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Chuck Walton, the Detroit Lions’ 6’3” 255*pound offensive guard, had good reason to be proud Saturday night when he and a group of Detroit Lions football players were in town to play the West Ottawa coaches in a basketball game.It wasn’t just another day for the solid built Walton, who is described by many National Football League experts as one of ‘“the finest” guards in the NFL.The aggressive guard was presented with his first child Friday, a seven-pound bouncing girl and the jubilant Walton said, “I would like to sickher on those Dallas Cowboys. It makes me sick everytime I think about those guys beating us in the playoffs last year and we are looking forward to getting even.”’ “We were in a good frame of mind when we played Dallas but we got a couple of bad breaks and then we just seemed to freeze up against their playoff experience.”WTalton doesn’t look for any rookies to make the Lions ros-i ter this fall but did add that defensive tackle Bobby Bell of Cincinnati has probably the best chance of making the squad because of the question-mark of tackle Alex Karras, who according to reports, has slowed down a lot from his peak years due to an injury.“Alan Page of Minnesota and Lilly of Dallas are two' • of the toughest defensive tack-I faced last year,” stated Walton. “There aren’t any easy ones though.”One of the NFL’s most promising young quarterbacks Greg Landry says, “I will be given j the number one quarterbackspot going into spring practice but I will have to hold it in the exhibition games.”“I would like to start all 14 games for the Lions in 1971 andlead them into the SuperBowl,” continued Landry. “I don t foe I that we wTere tooconservative against Dallas butyou can’t get too fancy againstthose guys either.”Landry plans on running the football when the situation calls year even though Coach1 Joe Schmidt doesn’t want himto- £;V-' ^ f“It’s just something that 1like to do and I feel that if I can help the team in this capacity, 1 will continue to run even though Joe would rather have me just throw the footballand run the team.” j(We like to see you run Greg because you not only create j excitement when you’re on the field but we feel that you give the opponents something else to think about other than just1passing like most NFL quarterbacks. )“I don’t know of any NFL team or players that use pep pills but I'm sure that some players do. I know that I don't and when the time comes for me to have to take pills to get up for a game, that's the time I’m getting out of football,’’ concluded Landry.just proud to be on the team. I honestly believe that we are going places.”The injury-prone Nick Eddy added, “my number one goal is to stay healthy.”Eddy said the big difference in his college coach Ara Parse-ghian of Notre Dame and Schmidt is that Ara is “very emotional” and Schmidt isn’t,Chuck Walton .., proud fatherbut he feels that both are good coaches. “While I attended Notre Dame, the top rivalries were Southern Cal, Purdue and Michigan State. It seemed like everyone was pointing to upsetus.”We asked Nick if he thought the Irish play a patsy schedule and he commented, “it’s hard to figure out who’s going to betough for that one year when you schedule 10 or 15 years inadvance.” #The Lions’ excellent safety Mike Weger of Bowling Green University credits defensive coach Jim “Hatchet David as th reason he is in pro football today. “Without a doubt, Jim has helped me the most at my position and 1 can’t say enough about him.”The duties of a safety like Weger are to cover the tight end and support on running plays.When asked who is toughest end for him to cover, Weger cracked, “they are all tough but our own Charlie1 Sanders is the toughest around, j Charlie Taylor, Jackie and Jerry Smith and Warren Wells are some of the others thatgive me trouble.”Weger indicated that theLions use basically a man-to- jman pass defense instead of a ;zone like Minnesota and many |other clubs use.“A good quarterback likeJohnny Unitas of Baltimore and Bart Starr of Green Bay can ; pick apart a zone pass defense j and 1 myself prefer a man-to-man coverage.” jOh! By the way. Walton did ; give me a six-inch cigar.Modern BeverageLeading ActuaBilly Cottrell, the Lions’ burly j* rv * *reserve offensive center, guard HondlCOP DlVISIOfl and tackle said, “I would like rto start for the Lions but I'm The unofficial Greater Hoi-
Newspaper Details
Holland Evening Sentinel
Holland, Michigan, US
Wed, Mar 24, 1971
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Mj K.
WI, USA 22 Sep 2019
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