Raiders CB Fred Williamson Was "The Hammer"
Fred “The Hammer” Williamson was one of the first stars of the Oakland Raiders in the early seasons of the Oakland Raiders in the developmental years of the American Football League, which was founded in 1960.
The 6-3, 220-pound Williamson was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent out of Northwestern in 1960, but was released after starting six of the 11 games he played that season before and signed with the Raiders in 1961.
“I didn’t know anything about covering receivers, so I just started knocking ’em down at the line of scrimmage,” Williamson recalled of his first training camp. “Around the third day of camp, they said: ‘Stop hammering them.’ So that’s where the nickname came from. I didn’t lead with my head on tackles. I cracked ’em with a forearm. I define ‘The Hammer’ as a blow struck perpendicular to the Earth’s latitude.”
Williamson played only four seasons with the Silver and Black, but was selected to the All-AFL team in his first three years with the team and boasted that his forearm shiver could take down any receiver in the league.
That’s what happened to wide receiver Glenn Bass of the Buffalo Bills in the 1966 AFL Championship Game after Williamson had moved on to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Williamson boasted that would happen to the wide receivers of the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I, but it actually happened to him.
Williamson was knocked out while making a tackle of Packers running back Donny Anderson and didn’t play for the rest of the game as Green Bay rolled to a 35-10 victory at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“It was funny as hell.” Packers guard Gale Gillingham said. “Nobody was out to get Williamson, nobody was mad at him at all. In fact, we thought the guy was pretty funny. But it was ironic seeing him getting carried off the field. I could imagine everybody in the stands saying, ‘Well, there goes ‘The Hammer,’ the big mouth. The Packers got him.”
Said Williamson: “I was like the Pied Piper, they were coming after me. I took a knee to the forehead and they were dancing on the sidelines, ‘We got The Hammer! We got the Hammer!’ I think knocking me out of the game was more important to them than winning it.”
Despite all his theatrics, Williamson was a very good defender and made 25 interceptions in his four seasons with the Raiders, including eight for 151 yards and a 91-yard touchdown in 1962, and had at least five picks in all four seasons he played for the Silver and Black.
In eight seasons in the NFL, Williamson made 36 interceptions that he returned for 479 yards, including a 77-yarder for another touchdown for Kansas City in 1967.
However, Williamson probably is known more for his sometimes outrageous character than for his unquestionable ability.
“When I walked out on the field, 20,000 people gave me a reaction: 10,000 booed, 10,000 cheered,” Williamson once said with a big smile. “That’s OK. I mean, they were watching me. … But, shoot, I wouldn’t last two minutes out there with the rules today.
“I’d take one step on the field and they’d just look at me and say, ‘Hammer, get off the damn field.’ No way I could play with the rules today.”
After playing eight seasons in the NFL, the last in 1967, Williamson went into acting and also made his mark there.
Probably his most noteworthy role was in the popular 1970 movie, M*A*S*H, in which he played Dr. Oliver Harmon “Spearchucker” Jones, and he had a prominent role in the football game that was a big part of the movie.
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