Jul 14, 2021 23:27:08 GMT @admin said:

So it turns out that Michael Strahan's tainted 22.5 sack season was never really the single season record to begin with! PFR charted back to 1960 (rather than 1982 when sacks became an official NFL stat) and Al "Bubba" Baker recorded 23 sacks in his DROY season of 1978. He's an incredibly underrated player historically (which really shows what an impact statistics have on how we view players) as he has the most sacks over a player's first three seasons, and with 131 career sacks he's 21st all time which is more than some HOFers like Derrick Thomas.

The Silver Rush.  An underrated team defense.  Too bad the Lions offense didn't back them up.

Jul 14, 2021 23:27:08 GMT @admin said:

So it turns out that Michael Strahan's tainted 22.5 sack season was never really the single season record to begin with! PFR charted back to 1960 (rather than 1982 when sacks became an official NFL stat) and Al "Bubba" Baker recorded 23 sacks in his DROY season of 1978. He's an incredibly underrated player historically (which really shows what an impact statistics have on how we view players) as he has the most sacks over a player's first three seasons, and with 131 career sacks he's 21st all time which is more than some HOFers like Derrick Thomas.

Wow, nice. Going to have to look him up. It really bothers me that the sack wasn’t a thing until 1982, but yet there are numbers out there, for example I’ve always read that the Raiders in the AFL had more sacks from 1967 to 1969 than any other team over any 3 year period. Also I know Elvin Bethea has more sacks than anybody in Houston history be it Oilers or Texans, his were just all unofficial. I’ve also read boisterous claims by Deacon Jones that he had 30 sack seasons.

Also found it very interesting that in the strike shortened 1987 season Reggie White had like 21 sacks in just 12 games, that’s wild, who knows what he would have finished with in a full season that year.

Jul 14, 2021 23:27:08 GMT @admin said:

So it turns out that Michael Strahan's tainted 22.5 sack season was never really the single season record to begin with! PFR charted back to 1960 (rather than 1982 when sacks became an official NFL stat) and Al "Bubba" Baker recorded 23 sacks in his DROY season of 1978. He's an incredibly underrated player historically (which really shows what an impact statistics have on how we view players) as he has the most sacks over a player's first three seasons, and with 131 career sacks he's 21st all time which is more than some HOFers like Derrick Thomas. 

Nice find!

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to old school football but have to admit I never heard of Al "Bubba" Baker or the Silver Rush defense before today. I'm just gonna go ahead and use the "because Lions" excuse.

Jul 15, 2021 0:28:10 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Wow, nice. Going to have to look him up. It really bothers me that the sack wasn’t a thing until 1982, but yet there are numbers out there, for example I’ve always read that the Raiders in the AFL had more sacks from 1967 to 1969 than any other team over any 3 year period. Also I know Elvin Bethea has more sacks than anybody in Houston history be it Oilers or Texans, his were just all unofficial. I’ve also read boisterous claims by Deacon Jones that he had 30 sack seasons.

Also found it very interesting that in the strike shortened 1987 season Reggie White had like 21 sacks in just 12 games, that’s wild, who knows what he would have finished with in a full season that year.

I've always heard those Deacon Jones claims as well. Looked it up after @admin's informative post. "The Secretary of Defense" had some monster 20 sack seasons, but 'only' topped out at an unofficial 22. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Football_League_annual_sacks_leaders

Wow. You weren't kidding about Reggie White. Forgot/didn't know about that. My wild 1987 go to stat has always been Jerry Rice scoring 22 touchdowns in only 12 games. Record at the time was 24. 

Jul 15, 2021 1:18:34 GMT Baker said:

Jul 14, 2021 23:27:08 GMT @admin said:

So it turns out that Michael Strahan's tainted 22.5 sack season was never really the single season record to begin with! PFR charted back to 1960 (rather than 1982 when sacks became an official NFL stat) and Al "Bubba" Baker recorded 23 sacks in his DROY season of 1978. He's an incredibly underrated player historically (which really shows what an impact statistics have on how we view players) as he has the most sacks over a player's first three seasons, and with 131 career sacks he's 21st all time which is more than some HOFers like Derrick Thomas. 

Nice find!

