Darin Hayes 0:01
Tonight, we have a special honor once again to welcome Joe Ziemba of the When Football was Football Podcast on the Sports History Network. And, Joe, welcome once again to the pigpen.
Joe Ziemba 0:14
During it's always a pleasure to talk with you and I love the new furnishings of the pigpen. Here, I'm fitting right in, I'm used to this kind of stuff. So thank you very much.
Darin Hayes 0:24
Yeah, just lean against one of those fence posts. And we'll sit back and talk about the great number 14 in NFL history today. That's our assignment. And we want to find a top 12 Because we really have a lot of great players that were the number 14 in NFL history.
Joe Ziemba 0:42
And there certainly will be enough of number 14 Besides a whole bunch of Hall of Famers. There were some other interesting players, going back from the start of the NFL till today that have worn that great number. So I think we're gonna have a great time dipping into some of the stuff and maybe uncover a little bit of trivia about a couple of these guys that we found out. Always great to share. So
Darin Hayes 1:07
oh, that you got us intrigued. Now Joe, got us intrigued. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm just gonna go quickly through our Hall of Famers. And we can go in more detail on them in a second since we alluded to them, and this is in alphabetical order. Not even alphabetic orders in no particular order. So we have Dan Fouts ya tittle Don Hudson. Fred Biletnikoff. Johnny blood McNally. Otto Graham. In length linemen are the Hall of Famers that I looked up on the Pro Football Hall of Fame's website. That's some good players, there are some really good quarterbacks and
Unknown Speaker 1:48
waiting list.
Darin Hayes 1:49
So where do we want to start? You want to start talking about these seven gentlemen and their contributions to the NFL? Sure, whichever
Darin Hayes 1:57
one you'd like to talk about. Yeah, we'll jump in.
Darin Hayes 2:00
I have one that does particular fun to me, because he's right here from my hometown. And that's Freddy Biletnikoff is from Erie, Pennsylvania, went to tech Memorial High School, which is probably about a mile from where I'm sitting right here in the pigpen. They've since named their football field after him the Biletnikoff field. So Freddy was a very interesting character. I didn't have the pleasure of watching him play high school football. I was a little bit too young, but I do remember him as a pro. What do you know about Freddy Biletnikoff fritti.
Joe Ziemba 2:33
I just remember him playing a little bit with the great hands and that he was one of those players who would not step away from anybody. He was willing to hit and take a hit great hands in the middle of the action, kept his head up was always looking for that extra yard. So I would always consider him kind of a rough and tumble player. And someone that if you were looking at at a player that you'd like to emulate when you played he might be one that wouldn't be of that source.
Darin Hayes 3:05
He really personified that. Raiders, you know, are about him. You know, he was he was a true rate, Oakland Raider. You know, he was gutsy over the middle. You know, like to talk a little trash, it seems like you know, things I remember about them. And it really didn't take any baloney out there from anybody. The DBS out in the field. He was he was a tough character.
Joe Ziemba 3:29
It must have been that Raiders persona
Darin Hayes 3:33
must have been. But Fred, who ended up leaves a Super Bowl MVP. In the late 70s, I'm losing I've lost track of which Super Bowl it was probably Super Bowl 12 or 13 or 13 or 14, maybe those were Steelers, Super Bowls, probably 15. Somewhere in there. And I apologize for that. I sort of lost my note. But he was a you know, real tough character in Florida State Seminole was replayed ball and his first two seasons at Florida State he played on both sides of the ball. And you know, think of him as defender but in his junior year, he made a 99 yard run after he intercepted a pass against Miami in college, so not only a great receiver in the NFL, but uh, probably could have been a good defender there too.
Joe Ziemba 4:28
Yeah, I didn't realize that he went both ways, which is amazing, even in the net late, late in terms of away from the 1930s and 40s. When folks did go both ways.
