NFL Jersey Number 2s
Darin Hayes:
I'm glad you joined us on the podcast today because we have a special guest. It's Os Davis, and he's gonna discuss the number two jerseys with us and some football history headlines all coming up in just a moment. Hello, my football friends. This is Darin Hayes: of pigskindispatch.com and welcomes to the Pig PenIt's Os Davis: of the Truly the Goats podcast here on the SportsHistoryNetwork .com, and Os and I are going to discuss the great players that wore jersey number two. So I hope you can hang on for just a little bit. Now it's that time in our program we're going to continue with our substantial players who wore jersey numbers. Tonight's topic is the number two in football history, and we have a special guest with us. It's Os Davis: of the Sports History Network's Truly the Goats podcast, and you can find Oz on the Sports History Network with that podcast Truly the Goats. He also does the SHN Showcase, where I've been on that episode where he talks about the hosts of the different podcasts of the Sports History Network, and it is growing all the time. I'd like to bring him in right now. Os Davis:, welcome to the Pigpen.
Os Davis:
It is great to be here. Always love a chance to talk goats. And this is a form of goat talk in there. Oh, absolutely. The best.
Darin Hayes:
in every number, so we're just, yeah, we're just sorting them out a little bit, you know, but yeah
Os Davis:
Need some sorting here. We need some historical perspective on some of these.
Darin Hayes:
All right. So, let's lay a little bit of ground rules here. All right. We're not going to make it. We're not making a list. We're not saying, okay, here's our favorite. You know, here, but we are going to take sort of the top five guys of wearing the number two today is what we're discussing, and we're going to miss some, and we're going to mention some other guys, and we're going to miss some along the way. You know, we got a hundred days of this, and we're on day two or day three. Sorry, day three, the zeros. So, uh, and there is, there is one gentleman we're going to talk about that we talked with the ones cause he's were a couple of different numbers, and we'll get to him in a second. Um, but we want to make sure we catch everybody, but if we miss some, we want our listeners to contact me at pigskin dispatch at gmail .com. Let us know who we missed when they were the number two, and we'll catch it up on a future broadcast and try to clean up some of these loose ends. Cause I know we're going to miss them, and we want the listeners to help. So, what do you think about the number two? Let's talk strictly about pro football. Cause we get into college, we have a lot of, a lot more guys to talk about there, and we could be running on forever.
Os Davis:
Okay, I don't want to steal the Thunder, so I will leave my ultimate choice for last. However, I'm really glad you brought me on for this show about players who wore the number two and the next show, spoiler, the players that wear the number three, because what tends to happen with these numbers is this. Of course, nowadays, these numbers are worn by kickers, punters, and the occasional quarterback; these are very low numbers. Whereas back in the day, of course, these were serious numbers. I mean, the reason why a guy was one was often because he was the number one guy. He was the most important guy on the team or whatever. And a lot of guys who wear these numbers from the old days, guess what? Get the shaft. A lot of times, this is because there's no video. If you want to talk really extreme, when we talk about a guy like Paddy Driscoll, there are almost no statistics except for points. Right. So it's difficult to put this stuff in context. However, you read top, you know, a hundred lists and these lists online are about best at every number. And it's all about, you know, recency bias. You know, to say that when four Hall of Famers wore the number two for most of their career and to say that a guy like Matt Ryan is the best player everywhere. Number two. Well, you know, that's not only recency bias. I think that's a bias for statistics, and that's a bias for the position of quarterback. I agree. Yeah. Whereas, you know, many founding guys, as we were about to talk about back in the day, wore the number two. Do you want to go through what we've considered, including the Rams? I mean, should we talk about something?
Darin Hayes:
Well, how about if we talk about having four gentlemen in the pro football Hall of Fame, the war, the deuce on Their Jersey look means let's why don't we get into them first? Okay, and because they're sort of the stars of the show of the number two
Os Davis:
Okay, well, I already named dropped a Paddy Driscoll. So, the case for Driscoll is pretty strong in the top spot at number two, especially for trying to build a team, which is actually something I wanted to ask you about. So we should take heed to positions. Oh, well, okay. So, Pat, Paddy is a favorite of mine because he was there at the formation of the NFL. He's one of the seminal players. He's a two-sport athlete. Right. So you have to love that major league baseball and professional football. He also became a groundbreaking football coach. So so that really, you know, put-puts him in my heart in this race. He led the early NFL and scored twice. Like I say, that's often the only statistic we have from those days. And, of course, he was an all-pro at quarterback and kicker. So, these are all nice perks for Patty.
