(Editor’s note: With the late, great Sam Mills being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I grabbed this column I wrote about one of his “Dome Patrol” running mates, the late, great Vaughan Johnson. Vaughan died in 2019, 14 years after Mills, aka “The Field Mouse” lost his battle with cancer in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Saints never had the offense to be a true contender during Sam’s time with the Saints (1986-94), but their defense was hell on wheels. Congrats, Sam!
(I’ll be writing a column on Sam today.)
A FIERCE DEFENDER, A LOYAL TEAMMATE, A FUN GUY, VAUGHAN JOHNSON TOILED FOR NINE SEASONS WITH THE SAINTS
There were always two sides to Vaughan Johnson.
One, you could see for yourself. On your TV. In the Louisiana Superdome.
A fast, hard-hitting linebacker. The guy brought the lumber.
The other one surfaced pretty much when the game ended.
A gentleman, a good teammate and a fun guy to be around.
The New Orleans Saints’ linebacking corps in those days all dressed in the corner of the Superdome locker room, near the exit to the field. The Dome Patrol. A perfect nickname for perhaps the greatest linebacking corps in NFL history.
NFL Films already says so. And those guys know their stuff.
There was Rickey Jackson, the mercurial, street-smart strong side linebacker on the outside. Rickey played second fiddle to Hugh Green at Pitt, so he always had a lot to prove. The year the Saints won the Super Bowl, Jackson was selected for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
There was his younger contemporary on the weak side of the offensive formation, Pat Swilling. A third-round draft pick from Georgia Tech, Pat had brains, brawn and an innate ability to pressure the quarterback. He was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1991, leading the league with 17 sacks.
In the middle, calling the signals, was the late, great Sam Mills. Mills, known as “The Field Mouse,” went about 5 foot 9 (maybe) and 232 chiseled pounds, and he hit ballcarriers like nobody’s business. Jim Mora has said Sam was the greatest player he ever coached. Not surprisingly, Mills went into coaching after completing his playing career with the Carolina Panthers.
Mills was an import from the USFL, after playing for Mora’s Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars. That league went belly up after New York real estate magnate Donald Trump — no, I am not making this up — decided the USFL needed to challenge the NFL in court, to play in the fall and force a merger so he might be in that exclusive club.
An NFL owner.
It never happened, of course. The USFL “won” their case, but only got $3 for their troubles.
Then there was Vaughan Johnson, who also came to the Saints from the USFL, in his case the Jacksonville Bulls. Johnson was a 6-foot-3, 240-pound bull of a man, a fast defender who delivered one big hit after another as an NFL inside linebacker. He was tough, he was personable, he was dedicated to his craft.
Vaughan Johnson died the other day, at the age of 57, in his native North Carolina. Vaughan played for the Saints from 1986 until 1993, and he was as steady as they come.
Vaughan knew how to fill the hole, and he was adept at dropping into pass coverage. He learned a lot from Mills, and freely acknowledged that fact. At training camp, you’d usually see the two of them together, walking to practice or eating a meal in the cafeteria.
Vaughan played for the first winning team in Saints history, in 1987, his second year with the club. The Saints finished the regular season 12-3, one game behind the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC West. This was the second strike season in six years, hence the 15-game season, and the Saints came together after a tough 24-22 loss to the 49ers in the Superdome.
You know, Mora’s “coulda, woulda, shoulda” game. They’d be playing host to the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC wild-card game.It was a dud, of course. The Vikings hit on a “Hail, Mary” just before halftime and rolled the Saints 44-10. The Saints would get back to the playoffs in 1990, and ’91, and ’92, only to lose to the Chicago Bears, the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles, respectively.
It was like each loss in the playoffs hurt the team worse than the year before.
Be that as it may, everyone stood up and paid attention to the Saints linebackers. They were fast. They were tenacious. They leaned on each other and made each other better. The Saints had a handful of other good defenders, guys like Jim Wilks and the late Frank Warren on the line, and Antonio Gibson and Robert Massey in the secondary.
But the heart of the entire team was always its linebacking crew. Man, they were really fun to watch.
Vaughan finished his career with a doughnut and a cup of coffee in Philadelphia, and went back to Morehead City, North Carolina, where he grew up before enrolling at North Carolina State University. He told me once he always knew he’d be going back to Morehead City. I think there was a family business in town, and he was always true to his roots.
Vaughan was crushed when Mills died after a valiant battle with cancer in 2005. You could see the tears forming in the corners of his eyes when he was talking about Sam, a warm family man whose son is on the Panthers’ coaching staff. Vaughan was a freewheeling bachelor.
(Ahem.)
I worked in Baton Rouge in those days, and I had a little dog in my apartment named Duchess. My place was on the outskirts of town, on the way to New Orleans, but Duchess had to do her business when I was gone from 8 in the morning until some time approaching 9 or even 10 at night. Fortunately my neighbor Shirley lived alone, too, so I gave her a key to take Duchess in on those long days when I was off covering the Saints.
I hate to admit this, but it’s a funny story. I used to always stop at a New Orleans Original Daquiri’s store in Kenner, near the airport, on my way back to Red Stick. And I’d get a big one, and sip it on the way back to B.R. Stupid, yes. But they tasted good, and I always rationalized it by the fact that I was big and strong and they were basically Slurpees with a little cheap rum bought in bulk.
(I never do this now.)
Well, after one Saints victory, in 1987, there were a lot more cars in the daq shop parking lot than normal. Nice cars. Expensive cars. Turns out the Saints’ players were having a little party to celebrate the victory. I walked in and found an open stool near the bar. Ordered a Slurpee, uh, I mean, daquiri. Laughed at some of the hijinks I was witnessing on the dance floor.
A young wide receiver, Mark Pattison, was in his first year with the team and was the kind of player who could be on the roster one week and on the street the next. He looked a little nervous as I was talking with Vaughan, Sam, and Brett Maxie, who was a role player at safety and on special teams. Brett and I became friends and was a really cool guy.
Pattison got Vaughan’s attention, and wondered if I’d be writing about the little shindig in the paper. Vaughan Johnson let out a laugh, and I mean, a big laugh, and said, no, don’t worry, it’s all good. I was only 31 at the time, so I could blend in with the Saints players fairly easily in those days.
I’ll remember Vaughan Johnson for the big hits, the big games, and the handful of 1-on-1 interviews I did with him over the years. Most of all, though, I’ll remember that big laugh. And what he meant to Saints fans in New Orleans, across the Gulf South and the world over.
Rest easy Vaughan. You will be missed.