Darin Hayes 4:40
Right? Definitely. He ended up having set a single season record of was 70 receptions, 11 179 yards and 15 scores in 1964 at FSU. And I know we're getting away a little bit from the NFL but just you know, just a remarkable career in college and a He just kept it read ongoing in the NFL. He was drafted in the 1965 AFL draft and stayed with the franchise of Oakland for his entire 14 year pro career. 76 touchdowns at 974 yards on 589 catches. So we're pretty good career Hall of Fame career. Yes, we're impressive. Yes. And who would you like to go to next in our Hall of Famers?
Joe Ziemba 5:29
Well, let's see. We got quarterbacks, we're talking about receivers. One of my receivers and of course I like the old old guys would be Dan Hudson of the Green Bay Packers.
Darin Hayes 5:42
They don't get much better than Don Hudson knows. It was kind
Joe Ziemba 5:45
of interesting back in the late 50s. When they started picking out all decade teams and all time teams that publication called the Pro Football, pick their first all time team and not only named him to the all time team, but named him the top player up until that time, which would have been 37 years. And they were talking about how elusive he was how fast he was Hudson, I know claim that he ran a 9.8 100 which was pretty good there for the early 40s. Definitely one of the defenders was quoted in the article saying and his quote was, we talk about guarding Hudson. You just have to say that all Hudson can do is just beat you. No need to say more. He has the most baffling change of pace I've ever seen. The hardest pass receiver I have ever seen the cover. And so with that, of course he accomplished so much with Green Bay 11 years with the same team. First Jersey ever retired by the Packers won three NFL titles. And our first little bit of trivia though, before he played his first game with the Packers. The owner of the Washington Redskins kind of said, Whatever gave you the idea that this bird legged Don Hudson is an all American greatest past receiver in college football. Green Bay will release him before October, George Preston Marshall, the favorite of Hogwarts house of the bears. So I thought that that would really get a player going. And sure enough, I think I saw an article that said Hudson said Dan that did it for him. And he was of course the NFL is first 1000 yard receiver led the league and I think when he retired and receiving yards passing or receiving yards touchdowns when he retired, and then winning the Hall of Fame in 1963. So he was a league leader almost every year he played back then. And I think he really deserves what that one publication gave him in 1957 on the best NFL player of all time. Until then, well, a little sidebar, he, of course, came down to Chicago a couple of times a year and played the bears and the Packers bears in the Cardinals and in 1945, the Cardinals and you may have heard the story but Cardinals had a player named much Denali went into World War Two, right at the start of an effect even before then, and he was in a prisoner of war camp that the Japanese for the entire war. He survived the battle of Bhutan. And Mr. bidwill, the owner of the team came up to in the hospital when he came back to Chicago and he said, you know matzah, you're still under contract, we expect you to be out there. And here's a guy who went from 210 pounds about 90 pounds during captivity. But he worked and got back out in the field at the end of the season and 45 and winds up as a defender. And who's he up against but Don Hudson. And much Denali said that Hudson looked at him and said, Don't worry, Ken will take care of you. And I thought that was such a tender story from this Gradle Pro that he was looking out for one of his brother in arms and a great person as well as a great player. So Dan Hudson's right up there with my list of top number fourteens are most
Darin Hayes 9:10
definitely I dug up a little bit of trivia and again, I go back to his college game he had played for Alabama, and in 1934. I mean, think about that era. And what they did was mostly running game, hustling hauled in six passes in one game for 165 yards and two touchdowns in a 29 to 13 victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl, in a big, big stage against a good team in an era where they didn't really put the ball in the air very much. You know, that's really impressive. But that was a real good character trait to show their to what he was going to do in the NFL, maybe a foreshadowing
Joe Ziemba 9:51
of sorts. Yeah, and I think that's probably why currently Lambos able to open up his offense for passing having Dan Hudson out there all those years. It's certainly made it a little bit easier of course Hudson was very humble man and always said it's not me it's my quarterback Cecil is Bill and his teammates which was again showing the humility of the man as well.