Darin Hayes:
Oh, yeah, okay. We talked. I had Larry Schmitt from the gridiron uniforms talking about the number one. Okay, and Paddy Driscoll wore number one for a little bit in his career, So we chatted a little bit about him, but we learned some interesting things in our last episode about Paddy Driscoll; first of all, Going to his college days In a 1919 Rose Bowl. He was on the Great Lakes team that beat Mare Island Marine Base, and he threw a pass To George Halas in the Rose Bowl. I mean, kind of some big name-dropping there, and they sort of had crossed paths later on in life, too, because Driscoll was with the Chicago Cardinals, I believe, at the beginning of his NFL career, and At some point, there's a rival league that came up and the original AFL and they had a team from Chicago We Had they had a team from Chicago and if the name escapes me right now, but they the AFL team did, and they Driscoll was going to go to that team according to Larry, and George Halas came in and said hey we can't lose one of our major stars, and he offered a trade sent some cash to the Cardinals, and Driscoll went to the other side of Chicago to play for an It's a sort of a love triangle of Chicago football teams back in the 20s for
Os Davis:
In the teens, 20s, and 30s, we can even say, you have to understand that before the formation of leagues in America, everything was semi-pro. Even going into the pre-World War II period, everything is semi-pro. You have regional leagues. There's a whole big state called California that, until 1962, did not have professional baseball or major league baseball, I should say. Instead, you get stuff like the Pacific Coast League and the Western League and stuff like this in baseball. Now, in football, it's the same kind of thing. However, in Ohio, especially, and Pennsylvania, to a great extent, people are football crazy—professional/semi-pro football. Let's say it's crazy. I'm glad you put the word on.
Darin Hayes:
Football is ahead of Pennsylvania, and Ohio is crazy.
Os Davis:
Yeah, yeah, I've been bad. Yeah, I got Columbus Crazy Erie. So, but yeah, these places, in particular, are just hot bits of Teams, and of course, you know, these teams tend to be Local teams right there made up of the guys who worked at, for example, the steel plants, right? Or, for example, the packing plants, right where we still keep those names. And so, you know, Ohio, Chicago, and Pennsylvania are just hot hot bits. Like everybody's coming out of these three states, you know, at least in the semi-pro leagues, so yeah, Chicago was a highly competitive market, and we would say now it is for semi-pro football. All right, how about yeah, You.
Darin Hayes:
So, I think we can agree that Driscoll is in our top five.
Os Davis:
Okay, I did not listen to the number one podcast number one because it hasn't been released yet, so I haven't heard it. But did you choose? We
Darin Hayes:
We didn't know, no we didn't, we didn't rank them as I said, we didn't rank them, But we want to make sure we can't capture the big hitters as long as we get, you know, Just say there's you know like we're saying there's let's say our top five here Then we have the also-rans because we're gonna run in a lot of kickers just like we did with the number ones And there is a kicker that's gonna show up. Well, I got some number three for our next episode, But the Hall of Famers definitely I think should be mentioned, especially since there are four of them with the
Os Davis:
Now you've also got two more of these founding-era members of the NFL wearing number two, right? Again, this accentuates the importance of these low numbers back in the early days. You have Walter Kieslick, who is mostly known, now again, talk about defying statistics. Here's an offensive lineman in the 20s and 30s, right? He was mostly known as the run blocker for Ernie Nevers, who was quite the standback in those days. And the important thing to remember about the offensive line positions in those days is you could do this thing called running interference, right? Which is where you're basically setting a moving pick the whole way with your runner. And this was made illegal, what, in the 50s, I believe, because for a long time, they were playing with this. And it was just basically an injury creator. This play was just taking out guys for the sake of taking them out of the play. But that was Kieslick. That was his job, to be that running interference on the sweeps, which Nevers ran over and over and over again.
