Evening star., 1939-11-16
Redskin Foes Report
Far Ahead Of Time
For Workouts
kevers Gives FIoherty
Diagrams on Plays Of
Surprising Lions
BY BILL DISMER, Jr.

"How's our morale? Fine!' sur
prisingly replied Ernie Nevers in re-
sponse to a question concerning his
somewhat luckless Chicago Cardi-
nails, who meet the Redskins here
Sunday in Washington's next-to-
last home game of the 1899 National
Football League season.
You wouldn't see many losing
teams continuing to report for prac-
tice half hour before schedule like
you see the Cardinals doing these
days" went on one of the greatest
All-Americas ever to carry pigskin.
yet I can't keep the kids away
from the field"
Maybe so. But probably because
we've been too closely associated
with the Redskins, the Cardinals in
contrast shape up as kind of lack
luster team, group of players who
are going through the motions only
because they have certain task to
do. There's no running fire Of chat
ter such as marks the Redskins
every drill, but then the Redskins
are a winning team with a colleg-
iate-like enthusiasm all their own.
A COmedown for College Heroes.
You can't help but wonder while
watching the Cardinals drill what
the thoughts of such players as
Marshall (Biggie) Goldberg and Ki
Aldrich must be- A year ago both
were members of two of the coun-
try's leading collegiate powers. the
toast of the press and public, their
names bywords wherever football
was being discussed. Today they're
all but buried with a cellar team
which has won only one game in
nine starts.
And yet, as Nevers points out,
the Cardinals are not a demoralized
team, badly-beaten in its every
venture. On the contrary, they've
put up some corking good games
this year, twice holding Green Bay
to closer margin than the Redskins
were able to do last month and
being the victims of a walk-away
score only once this season. Their
intracity rivals, the Bears, walloped
them, AT. month ago. Green
Bays victories came by 14-10 and
27-20, and Nevers insists that the
Giants were lucky in bagging their
17-7 win last Sunday.
The Chicago coach, incidentally,
says that the entire Western divi-
sion is mystified that the Detroit
Lions have maintained their posi-
ton at the head of that section as
long as they have.
Calls Packers Best in West.
They're not the best, or even the
second best team in the West by a
long shot," said Nevers. THE best?
The Packers, although on their good
days the Bears are unbeatable, even
by Green Bay. But when the Bears
are off" Nevers stuck his nose
between his fingers.
AS matter OF fact, Nevers doesn't
have any too much love for the
Lions, who beat his team, 21-13 and
1913. And as he'd like nothing
better than to see them bumped of
by the Redskins when they play
here a week from Sunday, he gave
Coach Ray Flaherty diagrams on
couple of their pet plays. He sup
ported the opinion that Bill Shep-
herd still is the Lions best running
back.
AS for his own teams chances
against the Redskins, he merely
pointed to the records, which show
the Cardinals to have thrown more
passes than any team in the league,
with a sly observation that he'd
heard the Redskins still weren't any
too good on pass defense. Jack Rob-
bins, the old Arkansas singer, does
the bulk of the passing for the
Cards, but the team as whole has
completed little more than third
of all their passes.