Darin Hayes 10:11
Yeah oh that most definitely. Well, you just brought up another name that's on our list that's currently Lambo was on that list of Hall of Famers
Joe Ziemba 10:20
maybe isn't curly course goes back to the to the start of the league, as we all know, or almost the start, came out of Green Bay and went to Notre Dame for one season, got tonsillitis and never went back to Notre Dame after that first year, but started this team called the Packers. It was the Acme packers and I couldn't be wrong, but that became the Green Bay Packers in 1919 and gotten the NFL a couple of years later, he continued to play halfback for another 10 years and was all pro a couple of times from from that position, and he was actually named to the pro football teams Hall of Fame's all 20s team for his work as a halfback for the Green Bay Packers. He played the old single wing, which is kind of confusing if you catch an old film of it on YouTube are something quite effective as a player coach for those 10 years and then of course, stayed on as coach and general manager for another another 30 years until 1949 When he finally left the Packers but so as a player and a coach, currently Lambeau, another one of those number 14, who will always remember,
Darin Hayes 11:33
and he was good enough to get an entire NFL stadium named after him to probably a little bit of his coaching helped that out too, but still a great, great, great player, great coach in the NFL.
Joe Ziemba 11:45
Sometimes when I when I give talks, I irritate Packers fans. When I said that Lambeau Stadium was the only stadium in the NFL named after a Cardinals coach that coached the Cardinals for about a year and a half. I know I'm being facetious
Darin Hayes 12:02
imagine that somebody from Chicago you're rotating somebody from Green Bay. I just never heard of that before. All right. Well, where do we want to go to next year on our list of Hall of Famers with the number 14?
Joe Ziemba 12:15
No, we still have a lot of quarterbacks to look at but there's one I kind of liked to look at a little bit more because he was so unique was Adam Graham. Avi, that's most stuff quarterback out of Northwestern one with with with Cleveland, of course and the old American football American Football Conference, where he won four straight titles and he won three more titles when they came into the NFL and he had a remarkable record of 5713 and one as a quarterback, which I believe is still the highest percentage ever, over a career of about 81%. So when he left the game, he was the NFL career yardage leader and also the art game passing attempt one Hall of Fame and 65 but then coached afterwards. A little trivia about I know he grew up north in Chicago, I think in Waukegan, which is close to Evanston where he went to Northwestern and his boyhood hero was the great Jack Benny, who was the TV star around in the early 50s And before that a radio star and so he played the violin and I dove apparently wanted to play the violin and so we did which is one of those football players who could do whatever he wanted I guess
Darin Hayes 13:34
a multi talent renaissance man even yeah yeah, he's he was seems from what I've read of them and you know what little video I've watched him but he seems to be like the perfect quarterback for for Paul Brown and his innovations of the game of football just you know, Perfect Match timing for those two to get together.
Joe Ziemba 13:56
Yeah, yeah. And they were obviously quite quite successful and you know back in the time when completion percentages were very low for quarterbacks I mean when I say low low compared today I have a Graham had a year where he had almost 65% of his passes were completed which was which was great and was able to keep up those percentages that during throughout his career so he was quite the accurate passer apparently
Darin Hayes 14:25
have most definitely and just pay tribute to those Cleveland Browns teams. You know, I'm I live in Erie, Pennsylvania. So we're 100 miles from Cleveland 100 miles from Pittsburgh, 100 miles from Buffalo. So and I'm a Steelers fan. I'm on the Steeler side of the fence. So it's hard for me to say good things about the browns, but you can't say enough about the Browns of those, you know, the AFC days where they won every single championship for that league. And then they came into the NFL and you know, so much for being an inferior league because they came in and pretty much dominated the NFL fell in their early days in the 1950s. Oh, they did. Yes. And Otto Graham was a big part of part of that. Definitely. All right, which direction we want to go next then?