Darin Hayes:
I mean, just to show, I mean, like you said earlier, alluding to a Kiesling who he played for at the beginning of the NFL, teams he played for, Duluth Eskimos, Pottsville Maroons, Chicago Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Fillionaire names, Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates, or Pittsburgh, were the Pirates for two years before they were the Steelers in the early 30s. I mean, that's a lot of teams. There are 14 original teams, and I think we mentioned three or four of them for which Kiesling played.
Os Davis:
The Potsville Maroons are one of the legendary teams of the early NFL. Just talk about, you know, again, nowadays, we would call that a small market, right? But they played so far above their station that they were able to woo Key Sling over there. Because, I mean, they did. The rest of their team consisted mostly of locals from the area. But they brought Key Sling aboard. They were that competitive. And in fact, there was that one year. Again, back in the day, they didn't actually have playoffs. And much like the college system, they would just vote for a champion. And, of course, in 25, the Maroons, I'm not sure if Key Sling was on that 25 team. But the 25 Pottsville Maroons went undefeated and were cheated out of the title because of the technicality. They played an exhibition game in New York City that they weren't supposed to. And against Notre Dame, no less. Back in those days when pro teams used to play college teams. How weird is that? And so they were cheated out of the title, which went to the Chicago. There you go. Cardinals, in fact. The other player that comes from these seminal days that we have at number two is William Roy Lyman. This guy, here's another guy that I really like, the classic Swiss Army, nice player of the 20s. He played substantial amounts of games at five positions and won three of the first titles of the NFL with Canton and then Cleveland, 22, 23, and 24. And ultimately played for 16 years. In the old days, that's a big deal. And 15 of those years, his team said winning.
Darin Hayes:
records. You know what? And he had one of the greatest nicknames I think of ever football. Oh, yes. Link Lyman. I mean, that just brings fear to me right now. If I had to, hey, I'd have to play against Link Lyman today. Oh, but this, this dude, he was a giant first time, six foot to 233 pounds back in the twenties. You know, that's a mammoth guy right there. That's a big guy in this day and age, but for NFL football, that was a really large person playing.
Os Davis:
Oh yeah, and he played everywhere, right? He'd come at you from the safety position or from the line, you know, depending on the formation. So, I mean, just a totally versatile player. And again, really a victim of lack of video and lack of stats. Just saying that he was a member of these many winning teams is basically the only statistic we have.
Darin Hayes:
However, one of his most famous things was in 20 1925, when he joined the Chicago Bears on the barnstorming tour of Red Range. So he got around a
Os Davis:
It's a little bit, too. The barnstorming thing does not get the respect that it once did and that it really deserves. You see this a lot with the baseball players, especially the Negro League players of the past in baseball, is that you know, these were legitimate tours, you know, these were legitimate players on these things, and yeah, they were mostly playing like whatever, you know, Duluth or whoever could scrape up but these are a legitimate team.
Darin Hayes:
They may have two or three games in a weekend, too, for football. Sure.
Os Davis:
It also points to the amount of money these guys were making and that this was a way to make money, sell out to play local teams, and risk injury. I mean, we're talking about football here, and in fact, as they say, football is more dangerous when you're playing against guys who don't know what they're doing, right? You're more likely to get a stupid injury because the guy's not doing what he's supposed to do. He's screwing around out there or whatever. So it just points to the low esteem athletes used to have in the American system.
