Mr. Grimm goes to Canton
WASHINGTON — The guys wearing the dresses and pig snouts can rejoice. There's finally going to be a Hog in the Hall.
But Russ Grimm also belonged to another select group during his 11 NFL seasons, all with the Washington Redskins. He and his teammates would gather in a shed at the old Redskins Park as members of the "5 o'clock club," where choice beverages were consumed in a sort of counterculture to the straight-laced ways of coach Joe Gibbs.
Now Grimm is headed to the Hall of Fame, one of seven members to be inducted Saturday. The character who got up to so much mischief in his playing days is now a respected assistant head coach with the Arizona Cardinals after several seasons as an assistant with the Steelers, and he's the first among the NFL's most famous offensive line to be enshrined in Canton.
"He drove Joe nuts," said Bobby Beathard, the longtime Redskins general manager who assembled the Hogs. "We had some times there. Boy, it was funny. They could drive you to an early grave, that group. They were doing everything."
But, said Beathard, when it was game time: "They all knew they came to play. There was no messing around, no shortcuts. They were so smart, the smartest group of guys."
And Grimm is considered the best of them all, the left guard in a fivesome that punished defenses on the way to Super Bowl titles. They were the first offensive line to become glamorous, thanks to an unglamorous nickname that inspired T-shirts, slogans and those strangely dressed male fans.
The NFL championships at the end of the 1982, 1987 and 1991 seasons wouldn't have been possible without the Hogs, and there's long been a case that their recognition by the Hall was well overdue.
"We've finally got that first step, where one of us is in now," Grimm said. "I think that'll put a little bit more light on some of the guys I played with."
A third-round draft pick from the University of Pittsburgh in 1981, Grimm became a starter as a rookie and anchored the Hogs for the next six years. There wasn't a more powerful left-side tandem than Grimm and left tackle Joe Jacoby. John Riggins always had room to run, and Redskins quarterbacks mostly lived in a cocoon of protection.
"You have to have good people playing beside you," Grimm said. "I could have been on a team that had losing seasons and didn't have the caliber of players that I had playing up front with me. Those guys are a part of it."
Grimm was a three-time All-Pro, went to four straight Pro Bowls and was named to the NFL's All-Decade team for the 1980s. Injuries began to hamper his career in 1987, and a new generation of Hogs gradually began to take over. Still, he was mostly a starter when healthy until his final season in 1991, when he earned a third Super Bowl ring in his last game.
"He was one of the hardest guys I got after," said Joe Bugel, the offensive line coach who gave the Hogs their nickname. "He was the leader, and I wanted other guys to see that Bugel is going to go after the leader."
