MIKE MUGATO
In 1995 I had sent a few videos to John Turney, the sack statistician, and he said he caught a sack that was
originally noted as a half sack and changed his original number. I think it was from a game in 1979 or 1980.
He told me it boosted Jack into double figures in sacks for that year to make every year doubles from 1973.
I've been a big Rams/Youngblood follower since 1976 and I have a few memories. They used to televise 8 -10
Ram games here in Hawaii.
In the championship that year I clearly remember Ron Yary holding him and not being called for it. There was
a blatant obvious one where Youngblood and Yary were out in the open and Jack had beat him on the play but
Yary had his arms out and was pulling at Youngblood from behind by his facemask! The ref was standing there
watching it!I was yelling "Where's the penalty?" after Tarkenton got the pass off.
I still have a big black and white picture of it and Jack's helmet is crooked on his head and one of Yary's hands
is covering his face. (attached)
When Jack later picked up the football on a play where Tarkenton fumbled and was running toward the end
zone I was jumping up and down and chearing.
The first game of the season in 1977 I remember the Falcons had a big rookie tackle starting on the left side
named Waymond Bryant. He was 6-6 270 and very big for those days. Jack was dominating him to the point
of when a penalty was called, it was almost surely holding on Bryant. The Rams lost 17-6 in an upset but that's
the kind of impact Youngblood had. Drawing holding penalties.
Think about it. Many times penalties are declined and forgotten because those won't show up in the final stats.
The Falcons were only penalized 6 times for 53 yards but I clearly remember Jack's impact on that rookie.
"Holding, #66...offense!"
I emailed Turney about the penalties drawn and he said he was including that in his effort to get # 85 elected to
the HOF. John said he was also a friend of Youngblood's and he was doing everything he could to help him get in.
Of course we were both upset at that time when the they were announced and Jack wasn't on it.
In 1979 when Youngblood broke his leg they never announced it during the game so I didn't know until reading
the paper the next day. I was devastated. Though he gutted it out, and I respect him for it, he was clearly not
the same player in the title game and Super Bowl. He helped the defense as a whole, but would have done more
individually had he been 100%. Yes, the Rams did play "team defense" but I can't help thinking... what if!
The NFL has been keeping track of qb pressures since the 90's. Youngblood had a fair share of those every
game I saw him play! Just think if they would have kept stats on that back then. He was always chasing the qb's
around forcing them to throw it in the stands or get sacked by Jack or by running him into someone else. Or
worse causing him to make a mistake like fumbling or throwing an INT.
And if the Rams knocked the starting qb out, Youngblood would terrorize the next guy.
I also remember him stringing out running plays a lot and one on one tackling the running back on a number of occassions too.