Joe Ziemba 15:14
Why should we stay in corporate? Let's talk about a kicker. Okay. Not in the Hall of Fame though. All right, so we're gonna we're gonna bounce away from that and talk about Fred Cox, who spent his entire career with the Vikings. 15 years. When he when he left the team he held a big in the NFL though when he retired, he was still the second most points scored, but he's still the Viking leader and in scoring and field goals. So he was the thing I liked the bottom though, because playing in the in the conference in the Midwest, he did a lot of his kicking outside with horrendous wins. And still quite the effective place kicker in 100 points four times. That the trivia about him is there's two things about Fred that I liked after football, he became a chiropractor. And so he was one of those guys who actually double the cell in his post football life and then what he made as a kicker, and the second piece of trivia is Fred Cox invented the Nerf football so we got royalties on that for really Oh, I mean your first day so that is interesting. We've got lots to think fret about and nerf football is something you can throw at your kid off their head and they don't even know if you hit them or not if they misbehave it's that's a useful tool for the Nerf football yeah
Darin Hayes 16:42
most definitely know that was that the first product that nerf came out with those or was that just the one of the byproducts of like trying to think back to my childhood I grew up in the 70s and I we definitely had nerve footballs but they had like the sponge balls and now they have like every product known to man I think yeah, you know her fun it but so he's just associated with the football or the whole the whole company
Joe Ziemba 17:04
like just the football but that may have been the predecessor to the other products I'm not sure once he discovered that fabric or the product that's made to use the football they certainly could use it for other products.
Darin Hayes 17:18
You know we're and this is sort of getting off topic but the Nerf football we're we love to use it as kids as on cold snowy days you'd go out in the street or a parking lot or you could find a field that didn't have a lot of snow and as you can play you know there's an area we get a lot of snow but just to have you play with a nerf football because you use a leather football or the rubber footballs you know they were like a catch in a brick. So we do all the Nerf footballs in that casino the snows mountain a little bit they soak up that water to become quite heavy too. But that's just an aside but I didn't know that about Mr. Cox that's that's very interesting. Okay, we wouldn't want to jump back into some quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame because we have Yeah, we have some pick your turn. All right. Well, I would like to talk about a gentleman who was God given name was yoga Tron Abraham turtle. Why a turtle? What do you have to say about why a turtle?
Joe Ziemba 18:21
Well, you want the trivia first but we'll first we'll talk about his long long career 17 years Yeah, and just a reliable guy. Again, good completions he was thrown the ball say back in 49. A lot when other quarterbacks weren't that a few problems with interceptions actually ended his career with more interceptions and touchdown passes. But again, that was not unusual for the year he played them. And of course, he flood the Giants to the 63 title game against the bears and frozen Wrigley Field where the bears managed to win the game. Very close game, but yeah, looked into the Hall of Fame. But my trivia for him was why turtle was the very first pro football player to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated, believe it or not, really, oh, well, no, I in my mind have this picture of him kind of kneeling on the field. I think it's after the Bears game where there's some blood trickling down from his forehead. You may have seen that. Oh, yeah, I do remember seeing a photo and I don't know if that's if that's the picture or if that's even against the game against the bears. But now we lost him a couple of years ago at age 90. But what a tough guy again, he was and played forever. It seemed like he
Darin Hayes 19:41
most definitely had seven Pro Bowls a three time All Pro and a league MVP one year. Definitely a great quarterback and you know many Giants fans and 40 Niners fans remember his great play. So which direction do you want to go to next? Oh,
Joe Ziemba 20:00
well there's another quarterback who's a little younger than why a turtle named Dan Fouts oh yes and Dan of course a lot of people known for his broadcasting expertise. But he kind of opened up the passing game in the NFL with Don Coriell. The air Cory elder in San Diego played his entire career there all 15 years, left the NFC and passing four straight years I believe. That was the first pass for 4000 yards in one season. And he ended up doing that three consecutive years. So wasn't the quickest quarterback of all time wasn't the most mobile quarterback of all time, but if you saw receivers, 60 yards away, he probably put it right in his fingertips. So a lot of yards over 43,000 in his career. So he he was quite the, I guess, a typical a typical pro quarterback where he would not be in your center, but he wouldn't be understanding but he would get back and he would build a get rid of that ball. He took a lot of hits because he wasn't that fast. But he was able to get rid of the bomb at a pretty high rating for that to