Darin Hayes:
And yeah, and you think about it too, they had little or no equipment in those days, you know, I think, you know, maybe a leather helmet, maybe some, you know, some kind of padding on your shoulders, you know, everything else is bare knuckles, you know, you're here. And it was it was a rough game. It was very rough. And I played for 16 years. Great. Yeah, that's amazing. Amazing. Great climbing. Love that name. All right, we have what we have: one more Hall of Famer, one more of the
Os Davis:
Yeah, old-timer guys played a bit more modern-day in the 40s. Okay, so Charley Trippi, Yeah, came to fame as Part of the so-called dream backfield, which was originally called the million-dollar back. Okay, now I guess Trippi is in the players. He gets into all the fame because he was the first guy to sign for $ 100,000 With an NFL team. Okay, so he broke the hundred thousand barriers for football players. He's part of that dream backfield. He's the key player in the field, which includes Paul Chris Moon, Pat Harder, and Elmer Angsmen, now, I believe, the first two in all of them. I don't know about Angsmen But On that hundred-thousand-dollar contract. He paid dividends pretty much immediately in 1947. That's when the Cardinals legitimately won the championship, NFL championship, and that's the last NFL championship. They won. I believe Leave so, and the only one besides the one that they were named to in 25. In that game, trippy had a 44-yard run as well as a 75-yard punt return. They probably would have been the MVP if they had done those things in those days, so they were really one of the first big names. I would say, You know, in terms of money and sports in America
Darin Hayes:
But, you know, an interesting story about him, a little bit of background on when Trippi was signed for 100 grand. Charles Bidwell was the owner of the Chicago Cardinals, and he signed him, so he had that million-dollar backfield. But Bidwell never got to see that backfield play. He passed away in the offseason before the season started with that, and they won the championship after he passed, so that kind of sucks for him after he shelled out the cash. And, you know, like, that's like something would happen to me, you know, but you gotta feel bad for, you gotta feel bad for him, you know, to have that happen, you know, but Trippie, and originally, Aynxman wasn't even in that backfield, the original million-dollar backfield, Marshall Goldberg was with Harder and Crispman and Trippie, and Aynxman ended up replacing Goldberg, it's like a couple years later, I guess. I don't remember that, but I remember reading that I wasn't there. I am old, but not that old, you know. Another thing is Trippie, they played a game on ice at Comiskey Park, and I believe it might have been a championship game; it was a big game, and Trippie had the wherewithal to put on basketball shoes. Yeah, the sneaker game, the sneaker game, that's right, they ended up going down to the local university, stealing it from the locker room, the boys' locker room, brought the whole football team sneakers, too.
Os Davis:
Supposedly, the score was 0 -0 at half, and they changed into Converse, basically, Converse high tops, and they won something like, what, 14 -nothing or something. I don't remember the big losers, but the basketball, the sneakers.
Darin Hayes:
I mean, I live on, I got ice outside my house right now. And the last thing I would think of to put on ice would be sneakers, but whatever floats your boat, I guess, I just think it worked for us.
Os Davis:
It must have been like a rig. It must have been like an ice skating rig, right? It must have been sheer because, wearing the cleats, they'd be tap dancing on that, right? That would be the excuse for changing the rubber sole.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, huffs, I don't know; it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, though.
Os Davis:
Well, winning the championship, hey.
Darin Hayes:
No, that is probably a little warmer after that. Yeah, takes this thing out of it. All right. Now I think we get a little bit interesting, though. Okay, we got those four. So, in review, we have Driscoll, Keisling, Lyman, and Trippi all in a Hall of Fame. Now, it gets a little tougher, my friend. We want to have, you know, that five-man, Mount Rushmore, of whom we'll steal from some of our fellow podcasts, the number two. All right. There are some choices. I mean, we've got a handful of quarterbacks that have had some playing time that I can come up with. And we have a bunch of kickers unless you have somebody else to kick them. Now, let me name awesome kickers for you. Okay. Just give some choices here. I have David Acres, Steve Christie, Rob Barones, Todd Peterson, Mason Crosby, Mike Nugent, Jay Feely, and Nick Folk. And we have a punter, Dustin Colquitt, who's a little bit more modern, had a rough year this year, a bunch of different teams. But so that's our kickers. Now, some of our quarterbacks are contemporary, with Matt Ryan still playing, and some are Doug Flutie, Aaron Brooks, and Tim Couch. Unless you have some more to add to that, that's who I saw sort of the substantial names that had some starting time wearing a number two.
Os Davis:
First off, I want to say this about punters. I, in my estimation, okay, I can only say for sure, pure punters. Now, we're not talking about Sammy Baugh because Sammy Baugh is a Hall of Famer. But for pure punters, I think in my lifetime, I have seen two punters that deserve to be in the Hall of Fame: Ray Guy, who's there right after many, many years it took him, and Johnny Hecker. Okay, nobody else. I'm going to put the Hall of Fame. So I'm not gonna; I don't think I'm going to consider Dustin Colquitt here. You wanted to talk about the merits of Rob Perot's.