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to old school football but have to admit I never heard of Al "Bubba" Baker or the Silver Rush defense before today. I'm just gonna go ahead and use the "because Lions" excuse.

They had him on the ATN podcast and it was really sweet to hear about how he was so humbled by the acknowledgement, but wasn't at all resentful about how the lack of stat keeping cost him accolades and money. He runs a BBQ/ribs company with his family these days. 

Found a neat article touching on some of the updated sack stats.
sportsnaut.com/nfl-sack-leaders-pro-football-reference/

Oh that’s awesome. Something else to consider though, recently I found a video of all of David Carrs sacks in his 2002 season, the year he set the record for most times any QB was ever sacked in a single year in NFL history. In that video I found it odd some of the plays that were counted as sacks, like there were a few where he tried to run and at least got back to the line of scrimmage and even a few where he ran out of bounds, like how was that a sack if a QB runs out of bounds? Who gets the credit for that sack? Weird.

Jul 15, 2021 2:15:29 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Oh that’s awesome. Something else to consider though, recently I found a video of all of David Carrs sacks in his 2002 season, the year he set the record for most times any QB was ever sacked in a single year in NFL history. In that video I found it odd some of the plays that were counted as sacks, like there were a few where he tried to run and at least got back to the line of scrimmage and even a few where he ran out of bounds, like how was that a sack if a QB runs out of bounds? Who gets the credit for that sack? Weird.

If the QB scrambles out of bounds behind (or at) the line of scrimmage then it's a sack. The credit goes to the defender who forces the QB out, but it can be uncredited if there's no one close. The exception is on designed QB runs which count as negative rushes rather than sacks.

The GOAT, accept no substitutes.



The #1 reason I became a Giants fan.

Another candidate for greatest defensive player ever, teams today are still looking for the next Reggie White.

So I’m very interested in the 1990 Miami Dolphins. I’m up early with my little man and I’ve loaded up the 1990 LA Raiders at Miami Dolphins, this is a critical game because these were 2 of the top teams in the AFC, this is Dan Marino vs Bo Jackson.

Marino ripped up the NFL in his second year 1984, Miami won the AFC Championship that year but got hammered by a legendary 49ers team in the Super Bowl. Then Miami is the only team that beats the 15-1 Chicago Bears in 1985 only to choke in a home loss to the New England Patriots in the 85 AFC Championship. Then the Dolphins don’t even make the playoffs for the next 4 years, 1986 to 1989.

But Don Shula puts it all back together for Miami in 1990, they end up as one of the top teams in the AFC that year and it’s one of those years where Marino had one of his best shots to get back to a Super Bowl. So why didn’t they make it?

The big things people talk about why Marino never got back to a Super Bowl is because Miami never put together a good defense or run game. Well looking closer at this 1990 squad they had a really good defense. They finished 4th in the NFL in points allowed, held 6 opponents to 7 points or less, held 11 opponents under 20 points. John Offerdahl made All Pro and Jeff Cross had 11.5 sacks, Jarvis Williams, Louis Oliver, Tim Mckyer were great secondary 14 combined ints.

The Dolphins start off the season 8-1 and going into this game against the Raiders they are the best team in the AFC, they manhandled Buffalo 30-7 in week 2. Buffalo was also 8-1 at this point so Miami held the tie breaker for 1st in their division. Going into this game against the Raiders the Dolphins have the #1 defense in the NFL. Their only loss so far was a 20-3 loss to the Giants. At this stage of the 1990 season the Giants and 49ers were undefeated 9-0 and were on a collision course for their big showdown, New York would end up winning Super Bowl XXV that year so I need to watch that Dolphins/Giants game soon.

But this is an interesting game here, the Raiders defense puts the heat on Marino and pressure/sack him a lot. The Raiders open the game with like 9 straight runs with Marcus Allen then they unleash Bo Jackson on Miami’s defense. Very interesting to see Bo coming in off of the baseball season and putting up 99 yards rushing on 17 carries against the top ranked defense in the NFL. What an athlete.

