(by Ed Agner)
It happened every time. I knew the
routine and the dialogue by heart. I could even see it coming most of
the time too. The kicker would line up, I'd get a queasy feeling in my
stomach and think of ways to steal the remote and change the channel
before the side-winding kicker sent a ball sailing wide right or left
and Dad launched into his diatribe about the evils of soccer-style
kickers.
It didn't matter how many times the advantages of kicking soccer-style was explained, my Dad hated soccer-style kickers with a passion usually reserved for hippies, lawyers, politicians, the IRS and door-to-door salesmen. Dad wanted (and still wants, actually) a world where ALL kickers looked like mechanics or shady used-car salesmen, kicked straight-on and played a REAL position too. Or two out of three of those at least - with kicking straight-on being mandatory.
In the NFL after George Blanda, Don Cockroft, Tom Dempsey and Jim Turner were put out to pasture, Mark Moseley was the closest thing to a King to my Dad - which was odd given Dad's Cowboy fandom but...
Aesthetics, man. Aesthetics.
Moseley was the last of the full-time straight-on kickers (though I seem to recall that Steve Cox, Redskins Punter/Kick-Off man and the guy who had to try FG attempts of longer than 40 yards for Moseley, was also a straight-on kicker - which means Joe Gibbs is probably far too much like my Dad), was pudgy and looked more like a guy you'd buy a questionable Monza from than a member of a professional sports team. If he could've played a little linebacker too, he'd have been perfect.
Total Football II has Moseley listed at 5'11", 202 lbs. which may have been true - in some alternate universe...very-very-very-very-very early on in his career. By the time I became cognizant of football and Moseley, his football cards made him out to be a comically short and doughy little man who looked like he hid Twinkies in his helmet in between kicks and seemed as if training camp wind-sprints would have caused some sort of cardiac episode. Needless to say no one fought much to get a Mark Moseley card. Yet, he was still my Dad's favorite player - not on a Cowboy roster, of course.
I recall Moseley's later Redskins years and thinking that he and Ray Wershing must sit around in their rented-trailer used car dealership and laugh and laugh and laugh about being able to put "professional football player" on their tax forms. Then they'd go out and hustle a Gremlin or Nova on some poor, unsuspecting blue hair, close the sale then drink highballs with big batches of fried food until their hearts felt like they'd explode - all the while arguing over the virtues of kicking straight-on v. soccer-style, knowing all deep-down that, with them, it really didn't make any damn difference.
But all Moseley-bashing aside, he really was a nice little kicker in his day - he lead the NFL in Points once, Field Goal Percentage once, Field Goals 4 times and was in the Top 15 of Total Points when he retired. And he was fun to watch, if for no other reason than the oddity factor - well, the oddity of him being the last of the straight-on kickers and the oddity of seeing a weeble try to kick. In a world when everyone tries to call themselves old school, Moseley was exactly that.
Moseley finished up with the Browns in '86 in one last attempt at getting the Browns a ring, ending exactly like you'd expect - was that The Drive season or The Fumble season? How do Browns fans keep all those failures straight? I remember my Dad acting like the president had been shot when he heard the news of Moseley's retirement - bemoaning the end of a glorious era of ugly-men badly kicking footballs straight-on, cursing Pete Gogolak...and starting in his diatribe on the evils of soccer-style kickers. Ahh, youth!
Mark Moseley Speaking Engagement Reservation Page (only $6,000!)
Mark Moseley's Career Statistics on Pro-Football-Reference.com
It didn't matter how many times the advantages of kicking soccer-style was explained, my Dad hated soccer-style kickers with a passion usually reserved for hippies, lawyers, politicians, the IRS and door-to-door salesmen. Dad wanted (and still wants, actually) a world where ALL kickers looked like mechanics or shady used-car salesmen, kicked straight-on and played a REAL position too. Or two out of three of those at least - with kicking straight-on being mandatory.
In the NFL after George Blanda, Don Cockroft, Tom Dempsey and Jim Turner were put out to pasture, Mark Moseley was the closest thing to a King to my Dad - which was odd given Dad's Cowboy fandom but...
Aesthetics, man. Aesthetics.
Moseley was the last of the full-time straight-on kickers (though I seem to recall that Steve Cox, Redskins Punter/Kick-Off man and the guy who had to try FG attempts of longer than 40 yards for Moseley, was also a straight-on kicker - which means Joe Gibbs is probably far too much like my Dad), was pudgy and looked more like a guy you'd buy a questionable Monza from than a member of a professional sports team. If he could've played a little linebacker too, he'd have been perfect.
Total Football II has Moseley listed at 5'11", 202 lbs. which may have been true - in some alternate universe...very-very-very-very-very early on in his career. By the time I became cognizant of football and Moseley, his football cards made him out to be a comically short and doughy little man who looked like he hid Twinkies in his helmet in between kicks and seemed as if training camp wind-sprints would have caused some sort of cardiac episode. Needless to say no one fought much to get a Mark Moseley card. Yet, he was still my Dad's favorite player - not on a Cowboy roster, of course.
I recall Moseley's later Redskins years and thinking that he and Ray Wershing must sit around in their rented-trailer used car dealership and laugh and laugh and laugh about being able to put "professional football player" on their tax forms. Then they'd go out and hustle a Gremlin or Nova on some poor, unsuspecting blue hair, close the sale then drink highballs with big batches of fried food until their hearts felt like they'd explode - all the while arguing over the virtues of kicking straight-on v. soccer-style, knowing all deep-down that, with them, it really didn't make any damn difference.
But all Moseley-bashing aside, he really was a nice little kicker in his day - he lead the NFL in Points once, Field Goal Percentage once, Field Goals 4 times and was in the Top 15 of Total Points when he retired. And he was fun to watch, if for no other reason than the oddity factor - well, the oddity of him being the last of the straight-on kickers and the oddity of seeing a weeble try to kick. In a world when everyone tries to call themselves old school, Moseley was exactly that.
Moseley finished up with the Browns in '86 in one last attempt at getting the Browns a ring, ending exactly like you'd expect - was that The Drive season or The Fumble season? How do Browns fans keep all those failures straight? I remember my Dad acting like the president had been shot when he heard the news of Moseley's retirement - bemoaning the end of a glorious era of ugly-men badly kicking footballs straight-on, cursing Pete Gogolak...and starting in his diatribe on the evils of soccer-style kickers. Ahh, youth!
Mark Moseley Speaking Engagement Reservation Page (only $6,000!)
Mark Moseley's Career Statistics on Pro-Football-Reference.com