ball on the ground with those big old guys straight ahead.”

Stram’s next wrinkle was born out of necessity – the moving pocket.

“Our chief competition at the time was the San Diego Chargers,” Stram said. “They had a tremendous defensive line with Earl Faison and Ernie Ladd. Those guys were huge and knocked down 6-7 balls a game when you tried to throw from the pocket. The first time we used the moving pocket against San Diego we beat them in the last game of the (1962) season. We used a lot of rollouts with the tight end blocking down on the defensive end. Lenny completed his first 11 passes of the game and we won, 26-17. We did that out of necessity.”

Like the play-action, the moving pocket was a perfect fit for the talents of Dawson, who was a tad shorter than the prototype for the quarterback position at 6-foot.

“We felt offenses should be like a pitcher’s repertoire,” Stram said. “You can’t stay in the big leagues if you throw the fastball all the time. You need a curveball, a change of pace, a slider, a knuckler, whatever… You have to have a variety of pitches to keep the other guy off balance.

“From a passing standpoint we had quick passes with a three-step drop, pocket passes, play-action passes and rollouts. We didn’t want the defense to feel they knew where our quarterback would be every time he went back to pass. When he rolled right or left, he had all the time in the world and he had much better vision. He didn’t have to throw over all those giants. The days of the quarterback being a statue were over.”

The Texans rushed for a franchise record with 2,407 yards in 1962. But Dawson also won his first AFL passing title that season with an efficiency rating of 98.3, leading the league with 29 touchdown passes. He would win five more AFL passing titles in succession from 1964-68, which remains a pro football record 55 years later.

Stram had devised the perfect offense for the talent on his roster. He could run or pass by choice. He could toy with formations, lining up tight ends and wide receivers in the backfield. Stram would motion players and also run reverses and option passes with halfbacks, fullbacks and even wide receivers throwing the ball.

“Everything we did was based on how are we going to best use our personnel,” Stram said. “How are we going to do it better than everybody else? How are we going to get a little jump? How are we going to get a winning edge? The bottom line was this – How will this help us win? That’s all, nothing else. If it will help us, let’s do it and not worry about what anybody says or does.”

There was one other factor in Stram’s construction of a gameplan each week. The opponent.

“One year the Raiders were playing the bump-and-run so great,” Stram said. “They had David Grayson and George Atkinson, who were both fantastic cover guys but not real good tacklers. So we lined up in a full house – two tight ends and three backs — and only threw three passes in the game. We beat them badly in Kansas City. Al (Davis) was furious.”

That was one of only two games the Raiders lost in that 1968 season. Dawson completed 2-of-3 passes for 16 yards but the Chiefs ran the ball 60 times for 294 yards and three touchdowns in a 24-10 triumph.

The NFL was still running the ball in 1966 and the AFL was still passing it. The Chiefs had the most diverse offense in football with the ability to dominate either on the ground or through the air. With all the motion and trickery at his disposal, Stram was giving fans a peek at what was to come in the game of football in the 1970s and 1980s.

“There are a lot of ways to get from here to Los Angeles,” Stram said. “You can take an airplane, a train, a bus, a car, a motorcycle, a bicycle, a skateboard… Our offense was such that we wanted to take a jet. Some people at the time were taking the bus. But we felt it was a jet age and we wanted to perform that way.”

Stram wanted to get to Los Angeles at the end of the 1966 season. The Los Angeles Coliseum would be the site of the first AFL-NFL championship game. Stram would have two new toys to play with offensively in 1966 – a new running back and an emerging wide receiver. Mike Garrett and Otis Taylor would provide Stram his boarding pass to the jet age.

Excerpted from The Team That History Forgot: The 1960s Kansas City Chiefs by Rick Gosselin by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. © 2025 by Rick Gosselin. Available wherever books are sold or from the Univ. of Nebraska Press 800.848.6224 and at nebraskapress.unl.edu.