So the big thing about this 1990 Dolphins season is widely considered to be that the Bills were just in their way. Buffalo was unstoppable that year. Miami and Buffalo clashed in a critical game in week 16 with the division and a first round bye on the line. Buffalo was 12-2 going in and Miami was 11-3, since Miami beat them earlier that year they could have took 1st in the AFC with a win but Marino just didn’t have the firepower to keep up with Buffalo. Even with Jim Kelly out with injury, Frank Reich played an almost perfect game and Thurman Thomas killed Miami, Buffalo won 24-14. Miami would finish 12-4 and would beat the Chiefs in the Wild Card playoff before getting beat 44-34 in the snow in Buffalo in the second round.

To me though the critical turning point for Miami’s season was this home loss to the Raiders in week 11. This was a game they should have won for sure, they got beat by Jay Schroaeder, Don Shula got out coached by Art Shell. Had they won this game it would have done a lot for them.

^Great post. Hadn't realized how much I missed Neo Zeed 's old school football posts until they returned. Never leave us again, brother.

Will A Football Life ever return?

Jul 17, 2021 23:28:37 GMT Ed said:

Will A Football Life ever return?

Well understandably, there was no season last year due to the pandemic.  So who knows about this year.

The original LT.



It's a shame Robert "Dr Doom" Brazile has been largely forgotten because he was a huge innovator that provided the blueprint for what was to come with Lawrence Taylor.

Jul 18, 2021 10:07:52 GMT thereallt said:

The original LT.



It's a shame Robert "Dr Doom" Brazile has been largely forgotten because he was a huge innovator that provided the blueprint for what was to come with Lawrence Taylor.

Awesome highlight vid, never seen that.

Just finished the 1990 week 3 Miami at New York Giants game. Very interesting stuff, both teams were 2-0, this is a pretty good image of what Super Bowl XXV would have looked like had Miami somehow been able to get past Buffalo that year. The Giants really got after Marino in this game, he was hit a lot and always had to throw on the move. About 10 of these late hits would have been 15 yard penalties these days. The Giants grind out a 20-3 win, very interesting hearing Bill Walsh analyze Bill Belichicks defense on commentary, he used a lot of the same strategy in this game that won Super Bowl XXV, a lot of the same blitzes, 3 man rush almost inviting them to run the ball. Thinking about it while watching this game, how did New York let Belichick go to the Browns to head coach the next year? Why did they go with Ray Handley to replace Parcells, seems like Belichick was a no brainer and should have always been a Giant.

One of the Facebook groups I’m in is Sports Tape Traders and someone brought this amazing site to our attention: www.mcmillenandwife.com/?fbclid=IwAR3p5zQXpmyJWYtsUiKRY5_3vSataT36qXrUldq_nFLqVnbJhRIFKMFwCac

Hit the jackpot and found the 2002 Texans vs Steelers game that I had been searching for for years. Awesome

Jul 26, 2021 19:29:57 GMT Neo Zeed said:

One of the Facebook groups I’m in is Sports Tape Traders and someone brought this amazing site to our attention: www.mcmillenandwife.com/?fbclid=IwAR3p5zQXpmyJWYtsUiKRY5_3vSataT36qXrUldq_nFLqVnbJhRIFKMFwCac

Hit the jackpot and found the 2002 Texans vs Steelers game that I had been searching for for years. Awesome

Watched this last night. This is definitely one of those strange but true Ripleys believe it or not NFL games, the Texans won in Pittsburgh 24-6 even though they had only 47 total yards of offense and David Carr went 3 of 10 for 33 yards passing. The Steelers dropped a lot of passes but a big reason why was they were getting lit up by Texans defense. The game had some backstory to it that Dom Capers and his DC Vic Fangio were on Cowher’s staff in Pittsburgh from 92 to 94, so they knew this team well. Steelers QB Tommy Maddox was coming off a spinal concussion(?!) and Jerome Bettis played with a badly broken nose. The Texans scored on their first fumble recovery for a TD then Aaron Glenn runs in the first pick six in Texans history and the Texans go up 14-0 quick.

David Carr was well on his way to breaking the single season record for most sacks in this game, Pittsburg just hammers him. It’s remarkable how thoroughly dominant the Steelers defense was in this game, Houston had like 3 first downs the whole game.

The Texans defense was on the field all game long and still held their ground for 60 minutes, Pittsburgh got 2 field goals and got into the red zone several times only to get denied. Houston sacked Maddox like 6 times. Jamie Sharper had a great game with 11 tackles and 2 sacks. Glenn had another pick 6 in the end to finish the game off.

