By Anthony Holden
CBS SportsLine Historian

Five years is a long time to sit around doing nothing, so it stood to reason that when Len Dawson joined the Dallas Texans for the start of the 1962 AFL season, he wasn't going to be real sharp.

Len Dawson was one of the best quarterbacks of his era. (AP)

"I was shocked at how bad he was at first," said Texans coach Hank Stram, who only remembered Dawson as a star passer for Purdue when Stram served at that school as a coaching aide in the mid-1950s.

"But I couldn't help but realize that five years of sitting on the bench or manning telephones didn't make a man sharp. It took him a couple years to get back into the groove. He was like sterling silver, the silver was there, but he had to be polished."

Dawson had been a first-round draft choice of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers in 1957, but he spent his rookie season backing up Earl Morrall and then the next two years behind legendary Bobby Layne. He was traded to Cleveland in 1960 and took a seat on the bench behind Milt Plum.

After asking for and receiving his release from the Browns following the 1961 season, Dawson cleared NFL waivers and then called Stram, who had inquired about his services back in 1960 when the AFL first started operations.

"I wouldn't say I spent five years in the NFL, I would say that I wasted them," said Dawson, who attempted just 45 passes in those five years.

Dawson signed with the Texans and over the next 14 years he became one of the games greatest quarterbacks as he produced three AFL championships and a victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV which cemented his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

"I was terrible," Dawson said of his first few weeks in the AFL. "If my coach had been anyone but Stram, who knew me from the past, I'm sure he'd have cut me."

Stram stuck with Dawson and in that first year, Dawson went on to lead the AFL in completion percentage (61 percent) and TD passes (29) as the Texans won the Western Division and outlasted Houston in a classic double overtime championship game.

He led the AFL or NFL eight times in completion percentage, and he is the AFL's all-time leader in completion percentage (56.8) and touchdown passes with 182. All the while, he guided the Texans, and from 1963 on, the Kansas City Chiefs, with a calming influence and intellectual approach to the game that made him one of football's most respected players.

"He keeps a lot to himself, he doesn't have a lot of emotion, he keeps his cool," said Chiefs safety Johnny Robinson.

Added offensive guard Ed Budde: "I've never heard him raise his voice. When you do something wrong, he just gives you that look and you know you better shape up."

Dawson's teammates called him Ajax, not after the Greek warrior, but after the cleanser. Dawson had this thing about keeping his uniform clean, and playing behind a line that included Budde, Jim Tyrer, Dave Hill and later in his career Jack Rudnay, he often remained spotless.

Never was Dawson's clean uniform more in evidence than on the afternoon of Jan. 11, 1970 in New Orleans. That was the day Dawson and the Chiefs proved that the AFL was not a fluke and that the New York Jets' shocking upset of Baltimore in Super Bowl III was indeed a sign that the two leagues were on par with each other. With Dawson completing 12 of 17 passes for 146 yards and a touchdown, the Chiefs throttled Minnesota 23-7 to win Super Bowl IV.

Not only did his teammates call him Ajax, they also referred to him as Lenny the Cool, and that day, he was like ice. The fearsome Minnesota defense led by Alan Page, Carl Eller and Jim Marshall couldn't figure out what Dawson was going to do as he called a masterful game.

Afterward, it was left for losing coach Bud Grant to say that Dawson was "underrated among so many stars."