Forrest Blue Baltimore Colts Fred Cook Baltimore Colts

BALTIMORE COLTS SACK PACK--DUTTON, BARNES, COOK AND EHRMANN

On defense, the Colts' front four is largely unknown to fans, but not to opposing quarterbacks. Pittsburgh's fearsome front four has the rep, but it was the Colts' "Sack Pack" that led the league in dumping passers last season. Defensive Tackles Joe Ehrmann and Mike Barnes and Ends John Dutton and Fred Cook have played together long enough—two years—to know one another's instincts thoroughly. The result is the kind of fluid, unified play that opposing linemen find hard to break up."

**Time Magazine September 13, 1976

by Rick Benson

One of the great things about pro football are the nicknames that emerge that stand throughout history. The Golden Arm. Prime Time. Mean Joe. Sweetness. Broadway Joe (that one hurts!). Then there are the unit nicknames. Doomsday Defense. Fearsome Foursome. Fun Bunch. The New York Sack Exchange. Steel Curtain (Ugh!).

Baltimore had a unit nickname that was and is largely unknown outside of the 410 area code. The Sack Pack. Defensive ends John Dutton and Fred Cook along with tackles Mike Barnes and Joe Ehrmann made up the Sack Pack. Lack of a Hall of Famer presence likely added to the group's anonymity yet opponents of the Colts in the mid-seventies sure knew about the Sack Pack. I don't know who came up with the name, but I remember Colts broadcaster Vince Bagli using it all the time.

Joe Thomas, the often maligned former general manager of the Colts, was a shrewd enough evaluator of talent that he snared the Sack Pack through consecutive drafts---Barnes and Ehrmann in 1973 and Dutton and Cook in 1974. These selections were overshadowed by the fact that the following year, armed with the number one pick in the draft, Thomas elected to pass on local University of Maryland star and future Hall of Famer Randy White to trade the pick and obtain All-Pro offensive tackle George Kunz. One could easily second guess Thomas' strategy as White went on to be one of the best defensive lineman in NFL history, however this much is true—he was able to keep the Colts in the playoffs during the 70s while the other powerhouses of the 60s, the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns, disappeared into oblivion.

Dutton had a standout career at the University of Nebraska; including the 1971 National Championship. He was the 1st round, 5th pick overall in the 1974 draft and became an immediate star. Dutton had a career high 17 sacks in 1975; his first of three straight Pro Bowls. After a lengthy contact dispute in 1979, he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys.

During Dutton's holdout, Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated wrote about his playing out his option; prepared to sit out the entire season to get a better deal before the trade to Dallas: "At least two people, Dutton and his wife Ginny, share (Howard) Slusher's bitterness toward Irsay and Colt Coach Ted Marchibroda. Three weeks ago Ginny Dutton wrote a two-page letter to Marchibroda that began: "John has given the Baltimore Colts five great years. You're, however, not man enough to stand up to Mr. Irsay to get a trade accomplished so John can pursue his career where he's appreciated as a fine ballplayer and a fine person." It ended with a reaffirmation of faith. "If not playing for Baltimore means ending John's career, then that's the way it will be. John, myself and our baby are the better for it. You are the loser!"

Barnes was the 2nd round, 35th pick overall in 1973. He played nine years with the Colts and was named All-Pro in 1977. Largely unheralded, Barnes was referred to by perennial All-Pro guard Joe DeLamielleure as the toughest opponent he went up against.

Ehrmann was selected in the 1st round, 10th overall in 1973 and played 8 years with the Colts, two with the Detroit Lions and then three in the USFL. In 1976, he made the Pro Bowl the same year his brother lost his fight with cancer. Ehrmann was the first Ed Block Courage Award winner. Cook, the quiet giant of the group, played seven years with the Colts after being selected 32nd overall in the second round of the 1974 draft.

The Sack Pack collectively was very effective in mixing blitzes and stunts and more than earned their nickname; recording 59 sacks in 1975, 56 in 1976 and 47 in 1977.

Catching up with John Dutton

By Mike Klingaman, Baltimore Sun

For five years he manned the trenches for Baltimore, stalking quarterbacks and dropping ball carriers in their tracks. During the 1970s, few players could stuff the run like John Dutton, the Colts' 6-foot-7, 290-pound All Pro defensive end.

So what does Dutton do now?

He sells stop signs.

He used to be one.

A member of Baltimore's celebrated "Sack Pack," Dutton helped the Colts to three straight American Football Conference East Championships (1975-77).

Driven by their young front four – Dutton, Fred Cook, Joe Ehrmann and Mike Barnes – those Colts won 31 of 42 regular-season games, but lost each year in the playoffs.

"What chemistry we had," said Dutton, 58, who owns a sign-making company in Dallas. "All four of us were tough to block, and quarterbacks couldn't just sit in the pocket. One of us was always breaking free to make a sack."

Too often, it was Dutton, a first-round draft pick from Nebraska who had a career-high 17 sacks in 1975, his second year in the pros. Three times, he nailed Kansas City's Len Dawson in a 28-14 victory. The game ball sits on a shelf in Dutton's den, beside his battle-scarred Colts helmet and three Pro Bowl trophies.

"Once, at Memorial Stadium, I got to [Miami's] Bob Griese as he started to throw," Dutton said. "I slammed him with one hand, grabbed his shoulder pad and just kept running."

The hit turned Griese topsy-turvy.

"His feet flipped straight up in the air and he landed on his head," Dutton said. "But he got up and kept playing."