Darin Hayes:
Well, I think Bironis was a great kicker. I mean, probably one of our Mr. Jeremy McFarlane would probably put Bironis in the Hall of Fame right now. He's a tightest fan. But I mean, I think Bironis was, he was, he was a stud kicker. And to boot, he married Terry Bradshaw's beautiful daughter, Rachel. I mean, what a tragedy, though. Three months after they were married, that's when he got in that SUV car crash and passed away. You know, a year out of the NFL has a beautiful wife and really doesn't get to enjoy it. That's me. It's a sad story. But I agree with you. I don't know if we can put him in a Hall of Fame talk, you know.
Os Davis:
They have four Hall of Famers, three, well, actually, all four seminal players, right? They're all like firsts in some area. I think for me, this is clear cut, and in fact, if I had to pick one, I would take the controversial choice, and I'm gonna go with Doug Flutie. Okay now, part of this is because I'm a CFL guy and so in that case it might be better to have him at 20 or 22, but at 20 you have Barry Sanders and at 22 you have Emmett Smith, so there's not much of a comparison there, but look here's the thing about Doug Flutie, okay, you know that show, that show a football life, right, a football life, okay, this shows, I don't know if it's still on it, it's got 11 seasons, okay, it took them four seasons to get to Doug Flutie, okay, now who has more of a football life than this guy, alright, he won the Heisman Trophy and in so doing so, I mean it's not just like he had one good play, he had four good years for that school, he put Boston College back on the football map after decades of obscurity, okay, they were in the top ten when he was with them, okay, and trust me I was living in the Boston area this time, I know this, he then went to after not being drafted high enough, okay, the 11th round, alright, so today this translates as he wouldn't get drafted, okay, today's draft, right, he went to the New Jersey Generals of the awesomest league ever, for those who have been there, the United States Football League, for the team owned by, okay, let's not talk about that, but then the league gets into trouble and Flutie manages to crack the Chicago Bears roster as basically a fourth string quarterback, okay, and still got to play that first year because of so many damn injuries because their offensive line was so horrible, I guess, and he actually got to start that year, okay, straight into the Patriots, takes over his quarterback when the team's I think two and three or three and three, anyway, goes six and three, puts them in the playoff race, and then a combination of Steve Grogan and Tony Easton, stop me if you've heard this before, gets them the loss, and they miss the playoffs, I mean, goes to the CFL, Canadian Football League, he dominates, okay, and eight seasons wins three great cups, three times he's most outstanding player, they don't have most valuable player today, they have most outstanding player, six times wins the league most outstanding player, six times in eight years, okay, that's better than Warren Moon did, okay, he comes back to the NFL, he played for the Buffalo Bills, he goes 17 and eight as a starter in those two years.
Darin Hayes:
With the Bills, he was number seven, though. He lost his number to New Jersey. That's true. He'll get it back.
Os Davis:
He'll get it back. I mean, OK, in 99, oh my god, particularly egregious. I'm not even a Titans fan. I'm not even a Bills fan. I still have flashbacks about this. He goes 10 and 5 as the starter for the Bills. Rob Johnson comes in week 17, wins, and then Coach decides to go with Rob Johnson against the Titans in what becomes the Memphis Miracle. Johnson goes 10 of 22, has 131 yards, six sacks taken, zero touchdowns. My god. After, at the age of 35, he gets his first real starting job in San Diego. Unfortunately, they were terrible. Anyway, 5 and 11. But then, of course, finally, at the age of 43, so basically, is he the oldest ever to be listed as a Patriots quarterback? Was Brady 43?
Darin Hayes:
No, I think he's not. I think he's looking 42 this year, right?
Os Davis:
Yeah, he's the oldest patriot ever, basically at 43, and he does he does he does the
Darin Hayes:
Just until Brady retires and has that one-day thing where he retires a patriot, he'll be like 48 or something. Yeah, it could very well be. That's right.
