All take blame in Fire defeat

Blame it on their youth. Blame it on Virgil Carter or Jack Dolbin or James Scott. Blame it on Jim Spavital. Whoever you want to put the finer on it all adds up to the simple fact that the Chicago Fire got whipped last night by the Birmingham Americans in the World Football League’s first ever showdown game.

Dublin, tearfully, and Spavital, calmly, blamed it on themselves. Carter didn’t blame anybody, pointing out that the Americans played a pretty good football game.

“The biggest factor in the game,” insisted Spavital, “was that I didn’t do a good job of getting them ready mentally. When a team drops passes, chokes a time or two, it’s an indication they were not properly prepared by the coach.

“I felt I wouldn’t have to do anything to get them up for the game, being that Birmingham was unbeaten and it was first place and everything. I tried to play it down, figuring that in a game like this the players would get themselves up.”

“Then, too, I was afraid since we had three more games coming up real quick that we might have gotten on the old roller coaster and gone up and down too quickly. If I had it to do over, I’d sure have talked to them.”

Carter refused to put the rap on his receivers, tho Scott dropped two first half passes that became interceptions, and Dolbin wide open, dropped a bomb that would have given the Fire a third quarter lead.

“If you start counting dropped passes,” noted Carter, “they’ll start counting the ones you overthrow on.”

Carter threw 43 passes, far more than usual, and explained: “Obviously we felt they were playing to stop our running game. But their outside linebackers were up on the line and the middle backer was up close. I didn’t test it much but when I did they were right there.”

“I could tell what they were thinking going in. Our last two games have been predicated on the run and these were the two films they saw.”

The Fire didn’t get its only touchdown until 2 seconds remained in the half when Scott redeemed himself by hauling in Carter’s 28-yard pass in the end zone. “That got us going,” noted Virg. “In the third quarter, we played pretty well, but had a little trouble getting field position and that kind of got the defense worn down.”

“The defense played well,” confirmed Spavital, “but it was on the field 80 percent of the game.”

Dolbin already redeemed himself, too, when he pulled the Fire out of a deep hole with a 39-yard reception early in the fourth quarter. A punt had backed the Fire to its 1, trailing only 14-8. ON first down, Carter fired a flare to Dolbin, who skipped down the right sideline to the 40.

“That was a pretty safe play,” offered Carter, “it’s about as safe as a dive. I was going to throw the ball whether Jack was open or not. It was either going to be a completion or an incompletion. There was no danger of them coming in on me. Our line fires out and all I do is take three steps and throw. Even if we failed to hold them up they can’t get to me in time.”

Historians were reminded of the pass that Len Dawson threw to Otis Taylor under similar circumstances in an American Football League title game against Oakland. Only difference was that one turned out to be the game breaker.

Last night’s appeared to have the Fire fired up and ready to roll, too. But, on third and 1, Carter elected to pass and Russ Brubacher, blitzing him from his outside linebacker position, nailed him for a loss.

“Farther upfield that call might be pretty stereotyped,” said Carter, “but, not where we were. If we’d gone for the first down and missed it I think we’d have punted, anyway.

“It was a standard blitz. We had a man assigned to him but Brubacher got outside of him. That play kind of frustrated us.”

It was the pivotal play of the game and if Brubacher had not made it, Jack Dolbin may not have had to shed any tears, after all.