October 13

The 13th of October may be unlucky for some but in the football world it is a day filled with "Jerrys"! Jerry Jones and Jerry Rice take center stage on their birthdays but we also feature Brian Dawkins and more!

October 13, 1996 - NY Jets Nick Lowrey breaks Jan Stenerud NFL field goal record at 374. If you refer to our October 6 History Headlines you see that Lowery tied Stenerud's record on that day and had to wait one week to claim the crown.

October 13, 2007 - 17th College Football Holy War: Boston College beats Notre Dame 27-14 in South Bend

October 13, 2019 - It was week six in the 2019 season and there were a handful of very interesting and close games played. The Seahawks and the Browns traded points all day with the Seahawks getting the better of the exchange in a 32-28 final as Chris Carson rushed for 124 yards for the Hawks while his Browns counterpart Nick Chubb put up 122 yards on the ground himself in the close game. The Washington Redskins overcame a late Dolphins charge by the score of 17-16. Adrian Peterson ran for 118 yards to help Washington seal the victory. The Atlanta Falcons put on a late charge but fell to the upstart Cardinals of Arizona 33-34. Matt Ryan was 30 of 36 passing and threw for 356 yards and 4 scores but the Cardinals young gune Kyler Murray was 27 of 37 in attempts himself tossing 340 yards and 3 TD passes and rushing for another 32 yards on the ground!

October 13, 1942 - Los Angeles, California - Jerral Wayne "Jerry" Jones is born. When Jerry was about three, the Jones family moved back to North Little Rock, Arkansas and opened up a couple of grocery stores called Pat's Super Markets, aptly named for Jerry's father J. W. Pat Jones. After Jerry's graduation Pat moved the family to Springfield, Missouri as he took a position with the Modern Security Life Insurance Co. Meanwhile Jerry attended the University of Arkansas and played football for the Razorbacks. He was pretty good too as he was a co-captain of the 1964 National Championship team. Also on that top in the nation Razorback team was a man by the name of Jimmy Johnson. After college Jerry took a position with the Life Insurance  company his father had basically taken over and was listed as the executive vice-president. Jerry soon took over full ownership of the insurance company and ended up selling it in the early 1970's and took upa hobby of oil wildcatting, really making a name for himself and a boatload of money according to forbes.com. On February 25, 1989 Jerry Jones purchased the Dallas Cowboys for 150 million dollars and according to a recent Forbes report, the Cowboys franchise is worth $5.5 billion while Jerry himself has a net worth of $8.6 billion. Jone's first action was to release the only coach the Cowboys had ever known in Tom Landry and hired his college buddy Jimmy Johnson as well as firing long time GM Tex Schramm. The team struggled at first but then after the monster trade for Hershel Walker, noted in our October 12th post, the Cowboys enjoyed glory days in the 1990's including 3 Super Bowl wins. Jerry has been outspoken, often criticized as he has held onto most of the player personnel decisions with the Dallas franchise, but no one can deny that he has kept the Cowboys in the news no matter what their record reflects in the standings. The Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrined Jerry Jones in 2017.

October 13, 1962 - Starkville, Mississippi. Jerry Rice was a wide receiver from Mississippi Valley State. An article on biography.com informs the reader that Jerry Rice earned All-America honors and set 18 Division I-AA records while at Mississippi Valley State. The profootballhof.com states that the San Francisco 49ers drafted Rice in the first round of the 1985 NFL Draft. The website jerryricefootball.com claims that the prolific receiver holds 36 NFL records as he wears the rings of 3 Super Bowl Championships.  You can read about one of those records in our September 29th post of the Football History Headlines. Jerry was not the fastest receiver on the field but his work on the practice field was seldom matched by anyone as well as his film study and those combined with his natural athletic abilities translated into a big problem for opposing defenses. One of his biggest attributes was his yards after catch statistics where he would often turn a short slant pattern catch into a long TD reception. Rice near the end of his career played with another Hall of Fame player in Tim Brown on the Oakland Raiders. Jerry Rice entered the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006 & the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010.

October 13, 1973 - Brian Dawkins a safety out of Clemson University was born.The Philadelphia Eagles selected Dawkins as the 61st overall pick in the second round of the 1996 NFL Draft. In 16 NFL seasons he played 13 with the Philadelphia Eagles and made nine Pro Bowls including being an All-Pro 5 times. He played out the remaining years of his NFL career with the Denver Broncos according to the Pro Football Hall of Fames website bio on him. Dawkins served the Eagles as an executive of football operations for player development from 2016 to 2018 and was with the organization when they won Super Bowl LII. The Pro Football Hall of Fame invited Brian Dawkins into their exclusive Gold Jacket Club in 2018.