Historic Milestones in 2025 American Football: A Season of Inspiration

And it's some record setting numbers, some great people that are playing the game and some things are really reminiscent of great times in history.

We got this and more coming up on today's podcast in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history American on a day to day basis.

Your host Darrin Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

So as we come out of the tunnel of the Sports History Network, let's take the field and go no huddle through the portal of positive gridiron history with pigskindispatch.com.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can Learn more at sportshistorynetwork.com hello.

My football friends, this is Darren Hees.

Of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal deposit of football history.

And welcome to another sort of free Ballin podcast.

Here we're gonna talk about some current topics and how they fit into history.

And I'll have to tell you, I was really inspired by the Pro Football Reference sent out their newsletter this morning December 3rd and it had just a some tremendous numbers that really caught my eye and some stories that came on.

Now first of all, we're talking about the Patriots being the number one seed right now in the American Football Conference.

Now that doesn't sound like that big of a deal because they did it for so many years when Tom Brady was there.

But this is the fourth time in history that the Patriots have won 10 or more games in a season and it's the first time without Tom Brady.

At the helm is Drake May, a second year quarterback who has just really taken the league by storm.

A first year head coach in New England even though Mike Vrabel coached elsewhere and was in the Patriots system.

But it's really amazing what the Patriots are doing this year to only have two losses and it's really something.

He has 3,412 yards passing, 23 touchdowns and is just off the charts.

In second place is Dracula Dak Prescott of Dallas.

Patrick Mahomes is in third.

So he's still pretty Relevant.

Matthew Stafford is lighting them up in fourth place and Daniel Jones is in fifth place.

How do you feel about that, Giants fans?

Daniel Jones, fifth place on there.

So just some, some great things going on here.

Well, this year through 13 weeks we have some new cats up at the top here.

Jonathan Taylor, who's no stranger to being in the top five of rushing.

Fifteen TDs.

Devon Akane of Miami is over a thousand yards.

Jameer Gibbs is over a thousand yards.

And actually he's another source that is in the newsletter today of the Pro Football Reference.

Shout out to them that he is climbing up the Lions all time charts for running backs.

Yeah, he's getting up there with the great gym.

Of course, first place on that list of all time Detroit Lions rushers is Barry Sanders who you know, had 15,269 yards.

Billy Sims had a short career, four seasons, he's on that list.

And then you have some guys that maybe you remember, maybe you don't.

Dexter Bussey.

Mr. Taylor and James Jones.

Pitrosante.

Jameer Gibbs is in seventh place right now.

This is a young dude.

This cat is really racing down the field and making some magic happen.

Jameer Gibbs, somebody to watch here.

He just passed Ace Skatowski from almost a century ago and Mel Farr who played decades ago.

So Jameer Gibbs, watch this guy, watch Drake.

Maybe these guys are really going to the top of the league here in what they do.

And some things that really made me stand out and shout out and say oh my God, were some receptions that we saw in week 13.

I don't know how they did it, but first of all, sitting there and watching Brock Bowers, a tight end, you know, a big blocking dude.

Supposedly that's the stereotype of a tight end.

This dude catches a ball that looked.

Like it was going to be short.

Hopped by Geno Smith and somehow he reaches a hand down underneath it and.

Grabs it, bends down.

I don't know how you bend down that far as you're, you're moving forward.

Makes a reception, it makes a play on the ball.

Brock Bowers, you know, unbelievable catch, week 13.

Another one that I thought was just unbelievable was Puka, you know, Puka Nakua.

Just Had, you know, Stafford had a sort of an off pass and somehow Puka, one hand cradles this thing, brings it in.

You know, if you haven't didn't see the game, you haven't seen the highlights.

You gotta.

You gotta tune that in.

You know, both Bauer's and Puka's catches and a third one had happened in week 13 was Kenny Gainwell.

The Pittsburgh Steelers a little, you know.

Flood pass out, you know, to the running back.

Aaron Rodgers doesn't throw a very good pass.

He's under duress, of course, from the Bills.

And this ball looks like it's going to short hop.

And Kenny Gainwell, one hands the thing on the run and gets a big gain out of it.

Gets a first down for the Steelers in that game.

Really saved a drive there.

Didn't help them much with the overall scoring and winning the game.

But, man, three unbelievable catches.

Takes you back to the Odell catch or the, you know, Tyrese helmet catch.

These were maybe more spectacular than those catches, these three, because they're pretty amazing that these guys are doing.

So history is being made even in the modern game and, you know, we're sure enjoying to watch it.

We have some great games on tap for week 14.

Ed Cleese and I went over them last night in our big, bold prediction.

So I'm not going to regurgitate those.

The college game is really getting exciting.

We have some bowl championships coming up this week.

You know, I know Army Navy's coming up here real quick, and, you know, they're starting to seat teams for the College Football Playoff and the College Football Playoff in the Bowl Championship Series.

You know.

They both had a little bit of time here, you know, on a little bit longer than I was thinking, especially for the College Football Playoff.

So I was sitting there thinking, okay, you know, they've had the Big Ten the last two years win the national championship.

You know, Michigan did it two years ago, Ohio State last year.

Ohio State's looking like world beaters again this year.

You know, it's going to be hard to see who can knock them off, you know, off their pedestal.

Maybe Indiana this week in a Big Ten championship, who knows?

But, you know, the Big Ten has been pretty dominant lately and seems like, you know, long ago, when it was the SEC was a championship, but there's only three years removed from that.

And if you look at the college football playoffs, out of those, 11 games have been played or 11 seasons we have in college football playoffs so far, not counting this year, the SEC captured six of those 11 pretty, pretty big number there.

You go back to the Bowl Championship Series.

They had nine of those.

They dominated both those things.

Southern football at its best.

You know, when you have the Alabamas.

And the Georgias and the Floridas of.

The world just wreaking havoc, you know, Auburn and in there, too, and it really is amazing to look at that.

So I think we might be with.

These super conferences in their second year, might be another SEC and Big Ten battle here in the college football playoffs.

But let's not count out some of those teams from, you know, that people aren't talking about because maybe there's some surprises in there.

Maybe you might see somebody rise up or maybe it's one of these teams that aren't in the championship of their respective conference.

You know, maybe in Alabama makes it.

In and makes some noise or Ole Miss in the sec.

You know, possibly, you know, you could.

Have somebody, you know, come out of nowhere like an Oregon that's not in the championship of the Big Ten.

And you never know what's going to happen here, but going to be a lot of fun to watch, to read about and talk about next week after these games are played and get into these college football playoffs.

So let's enjoy the weekend, enjoy football for what it is.

Got another great week coming up.

Until next time, everybody have a great gridiron day.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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