Darin Hayes 21:11
Most definitely. I was kind of surprised looking at his stat that I think at Dan Fouts, I think of, you know, almost like a Marino esque type player, you know where he had a lot of touchdowns and very little interceptions. But he had quite a few more interceptions. And I figured he had tuner 54 touchdowns. 242 interceptions. Well, yeah, surprising. I thought that ratio was a little bit more one sided to the touchdowns I had to guess. But still a great quarterback and, you know, probably deserved to be in a Super Bowl or two. I think the Oakland Raiders gotten his way a few times because they had some good teams during his career. You know, some of the plays like the holy ruler play, you know? When? Right, yeah, put a damper on their season that one year. So, yeah, but Dan Foss was a bass player and he is still quite the great commentator I enjoy when he broadcasts games because he does a great job. They're still all right. We have a couple more Hall of Famers to talk about. We have one has showed up on a lot of numbers so far. Johnny blood McNally.
Joe Ziemba 22:22
So right there in your last program. You had a great, great session on Jen McNally. Johnny blend McNally.
Darin Hayes 22:31
Yeah, I have Mr. Warren Rogan had a couple great stories on how Johnny blood got his name. And that was kind of an interesting thing. I don't know if you had anything more to say on Johnny blood are?
Joe Ziemba 22:42
Well, I enjoyed it. And Warren mentioned the book that came out about him, which is fabulous, because the author spent time driving around with Johnny and got first hand information about him. And I just thought this is so neat, because here we are, we're hearing from someone from the past and the interviews two years ago, and then the book just came out. So we were able to bridge that time to we can find out what pro football was actually like. And it's for someone who loves the history of pro football. I thought that was just quite the book and very unique book and very well written. And so I really enjoyed that. I
Darin Hayes 23:21
definitely get a copy of that because that does sound like a good one. I don't have that one in my collection yet. We have another hall of famer that's been mentioned on a couple programs because he were numerous numbers that are lower than 15 or 14. And that's link Lyman, I still love that name. That sounds like a football name.
Joe Ziemba 23:40
It does. William Roy Lyman. I think I could see why he switched and link but no loving your career. Played with a few teams including Canton and the Chicago Bears. Four time champion can't get much better than that. And unique thing about Lincoln was he was never on the losing team. Every team he played for. And my little bit of trivia about him is I think he's one of the rare players who actually was an owner of a team. This is back when the 20s when Kenton went to Cleveland and then went back to Canton but he was 1925 part of the ownership group that bought the Bulldogs. So it was a player owner. I did not same season, he went to Frankfurt to finish the season. So kind of odd. Yeah, but then also in 25. This I did not know he joined the bears and 26 but in 25 Mortalis added him he got so much of him to go on those Red Grange tours that the postseason tours, which really opened pro football up to the masses. We had something like 70,000 people seeing them play in New York. So link Lyman was part of those tours and then signed with the bears as I mentioned in in 26. And it was a big guy for the time 230 Some pounds and his footwork was what got him noticed on the defense he would kind of shuffle around a little bit. So the offense didn't quite know which way to block them or how to take them out, which made him kind of effective I think if they kept sacks back in those days, we would find that this guy who was five times all pro probably got in the backfield quite a few times. I'm
Darin Hayes 25:24
sure he must have sounds like quite a player and quite innovative too. I think he was credited as one of the first shifting defensive linemen redial lineup in a gap and move to a different gap or over a player that confused many of the offensive linemen because absolutely having like almost statutory defenses without moving so that interesting character link lineman, just like Johnny blood was I can't get enough of those stories. All right, well, that that covers pretty much our Hall of Famers that we have in here we have seven of them that are in the Hall of Fame. I brought in you mentioned Mr. Cox to who's not in the Hall of Fame as of yet anyway. And I don't know if we want to conclude him put him automatically on that list also of our, our 12 Best or maybe put him as a standby member, we'll come back to him.