This was such an ugly game that it’s hard to say this was a great win for Houston, Pittsburgh played so horribly on offense. This game was honestly hard to watch but you did get some great defense and it was definitely one that had to be seen to be believed.

Neo Zeed bringing up Ditka's infatuation with Ricky Williams in another thread reminded me of one of my favorite goofy old school football stories...

In 1946 Redskins owner George Marshall was enamored with a UCLA running back named Cal Rossi. Marshall drafted Rossi in the 1st round with the 9th overall pick. There was only one problem. Rossi was just a junior. In those days players had to complete four years of college before they could become draft eligible. D'oh.

Marshall waved off his blunder and drafted Rossi again the following year, this time with the 4th overall pick. Only there was another problem. Rossi had no intention of playing pro football and had in fact already enlisted in the Navy.

Meaning bonehead George Marshall wasted two first round picks on a player who never played a single down for his team.

Aug 8, 2021 2:26:17 GMT Baker said:

Neo Zeed bringing up Ditka's infatuation with Ricky Williams in another thread reminded me of one of my favorite goofy old school football stories...

In 1946 Redskins owner George Marshall was enamored with a UCLA running back named Cal Rossi. Marshall drafted Rossi in the 1st round with the 9th overall pick. There was only one problem. Rossi was just a junior. In those days players had to complete four years of college before they could become draft eligible. D'oh.

Marshall waved off his blunder and drafted Rossi again the following year, this time with the 4th overall pick. Only there was another problem. Rossi had no intention of playing pro football and had in fact already enlisted in the Navy.

Meaning bonehead George Marshall wasted two first round picks on a player who never played a single down for his team.

I wrote an article on another site recently making a case for George Marshall to be the first man worth of ever being removed from the NFL Hall Of Fame. He was one of The Godfather’s of the league for sure but man he really did just as much if not more to hold the league back, that was especially true of his own ball club.

I have been watching what 1999 games I can find. I watched the Raiders vs Chiefs Cris Dishman game, that was a good one. Never realized the backstory of it with Rich Gannon vs Elvis Grbac where those two competed for the Chiefs job the years prior to 1999. Eventually the Chiefs stuck with Grbac and let Gannon go to the Raiders. Maybe not the best move?

Also watched the Packers vs Panthers game, I’m obsessed with the 99 Panthers and Steve Beuerlien and this was their signature game of that season. It was really fun watch, even if for just 40 year old Kevin Greene chasing Favre down all game(Favre breaks his ankles at one point it’s glorious). Beuerlien sneaks it in at the goal line to win it because the Panthers gave up on the run they had 8 rushing yards so Green Bay bet the farm on the pass on the last play and only rushed 3 linemen so Beuerlien got it in easily to mute Lambeau.

Then I watched Panthers vs Steelers in Pittsburgh this was the one that eliminated Carolina(the hottest offense/QB in the league the last 7 weeks), so I had to see what happened. It turned out it was a really nasty winter storm that rolled into the game nasty winds and a lot of snow killed Carolinas passing attack, really enjoyed this one.

A friend on the Tape Traders group on Facebook is going to hook me up with the 2nd Panthers vs Rams game from 1999 can’t wait to get that one.

Today is the anniversary of the hit that would change the NFL for the next 20+ years. Damn you Mo.😂

I wonder how many sacks Deacon Jones would have had if they were a statistic during his time?

Some random old school thoughts on my mind today, am I the only one kind of disturbed by Tony Boseli being inducted into the Hall Of Fame? He was good but didn't really accomplish much and didn't have much of a career. I feel like it's kind of an insult that Joe Jacoby never got in but Boselli got in, I can think of a few offensive linemen that had better careers like Richmond Webb and Bruce Armstrong that were better, more accomplished, longer careers, played tougher competition. Also I think I saw that Jimbo Covert got in 2020 thats another odd one to me, not that great of a player. 

Also thought about 2 massively underrated guys that I never remember hearing much about. I only learned about how good these two guys where because of my AFL fan fiction I've made my way through the 80's and about to start the 90's on another forum. These two cornerbacks:

Gill Byrd, played for the Chargers in the 80's and 90's and had 3 consecutive seasons(1988-1989-1990) with 7 interceptions, so 21 interceptions over a 3 year period, and snubbed from the Pro Bowl all 3 years. Played for 10 years with the Chargers from 1983 to 1992 finished with 42 career interceptions.