Os Davis:
I was thinking about that just the other day, actually so so and then he comes back to the Patriots, and in his last game ever, his last play ever is that dropkick, right the first dropkick field goal that had ever been made in 64 years right and now and now he does commentary for Notre Dame games okay that's a football life this guy I mean and not just in the sense that he played for so long in so many leagues and then had these accolades not even so much that it's just that what guy more overcame what every single coach in the NFL consistently saw as a shortcoming namely his height what guy is pluckier right what guy like took more crap just for a chance to play more football you know absolutely you know I mean he's just what for me he's just one of the ultimate American football players not the best, not the greatest not the just he is
Darin Hayes:
But Plucky was a good word to use. Plucky. And he had a cereal named after him, for God's sake, you know.
Os Davis:
I mean, dude, in Canada, this guy's a hero. I mean, he's still a legend, as well as his brother, because he actually got to play with his brother as a wide receiver up there in Calgary for a few years. He stole.
Darin Hayes:
He still is a hero here. I mean, we're only a hundred miles from Buffalo here. And he's still, you know, if you say, hey, who's the top quarterback for Buffalo, he's still, still, you know, mentioned in that.
Os Davis:
He's still beloved in Boston, of course, for BC, for that little bit on the Patriots. You know, now they love him in college because he does the Notre Dame games. I mean, you know, just, you know, a guy who had to live on his smarts, you know, a guy who had to live against expectations, he had to play against expectations. And basically, I mean, for what he was given, he was a success story. It was a success story all around.
Darin Hayes:
All right, but I can buy that, but I'm gonna, like, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, Matt Ryan. No, because I think, okay, Matt Ryan was still playing at a high level; I mean, his teams haven't been very good the last couple of years, but he has been in a Super Bowl, Probably a Super Bowl. They should have won. He had a pretty good game. So, you know, whatever happened in the fourth quarter that game, you know, That was like the 25-point run by the Patriots in the fourth quarter to tie the game, and they went in overtime, But that was it was a collapse of a team But you know Ryan's had a pretty decent career I mean so so far up through this season. I mean, he's got over 55,000 yards passing, 347 touchdowns, and 158 interceptions. That's a pretty good ratio. You know, as I said, he played in the Super Bowl 2016, and he was a first-team all-pro. He's been in four Pro Bowls, I believe; not a bad career since 2008, another Boston college guy. Yeah
Os Davis:
And he was awesome at BC, too. I've always been a big, I wouldn't say a big Matt Ryan fan, but I've been a big Matt Ryan defender through the years, but you know, again, the truth is, okay, okay, look, here's an example. You know, of course, that Emmitt Smith is the number-one rusher of all time in terms of yardage. Walter Payton is number two. You know who number three is, right?
Darin Hayes:
Uh, no, I'm not sure right now.
Os Davis:
Okay, number three is Frank.
Darin Hayes:
Gore.
Os Davis:
Oh, okay. Right, right. Now, a lot of people don't.
Darin Hayes:
I went past Brown; I just couldn't remember who went past Brown.
Os Davis:
Well, Sanders is four. Sanders is four. Peterson is trying to catch up at five. But a lot of people, you say that too, and they go, really? And do you even have to think about it, really? Wow, he's been around for a long time. But on the other hand, you get the feeling that 20 years from now, they're going, huh, Frank Gore. Who's that? I remember Barry Sanders, the greatest lion of all time. I remember hearing of him, even though he had never played in the Super Bowl or anything. Adrian Peterson, of course. He was a monster from Minnesota those few years. I've heard of him. And so I feel the same way about Ryan, a big stat guy. But you just don't think; you think of a Brady, of a Peyton Manning, and you just think magic. You know, like, they do magic.
