In Louisville Kentucky circa 1964, we used to play Smear, and I have sometimes wondered whether other kids in other places played it, or if it was a perverse local phenomenon.
It took five or six people, always males, and a football. The game began with all standing in a circle around the ball until somebody got the nerve to pick it up and run with it, at which point everyone else would tackle, kick, beat, gouge, and strangle(smear) the ball carrier. Once the ball carrier was forced to relinquish the ball, we would stand around it again until someone else picked it up, and the brutality was repeated. It was more like a male puberty ritual than a real game, I suppose.