With the induction of Randy Gradishar at age 72, the ‘Orange Crush’ finally comes to Canton

FILE – Denver Broncos Ring of Fame linebacker Randy Gradishar, center, speaks during a celebration outside the State Capitol marking his induction into the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024, Friday, May 3, 2024, in Denver. Gradishar is the first member of the Broncos’ famed “Orange Crush” defense to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

DENVER (AP) — The only time Randy Gradishar disappointed his teammates was when he first arrived in Denver as a first-round draft pick of the Broncos in 1974.

The members of the emerging “Orange Crush” ensemble, which would soon join Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters,” Dallas’ “Doomsday” and Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain,” eagerly awaited the arrival of the man Ohio State coach Woody Hayes called “the best linebacker I ever coached.” They would join Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters,” Dallas’ “Doomsday” and Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain” as one of the premier defenses in the NFL.

Gradishar and nose tackle Rubin Carter, drafted a year later, would become the twin pillars of the “Orange Crush” defense that was the backbone of the Broncos in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the driving force in their first Super Bowl appearance following the 1977 season, where they lost 27–10 to Dallas.

Besides what he would bring to the field, his teammates wondered what kind of muscle car he’d spent his signing bonus on and whether the roaring V8 engine or thumping subwoofers would announce his arrival from blocks away.

Gradishar instead arrived in his father’s creaking station wagon, the type with wooden side panels that had been used to ferry families across the country in the 1970s.

“We thought, ‘Who is this guy?’” Tom Jackson recalls with a hearty laugh.

Jackson, who had acquired a golden Monte Carlo player as a fourth-round pick a year earlier, was a fellow Ohioan and former Louisville linebacker who would become Gradishar’s roommate, lifelong friend and, on Saturday, his Pro Football Hall of Fame announcer.

“Then of course he started playing,” Jackson said, “and from that point on we were like, ‘Oh, okay, we’re going to follow this guy everywhere.’”

Gradishar was not a grunting linebacker in the style of Jack Lambert, Dick Butkus or Lawrence Taylor. He was a tactician, who deciphered offensive intent with astonishing accuracy and a tremendous athlete with an uncanny ability to stay on his feet and mess up plays.

A textbook example of a tackler. Nothing special, nothing ferocious.

“Randy wasn’t the fastest, he wasn’t the quickest, he wasn’t the strongest, he was just the most awesome tackling machine I’ve ever seen,” Jackson said.

Joe Collier, Denver’s longtime defensive coordinator and architect of the “Orange Crush” defense, told The Associated Press in an interview two weeks before his death in May at age 91 that the secret to Gradishar’s greatness was his astonishing ability to stay on his feet when opponents tried to disable his legs.

“He had a sense of balance that always amazed me, how he fended off blockers,” said Collier, who found Gradishar to be the ideal leader for his 3-4 defense that was just beginning to gain a foothold in the league in the mid-1970s.

“Guys would go after his legs and he would just walk past them and stay on his feet. So he was a guy that was available to tackle 100 percent of the time,” Collier said. “He was always on the ball. He didn’t get knocked down. He wasn’t the type to get knocked down.”

Like his choice of transportation, Gradishar’s playing was simply reliable and credible, traits he learned growing up in Champion Township, Ohio — just a 40-minute drive from Canton — where he began working in his father’s grocery store at age 11.

That work ethic made him a star on the track and field in high school, but he wanted to focus on the family business after graduation. One afternoon, he got a call from the school while he was sweeping the store.

“They told me Woody Hayes was there to see me. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll be right over,'” Gradishar said. “Then I hung up and said, ‘Who’s Woody Hayes?'”

Gardishar may have been the only kid in Ohio who didn’t know that. But he rushed to Champion High School in Warren to meet Hayes, then drove him back to the grocery store. When Jim Gradishar finished cutting sausage, he sat down with Hayes and the two talked for an hour, mostly about the fact that they had both served in World War II.

After Hayes left, the elder Gradishar told his son he was going to Ohio State. So he headed to Columbus to develop the skills that would make him an All-Pro in Denver, the AP Defensive Player of the Year in 1978 — and, after a 35-year wait, a Pro Football Hall of Famer at age 72.

“I’m just glad that it finally happened, whether it was by me or somebody else, because I think we all know that the ‘Orange Crush’ has not been recognized and so the ‘Orange Crush’ is finally being recognized,” Gradishar said.

He is proud to be the first and prays that he will not be the last.

Although the “Orange Crush” ravaged the offensive line for several seasons and laid the foundation for the success the franchise would enjoy under John Elway, a return to the Super Bowl proved out of reach.

That was one reason often cited for the Hall of Fame snubs of the “Orange Crush.” ​​Another was the widespread notion that the gaudy tackling stats of the era — such as Gradishar’s 2,049 career stops in 10 seasons — must have been embellished by the Broncos.

“You know what? I don’t blame them for not believing the numbers, because Randy’s stats were actually unbelievable,” Jackson said. “But they were real. I saw them.”

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