Americans ramble, quench Fire 22-8

Jack Dolbin was at his locker, crying so hard he could barely breathe or talk.

Finally, painstakingly, he tried to face the sad music.

“I wanted to have a good game so badly,” he whispered. “I can’t explain it. I can’t explain anything. All I know is I was dropping passes out there, and I had no excuses.”

Dolbin could just as well have been weeping for the entire Fire team last night, which lost 22-8 to the unbeaten Birmingham Americans in a World Football League game nobody could quite fathom.

“I think we have the best receivers in the league,” said Fire Coach Jim Spavital. “We must have dropped seven passes out there. Two receivers leading the league, and all of a sudden they start dropping them.”

The victory gave Birmingham an eight-game win streak and dropped Chicago to 6-2 in the Central Division with a tortuous task ahead, three games in the next 13 days.

“We’ll just have to regroup,” said Spavital, again taking the blame for not preparing his team mentally. “I thought the game would help prepare them,” he said. “It was my fault.”

It’s not that Dolbin or James Scott dropped everything thrown at them by Virgil Carter, who completed 18 of 43 passes for 263 yards and a touchdown with two seconds left in the first half.

Dolbin himself grabbed five for 77 yards, but it was one of those he dropped – a long pass in the third period – that would have put the Fire ahead. With third down a the Fire 23 and trailing 14-8, Carter sprinted out as he was doing all evening before a crowd of 44,332 at Soldier Field and a nationwide television audience. He spotted Dolbin outrunning his defender and hit him perfectly, but the ball went through Dolbin’s hands.

On another occasion, the ball bounced off Dolbin’s chest, and Carter’s toss to Mark Kellar, too, went through his hands with blocking forming ahead of him.

But, as much as the receivers seemed to have stone-hands, the defense played one of its best games of the season. Trouble is, the Firemen were simply on the field too much. “Our defense did the job,” said Linebacker Rudy Kuchenberg. “But we’re a team and we lost the game.”

As much credit goes to the Birmingham quarterback, former National Football Leaguer George Mira. He connected on 12 of 28 for 139 yards, but it was his pinpoint sideline passes to speedy Alfred Jennings that highlighted the Americans’ three touchdown drives.

Birmingham tallied first on a 57-yard drive in 12 plays in the first period: and 69-yard march in 11 plays, following one of Chuck Ramsey’s frequent short punts, was climaxed with Mira’s 19-yard aerial to Paul Robinson, the ex-Bengal.

On their final score with 10:28 elapsed in the fourth period, Mira took the Americans on a 66-yard, nine play drive. Highlighting the series were passes of 10, 23, and 6 yards to Jenkins, and effective running by Art Cantrelle, a rookie from LSU who finally scored on a sweep from 3 yards out.

“We had so many good players,” said American Coach Jack Gotta. “I can’t single out any one player. Our defense was unreal.”

Birmingham’s first four – plus safety blitz – kept Carter scrambling most of the evening and caused several of his passes to go astray. At least twice his passes were deflected, once by former Bear Ross Brupbacher.

“We had wanted to do what we normally do,” said Spavital. “But, they took everything away from us. Losing Cyril Pinder midway in the second period following a slashing 38-yard run with a Carter pass didn’t help.”

Pinder, who carried only three times, twisted his left ankle but is expected to be ready for the Sun on Labor Day in Anaheim, Cal.