Craig Morton

Craig Morton spent a decade sometimes playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys stuck, as he was, between the careers of local folk hero Don Meredith and national legend Roger Staubach.

In 1974, the New York Giants traded a 1975 first choice and a 1976 second choice for Morton, hoping his rocket launcher arm and Cowboy background could right a Giants ship that was listing at 1-5 and about to go under.

Craig Morton: Bad team, ugly helmet logo

For a moment, it looked like a brilliant move. In his first full week as a Giant, Morton led the team to an upset win over the Kansas City Chiefs, a glimmer of daylight in a gloomy year that saw the Giants lose the rest of their games that season.

But with a roster of guys either on the wrong side of 30 or rookies, the Giants’ issues went further than quarterback, compounded by three years spent wandering the wilderness with home games played at the Yale Bowl in New Haven and at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was under renovation and Giants Stadium was under construction.

Over the next two years the Giants finished 8-25 with Morton. He was traded to Denver and took them to Super Bowl. The Cowboys used the first-round choice from the Giants to select defensive tackle Randy White, who’d end up in the Hall of Fame.

The Giants only dug themselves an even deeper hole, turning to Paterson Plank Joe Pisarcik at quarterback.

“We needed Morton, we had to have a competent quarterback. Maybe we paid too much for him. We probably did. But there was no choice, not really, and I’d do it again,” Giants general manager Andy Robustelli said later. “I think Morton was the right guy but on the wrong team.

“Craig often needed a kick in the ass to get his attention and let him know he couldn’t call his own tune. Instead of being the positive influence I had sought, the opposite occurred. I take nothing away from Craig’s football abilities, but he was not the kind of leader we sought.”

Craig Morton died earlier this month, age 83. His time with the Giants was short but it felt like an eternity at the time, Morton forever running for his life, playing for a team that was forever on the road.

Postscript:

Had they existed back then, the internet, ESPN, sports talk radio and every barroom and office baseball and football fantasy league would have blown up on October 22, 1974.

It was a Tuesday, the NFL’s last call for trading. The Giants followed the Morton deal by sending incumbent quarterback Norm (Losing Pitcher) Snead to San Francisco for two draft choices. The Green Bay Packers in desperation traded five choices, including two first rounders, to Los Angeles for 35-year-old quarterback John Hadl. Kansas City sent John Matuszak to Houston for Curley Culp.

And if all that wasn’t enough, in a mind-blowing deal, the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants announced they had swapped Bobby Murcer “the next Mickey Mantle,” for Bobby Bonds, “the next Willie Mays.”

Nowadays, trades are rare and if they happen at all they’re based on data or salary cap implications. In 1974 it was all driven by gut instincts and angry team owners.