The Fearsome Foursome

The famed quartet played together for only four seasons, from 1963 through '66, and during that time the Los Angeles Rams had one winning season. At first glance the individual statistics of the Fearsome Foursome are hardly overwhelming either. Though Deacon Jones is credited with adding "sack" to the football lexicon in the mid-'60s, the NFL didn't start counting the stat until 1982. So what is the legacy of pro football's best-known defensive front four? "We taught the NFL the beauty of playing defense," says Jones.

Big (the group averaged a then gargantuan 6' 5�", 273 pounds) and absurdly quick for their size, the Foursome pummeled opponents with a ferocity and ease that can't be measured in numbers. You had to be there. "What made us special," Lamar Lundy says of the clan that still gets together at least once a year, "was how we worked together. There always was a deep understanding among the four of us, something that keeps us so close today."

Rosey Grier
Right tackle, 68
He was once a noted needlepointer and a spiritual singer who was good enough to perform at Carnegie Hall, and in 1968 he was the man who disarmed Bobby Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. Grier now works as a spokesman for the Milken Family Foundation, which has raised millions for prostate cancer research. "My life hasn't really been laid out in front of me," says Grier, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Margie, with whom he has one grown child, "but I'm loving each day."

Lamar Lundy
Right end, 66
Over the past 43 years Lundy has fought Graves' disease, diabetes, myasthenia gravis (a neuromuscular disorder), prostate cancer and an irregular heartbeat. When Lundy had trouble paying his medical bills, his linemates raised the money to cover them. Says Lundy, who is divorced and lives in Richmond, Ind., with his son Lamar Ill's family, "I don't know where I'd be without them."

Merlin Olsert
Left tackle, 60
Olsen was the youngest, brainiest ( Phi Beta Kappa at Utah St.) and, some say, the most talented (he was a 14-time Pro Bowl pick) of the Foursome. After his playing days he embarked on a successful TV career, which famously included his role as Johnathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie. Since he retired from broadcasting with CBS, Olsen and his wife, Susan, have settled into a less taxing lifestyle in their Park City, Utah, home. "I'm trying to work less and play more," he says.

Deacon Jones
Left end, 62
After all these years Jones is still the king of hyperbole. "I have one of the busiest schedules known to man," says Jones, who lives in Anaheim Hills, Calif., with wife Elizabeth and has one stepson. "But I'm having a hell of a time." In addition to being a panelist on an upcoming Fox sports talk show, Jones will continue his work as a spokesman for Atacand, a drug that treats hypertension, and doing promotions for NFL Properties. He also runs the Deacon Jones Foundation, which provides mentoring and employment opportunities for inner-city high school students in the greater Los Angeles area.