Joe Ziemba 26:22
Yeah, we could come back to him, although he might mean mirrored a position on that just because of his long career and the successful career. Okay, look,
Darin Hayes 26:32
let's put him on pause for a second. Okay, maybe you can convince me on him because I'm not so sure. Because we had we have I think the seventh Hall of Famers that we just briefly talked about, I think they probably merit getting those first seven spots or seven of those spots. So the 12 so we have five more of number 14 is to fill our roster of 12 players here for our top 12. Number 14 is in history. And I don't know if you had any. Anybody in particular you want to talk about first but we have some other great quarterbacks and a lot of players to talk about. Yeah,
Joe Ziemba 27:08
one quarterback, which I think has been overlooked literally is Eddie LeBaron. And he was five foot 760 pounds. He played for a small school and called Pacific because he wasn't highly recruited because of the size and going out of high school into college. Which is another trivia for the day is that this coach was none other than Amos Alonzo Stagg. So Stagg after he was let go by the University of Chicago in the 30s went out to Pacific, and I think he coached till he was nearly 100 years old, so any of the Baron was the coach at Pacific. No one knew much about him. He was named to the college All Star game in 1950. This was this extravaganza held every August in Chicago where the Chicago Tribune newspaper would host a voting by fans nationwide for their favorite college players who would meet the defending NFL champs, and solo baron played for the 1950 All Stars and they actually upset the Philadelphia Eagles 17 to seven, so he got a little bit of notoriety but his crew was delayed as he served in the Korean War. When he got out, he was the quarterback for Washington and he replaced another hall of famer Sammy ball, so that was kind of cool. That he had the connection led to stag but the Sami BA. And then in the sixth 1960. He was selected as the traded for I forget as the first quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. And when you think of his size, and the Cowboys, we're going to build that first team out of this quarterback, Tex Schramm who said something like he was probably one of the greatest athletes who's ever been around, especially for his size. And I don't know what he can't do, Schramm said when he came to us people were weren't really familiar with them where they can Geez, he's such a little guy. What are we going to do with them, but by the time they left training camp, and who the burn head, really convinced everyone he was the starting quarterback he just took over. And that's when he got his nickname called The Little General. So, despite his size, he became an important part of it. First very first Dallas team in 1960.
Darin Hayes 29:26
Wow. I didn't realize ever really think about who the first Dallas Cowboys quarterback was. But yeah, you revealed another little bit of trivia. If somebody will win a game show or something at a local bar or something someday with that answer, you know, that'd be a good one. All right. Where do you like to go to next you have some other players that you'd like to talk about here?
Joe Ziemba 29:49
Yeah, there's so many on the list one or two? Go ahead. Although we know we have some quarterbacks left, I believe to talk about All right. Well, they're not in the Hall of Fame. One I'd like to talk about this because, you know, I've watched him play quite a bit when I was a kid as Kenny Anderson have played with the Bengals and has gone on to have a great coaching career too as an assistant coach and quarterback coach, but Kenny, I don't think ever gets enough credit for what he was. He played on some, some lousy teams, but he was a pretty astute quarterback. I mean, even even with the bad teams he played on he had a quarterback starting record of 91 and 81 in his career, just under 60% completion rate through for just under 33,000 yards, 197 touchdowns, 160 interceptions, and had a pretty lengthy career lasted from 1971 to 1986. With the Bengals so that's you deserve some merit badges just for that. I believe, you know, a lot of that was under the eye of Paul Brown when he was the owner of the thing. Yeah. And I he may have been Anderson's coach, I don't sure sure how long he coached the Bengals but 1970 One's got to be right in that realm. Pretty close, I would.
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