Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety John Lynch was a hard hitter. But he met his match when he tried to take down Craig “Ironhead” Heyward one afternoon.
Appearing on the Pat McAfee Show Thursday, Lynch said the hardest hit he ever took, as opposed to the ones he regularly dished out, came via Cam Heyward’s dad.
“I remember the people asked me the hardest I’ve ever been hit on a field,” Lynch told the show. “Without a doubt, it was Craig ‘Ironhead’ Heyward. He got in shape one year and I think that put him at 280 in Atlanta. And they were running the run and shoot. And they would run this, we called it Atlanta Draw. And it was like the parting of the seas. They had four receivers.”
The four-receiver set helped spread the field and lighten the box, making run defense difficult against a bruising running back like Heyward. Before the game, Buccaneers secondary coach Herm Edwards advised Lynch to tackle Heyward low, warning him not go high.
“You’re gonna come out faster than you went in. Go low on him,” Edwards said.
But Lynch took that caution as a challenge and attacked Heyward up high with everything he had.
“I came up there full speed. And I learned why they called him Ironhead,” he said. “My whole body just, and I’ve never felt that like, toes, head, it just went numb. And I shouldn’t be telling people that. I was okay. But I learned my lesson and I learned why that guy was called Craig Ironhead Heyward.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the clip Lynch is referring to. And believe me, I looked around, even checking out the Falcons’ 95 highlight tape “Find A Way To Win,” which felt more like a plea than statement for an Atlanta team that went 9-7 and lost in the Wild Card round. If you happen to have it, let us know and I’ll add it. But to give some idea of what Heyward did to grown men back then, here’s a separate clip of Heyward destroying a Rams safety, probably in similar fashion as he did to Lynch that day.
And if you’re like me and mistakenly thought you saw a “Lynch” jersey across your screen at the end from No. 41 (even knowing that was never John Lynch), that’s former Rams DB Todd Lyght, a one-time Pro Bowler with 37 career interceptions.
For Heyward, 1995 was his career year. He rushed for 1,083 yards and six touchdowns that season. Versatile, he caught another 37 passes for two more scores. It was an exciting Falcons offense with a bruising runner and three 1,000-yard receivers, peak form of the run and shoot. The Falcons’ defense was their weak point, 19th in points per game with a terrible pass defense, leading to their regular-season struggles.
Respect to Lynch for trying to take down Heyward. And respect to him for telling the story all the years later. If it makes him feel any better, he’s not the only one to find out what kind of freight train Heyward was.