Everson Walls, drafted by the Cowboys in 1981 and led the NFL with 11 interceptions his rookie year. He led the NFL in interceptions again in the 1982 strike shortened season with 7 interceptions in 9 games, that's fucking crazy he had 18 interceptions in his first 25 games. He led the NFL a 3rd time in 1985 with 9 ints. His career and stats all fell off through the last few years of the 80's with the Cowboys but he had a career resurgence in 1990 with the NY Giants Super Bowl run, he had 6 interceptions and one of the most underrated plays in Super Bowl history with his open field tackle of Thurman Thomas that saved the game for the Giants on Buffalo's final drive. He had a good season with the Giants in 1991 before following Belichick to Cleveland to finish his career in 92-93. You never hear Walls name among the all time great cornerbacks but man, 13 year career, led the NFL in int's 3 times, 13th all time in career interceptions with 57, not in the NFL Hall of Fame either.

Mar 30, 2022 16:35:34 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Some random old school thoughts on my mind today, am I the only one kind of disturbed by Tony Boseli being inducted into the Hall Of Fame? He was good but didn't really accomplish much and didn't have much of a career. I feel like it's kind of an insult that Joe Jacoby never got in but Boselli got in, I can think of a few offensive linemen that had better careers like Richmond Webb and Bruce Armstrong that were better, more accomplished, longer careers, played tougher competition. Also I think I saw that Jimbo Covert got in 2020 thats another odd one to me, not that great of a player. 

Also thought about 2 massively underrated guys that I never remember hearing much about. I only learned about how good these two guys where because of my AFL fan fiction I've made my way through the 80's and about to start the 90's on another forum. These two cornerbacks:

Gill Byrd, played for the Chargers in the 80's and 90's and had 3 consecutive seasons(1988-1989-1990) with 7 interceptions, so 21 interceptions over a 3 year period, and snubbed from the Pro Bowl all 3 years. Played for 10 years with the Chargers from 1983 to 1992 finished with 42 career interceptions.

Everson Walls, drafted by the Cowboys in 1981 and led the NFL with 11 interceptions his rookie year. He led the NFL in interceptions again in the 1982 strike shortened season with 7 interceptions in 9 games, that's fucking crazy he had 18 interceptions in his first 25 games. He led the NFL a 3rd time in 1985 with 9 ints. His career and stats all fell off through the last few years of the 80's with the Cowboys but he had a career resurgence in 1990 with the NY Giants Super Bowl run, he had 6 interceptions and one of the most underrated plays in Super Bowl history with his open field tackle of Thurman Thomas that saved the game for the Giants on Buffalo's final drive. He had a good season with the Giants in 1991 before following Belichick to Cleveland to finish his career in 92-93. You never hear Walls name among the all time great cornerbacks but man, 13 year career, led the NFL in int's 3 times, 13th all time in career interceptions with 57, not in the NFL Hall of Fame either.

Jimbo Covert getting in was pure garbage.  TWO First team All pro selection and two Pro Bowl selections is not HOF worthy material.    There is no way Covert should be in and Jacoby isn't.

While Boseli had a short career,(7 seasons) he was considered the league's best LT for at least 3 of them.  Neither Webb or Armstrong can make that claim.

Walls helped the Giants win the Super Bowl in the 90/91 season, so I would have no problem with him making the Hall.

Yeah the Hall Of Fame has gotten especially wacky here within the last couple of years, I was really scratching my head at the huge list of guys that went into the Hall for the NFL 100th anniversary, then this year even more out there with Boselli and also the 49ers defensive lineman that got in I can't remember his name. Junior Bryant? Bryant Young? Was Junior Bryant even a real person or just a name my memory made up?

3 elite years out of 7 year career just doesn't do it for me for a Hall Of Fame, especially when he never won a title(Terrell Davis getting in for being the driving force for the Broncos 2 titles I'm ok with). I think it should be more conservative than that.