Darin Hayes:
but Ryan and Ryan had always had at least one stud receiver with them. I mean, had Julio for years. Nice to have really now, uh, who was the guy that was when he first came up. I had a couple of really good ones, Andre Rise and Still Falcon. Wow. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm going back before, you know, but they, they did have some good receivers before Julio, you know, the name escapes me right now, but
Os Davis:
He may ultimately be the best quarterback to wear number two, but I don't know if he's not that top echelon. You know he's never gonna make a list of top ten all-time quarterbacks. I don't care if he goes down with the third or fourth most yards of all time; you know, I just don't. I just can't imagine that he's discussed with Peyton Manning or, you know, Johnny Unitas, you know, even going back to those days, so that's what separates. Plus, I just have as the guy that truly does the goats. I just have the natural version to the modern guy I will always argue about today's today's guy I always have the skeptical eye on the modern player just because I think we're too prone these days to recency bias we're too prone to looking at that YouTube clip and going very small time
Darin Hayes:
You know, so let's talk about another interesting guy we've mentioned, Aaron Brooks. I mean, Aaron Brooks, uh, dice career, uh, played a total of seven seasons, six of them with the Saints, uh, was their starting quarterback from 2001, basically through 2005, uh, is had 123 touchdowns in his career, 92 interceptions. So, you know, probably, you know, a little bit, a little bit more TDs. I would probably like to see a little bit fewer interceptions in there. He had a little over 20,000 yards passing him in his career, uh, didn't win any championships, uh, didn't go to any pro bowls, but he was a, he was a serviceable quarterback, a nice quarterback that played on some average teams, let's say.
Os Davis:
Yeah, this is the Saints before Breeze, right, so.
Darin Hayes:
Right, well they, I mean they had some good, his first year they were 3 and 2, his record is quarterback, 3 and 2, 7 and 9 in 2001, then he went on a little bit of a run, they were 9 and 7, 8 and 8, 8 and 8, and then they fell off the deep end a little bit, went 3 and 10 with him, but that's probably why he was no longer a saint after that year.
Os Davis:
Yeah, yeah, Brooks is, Brooks is a more compelling choice here than than Brian. But yeah, the yeah, Brooks just never. I mean, he was out of the league at age 31. Right. So yeah, never.
Darin Hayes:
a fairly young man to
Os Davis:
I picked him up a short career basically, just a football career.
Darin Hayes:
And then the other interesting one, who had all the, you know, one of the top picks in the draft, I think it was the top pick in the draft, Tim Couch, when the Browns came back in, you know, the old Browns were the Ravens, the new Browns came in in the late 90s, Couch was their number one pick out of Kentucky, six foot four, 220, you know, great resume in college. What do you think happened to Tim Couch?
Os Davis:
You know, I'm kind of a believer in team culture. And I think there's some of that there. I think that, look, if you look at the Brown's history until very recently, since that 2.0 move, they're just snake bit, right? They just never seem to coalesce as an organization. You know, I remember that year they were on hard knocks, right? And this was supposed to be, you know, one of their breakout years, they got to turn around and stuff. And you're looking at their coaching staff and these guys are all lunatics, you know, talking about World War II and stuff, you know, they spent a good 10 minutes of one episode talking about the dog that hangs out at the office there. You know, it's just like, come on now. To me, I mean, it's just, it's kind of like a Cincinnati Bengals situation where throughout the entire 21st century, the Bengals have been running with a scouting budget. That's half of the next cheapest team. It's stuff like that becomes ingrained, I think, in a team's culture. And it just swamps everything. You know, it just swamps the possibility. I mean, it was like, okay, here's another example because I was actually covering them at the time. The Raiders, in the post-Gannon years, until again, very recently, you know, we basically put this at Carr and Del Rio, were a joke. And I mean, it was to the point where the players would give interviews, and they'd say, yeah, you'd go to practice one day, and there would be a new coach on the sideline. And, you know, we'd ask, what's his job? And nobody knew. He was just an assistant to an assistant to an assistant because they liked Davis. You know, they were friends of Davis. It's just like, so I think culture killed Couch.
Darin Hayes:
Well, I think something else killed Couch, because I'm looking at his stats. He had 14 starts in his rookie year, 56 sacks. Second year, seven starts, I assume he got injured, 10 sacks. In his third year, he had 16 starts and 51 sacks. He had two seasons over 50 in the sack department. So, I mean, he wasn't like, I mean, he was somewhat mobile. He wasn't a straight up statue, but they had no offensive line to say, you know, his expansion team basically coming in. He got mauled.