Off the field, Dutton's Colts' career stalled. By 1977, contract talks with Bob Irsay, the tight-fisted owner, turned ugly. Twice, Dutton sat out much of training camp before he was finally traded to Dallas in 1979 for a first and second-round draft pick.

To Dutton's chagrin, the squabble was played out in the press, angering Colts fans who booed him during one of his final games in Baltimore. Dutton's response? An obscene gesture to the crowd.

"It was a childish thing to do," he said, in retrospect. "But I knew I wasn't coming back, and I just got tired of the boos. I'd given 100 percent on every play.

"I had no trouble with the team or the town. All of the hassles were on the business side of it."

Dutton played nine more years in Dallas, retired there and started a business manufacturing and installing traffic signs for the city. Last week, on the job, he fell off a ladder, separating the tricep muscle from his elbow.

"Can you believe it?" Dutton said. "Twenty years of football with no serious injuries ... and now this."

Otherwise, he's a strapping, 280-pound family man. Married 34 years, Dutton has three children and a 9-month-old grandson who was born on his birthday (Feb. 6).

A staunch outdoorsman, he goes fishing in Canada for pike and walleye, and hunting in Nebraska for pheasant and quail. Several years ago, he returned to Baltimore with his son, Bridger, who attended a summer lacrosse camp at Goucher College – the site of the Colts' training camp when Dutton played here.

"It doesn't seem that long ago," he said of his football career. "Tell you what, I'm tired of listening to people say that guys who played back then couldn't have made it in the pros now. You hear that crap all the time.

"In college, I was 6 feet 7 and 270 pounds, and I ran a 4.7. I think I could have played today."

Joe Ehrmann--Pastor and Life Coach

This story is part of All Things Considered's "Men in America" series.

It's rare that a man makes it through life without being told, at least once, "Be a man." To Joe Ehrmann, a former NFL defensive lineman and now a pastor, those are the three scariest words that a boy can hear.

Ehrmann — who played with the Baltimore Colts for much of the 1970s and was a lineman at Syracuse University before that — confronted many models of masculinity in his life. But, as with many boys, his first instructor on manhood was his father, who was an amateur boxer.

Ehrmann says of his father: "I think his definition, which was very old in this country, was: Men don't need. Men don't want. Men don't touch. Men don't feel. If you're going to be a man in this world, you better learn how to dominate and control people and circumstances."

On the football field, those lessons served Ehrmann well. But, as he tells NPR's Audie Cornish, it was not the same case in the pediatric oncology ward. In 1978, Ehrmann's teenage brother was diagnosed with cancer. However tough Joe was on the field, he did not feel equipped to help his brother or himself.

On how his brother's death affected him

When he died, that was devastating to me. And I started to ask all the questions about what is the role, the meaning, the purpose of life. I was 29 years old, I was six years into my NFL career, and I had no concept — no concept what life was about, and no concept what I was about. And on this journey, I ended up asking the question: What does it mean to be a man? ...

I recognized that everything I had invested my life in — all my accomplishments, my achievements, the stuff I had accumulated — I recognized at that moment they offered no hope or help to my 19-year-old brother — 18-year-old brother — lying on his deathbed. ...

All I had was these old "man up" kind of things — "suck it up, we'll get through this together" — when he really needed the emotional, the nurturing, the love. And I had to really struggle to pull that out of my heart.

On the roles a coach can play in his players' lives

There's two kinds of coaches in America: You're either transactional or you're transformational. Transactional coaches basically use young people for their own identity, their own validation, their own ends. It's always about them — the team first, players' needs down the road.

And then you have transformational coaches. They understand the power, the platform, the position they have in the lives of young people, and they're going to use that to change the arc of every young person's life. I think football is an ideal place — sports in general — team sports are an ideal place to help boys become men. And the great myth in America today is that sports builds character. That's not true in a win-at-all-costs culture. Sports doesn't build character unless the coach models it, nurtures it and teaches it.

On what those philosophies look like on the field

I think there's a lot of screamers, there's a lot of shouters, there's a lot of shamers. My approach is this: Boy, you're in the middle of the game, and some kid's having a tough time. They get beat. ... I tell all my players, "Come on over to me during the game and I'll give you a hug." And you think about the power of a hug versus swearing, shouting, shaming at some kid.

When I played football, I hated [when] some kid would get a knee injury, your teammate would go down and that coach would say move the practice down 20 yards and leave that kid laying there. ... As coaches, we can kneel down next to that kid, you affirm the tears, the pain, the emotions, and you bring all the team around to say, "How can we help Bobby? He's one of us; he's done so much. He had so many dreams." So, you teach them how to build authentic community as men caring for and loving each other.

On the changes he's seen in ideas of masculinity

I think those three lies of masculinity — athletic ability, sexual conquest, economic success — in many ways, those things have been heightened. You have this increase in social media. You have young boys coming into this world, and they are hit 24/7. They're given all kinds of negative messages about their masculinity. They've been conditioned, and they have way more messaging out of this culture than I ever had as a young boy. I think in many respects, it's more difficult. There's more negative messaging out there and less positive.

On what it means to be a man

It think it can only be defined by two things: One, it's your capacity to love and to be loved. Masculinity ought to be defined in terms of relationships. Second thing, it ought to be defined by commitment to a cause. All of us have a responsibility to give back, to make the world more fair, more just, more hospitable for every human being. So I think it's about relationships and commitments to a cause. That's the underline of all humanity — men and women.