Richmond Webb was 7 time pro bowl and 2 time first team All Pro, played for 13 seasons almost 190 games, could easily say he was the best tackle in the NFL there for a stretch there from 94 to 96. Bruce Armstrong I do believe was the best tackle in pro football there from 90-91 to 93, he squared up against prime Bruce Smith twice a year those years and always played well against him. He was 6 time pro bowl played 212 games in 14 years all with the Patriots during a time when they were probably the least popular team in the NFL(90 to 93, he was a pro bowler the year they went 1-15 in 1990), so he probably should have had even more pro bowls and some All Pro honors in there but he played for a team nobody gave a shit about(he retired after the 2000 season just missing out on a ring).

I would disagree and argue that Armstrong and Webb were the 1A-1B best tackles in the NFL for sure for a 7 year stretch there from 90 to 96. Tony Boselli getting in with 5 pro bowls and 3 All Pros played 91 games in 7 seasons, playing for a team that never won a conference title(Armstrong's Pats beat Boselli's Jags in the 96 AFCCG) or Super Bowl I don't know man. That's stretching it. The defense I've heard for him is that he's the first Jaguar to go in the Hall like we need a token Jacksonville Jaguars player to represent that team in the Hall of Fame get real. It's like a big shit bag on the front door step for Texans fans that Tony Boselli of all people gets inducted the first year Andre gets snubbed haha.

A guy who had a short career, but deserves to be in the Hall of Fame is Sterling Sharpe.

He averaged over 1000 yards per season in his career, which sadly, was only seven. Who knows how much better he would've done had his neck not been f'ed up.

Even little brother Shannon was pushing for Sterling to get in. In his Hall of Fame speech, he said that it wasn't fair that's he's in the hall, when he's not even the best player in his family.

Mar 30, 2022 18:27:11 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Yeah the Hall Of Fame has gotten especially wacky here within the last couple of years, I was really scratching my head at the huge list of guys that went into the Hall for the NFL 100th anniversary, then this year even more out there with Boselli and also the 49ers defensive lineman that got in I can't remember his name. Junior Bryant? Bryant Young? Was Junior Bryant even a real person or just a name my memory made up?

3 elite years out of 7 year career just doesn't do it for me for a Hall Of Fame, especially when he never won a title(Terrell Davis getting in for being the driving force for the Broncos 2 titles I'm ok with). I think it should be more conservative than that.

Richmond Webb was 7 time pro bowl and 2 time first team All Pro, played for 13 seasons almost 190 games, could easily say he was the best tackle in the NFL there for a stretch there from 94 to 96. Bruce Armstrong I do believe was the best tackle in pro football there from 90-91 to 93, he squared up against prime Bruce Smith twice a year those years and always played well against him. He was 6 time pro bowl played 212 games in 14 years all with the Patriots during a time when they were probably the least popular team in the NFL(90 to 93, he was a pro bowler the year they went 1-15 in 1990), so he probably should have had even more pro bowls and some All Pro honors in there but he played for a team nobody gave a shit about(he retired after the 2000 season just missing out on a ring).

I would disagree and argue that Armstrong and Webb were the 1A-1B best tackles in the NFL for sure for a 7 year stretch there from 90 to 96. Tony Boselli getting in with 5 pro bowls and 3 All Pros played 91 games in 7 seasons, playing for a team that never won a conference title(Armstrong's Pats beat Boselli's Jags in the 96 AFCCG) or Super Bowl I don't know man. That's stretching it. The defense I've heard for him is that he's the first Jaguar to go in the Hall like we need a token Jacksonville Jaguars player to represent that team in the Hall of Fame get real. It's like a big shit bag on the front door step for Texans fans that Tony Boselli of all people gets inducted the first year Andre gets snubbed haha.

Webb and Richmond were great left tackles.   Tony Boselli was a DOMINANT left tackle.

Neo Zeed,I would love a breakdown of the 2010 Chargers from you man.

How did this team rank 1st in total offense, 1st in total defense, finish 9-7 and miss the playoffs?!

1987 Saints if Neo Zeed is taking requests.

I like that Baker.

I'd also like to recommend a breakdown of why Aaron Rodgers sucks in NFC Championship games. Not sure if Neo Zeed, or UT would do better with that, but I'd love to hear more!

I'd like for Neo Zeed, to recap the 1999 Jags.