Os Davis:
We don't have a large sample size, but as you recall, the expansion Texans were the same way. They even drafted a lineman with the number one overall pick. And for years and years and years, their line was brutal. And David Carr, or is David Carr with the Raiders now? The first car, Derek or David, that played with them got absolutely pummeled. To the point where, you know, in his fourth season, he was afraid. Literally, he was afraid of being out there because he'd already been hit. I think I would be too. 56 sacks in your repair. You're setting records. Yeah, you're setting records. And so, like I say, it's a very small sample size, but perhaps that's endemic to, you know, expansion teams, or even teams that are massively rebuilding. Like, for example, I feel pretty sorry for who's ever going to be quarterbacking the Saints and the Texans next year. Because I think both of those teams are going to be in full rebuild mode, with no mind to speak of. So, you know, couch, the fate of the number two, right?
Darin Hayes:
Yeah. All right. Well, I think we probably beat the dead horse here on the number two because everything else is kickers. We mentioned them, uh, some good kickers in there, nothing against kickers, but you know, we want to talk about the people that are playing some, you know, a lot, most of the downs, uh, not that kickers aren't important.
Os Davis:
you get these old-school guys, dude, and they're crossing over anyway. Right, right. Get these old-school guys, and these quarterbacks are either kicking or punting as well, so there you go.
Darin Hayes:
So, for our last few minutes here for this episode, why don't you tell us a little bit about the Truly the Goats podcast? Oh, I would love to.
Os Davis:
What do you have to offer on that? Okay, I'd like to say that, I'd like to describe Truly the Goats in two ways. One, it's the sports podcast with perspective, or two, it's the sports podcast that redefines that term all-time great. If you wanna talk all-time, great, come to Truly the Goats. We're really expanding that time, okay? We talk about sports from 6,000 years of human history. The truth is, do you really wanna talk about all-time great fighters? Great, let's talk to some gladiators. Let's talk sumo wrestling in the 17th century, okay? Do you wanna talk about some great all-time fighters? Hey, we gotcha. Now, this is not to say that we are completely against 20th and 21st-century sports figures. Of course not. However, we prefer the folks like Jim Thorpe, or Babe Zaharious, who can dominate in more than one sport. I mean, we wanna talk real Goats here. Let's talk about some real generational athletes, guys, and women who can really play the sport and are really once-in-a-lifetime literal athletes. That's what we focus, we focus once. Every episode is focused on one athlete. I think down the road, we may focus on a team or two. The format tends to change almost every time, depending on the subject matter. We always have guests, we always have a narrative, and unfortunately, our schedule has been kind of erratic since COVID can do, but I hope to roughly get these out once or twice a month.
Darin Hayes:
I'll tell you what I can tell you as a listener of that podcast, it is absolutely fantastic as well done to well put together very entertaining. And, folks out there, if you haven't listened to Truly The Goats on a sports history network, please do yourself a favor and listen to it because there's absolutely some great subject matter matter, all different sports as I said, I would like to
Os Davis:
point that out there should be almost at this point something for everyone we've. Got we've got basketball, baseball, football as I say, we've got gladiators, we've got super wrestlers boxing professional wrestlers, we got boxers yes most recently actually I'm trying to get a little traction for this one because it's getting some good attention please check out the episode 10 of Truly the Goats it's the latest episode focuses on an event called the super fight which was a computerized simulated match between Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali, not many people know that story anymore sort of disappearing with public consciousness but it's really outstanding for being really the first attempt to a computer simulate a real all-time dream matchup and and and be really the first attempt to do a sort of all-time matchup really kind of a precursor almost to the maddening
Darin Hayes:
Wow. It was definitely a great episode. And I want to thank you for coming on. This is a good time we had tonight. And you know what? Hey, how about we do this again? Are you interested in doing the threes? Sure. Number three, the number three. Okay. Well, look, there's some late-breaking news. Oz Davis will be on the next episode of the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, talking about Jersey number threes. Oz, we thank you so much for spending time with us tonight and talking about the big deuce on the jerseys for the great NFL Hall of Famers and other great legends of the game. And we look forward to talking to you again tomorrow night.
Os Davis:
Absolutely.
Darin Hayes:
as David's, ladies and gentlemen, I told you he's something special. He is great to talk to very interesting, very knowledgeable about football history and sports history. Make sure you check his podcast out Truly the Goats on Sports History Network. Well, and also on this SHN showcase, he is really a great, great time and very professional and what a production he puts on when that truly the ghost series I'm a big fan of that.
Transcribed by Notta.AI
