Darin Hayes:
Hello, my football friends; this is Darin Hayes of pigskindispatch.com, and welcome once again to The Pig Pen, where we will talk with Dan Neumann of Hello Olds Sports Podcast on SportsHistoryNetwork.com about the legendary number fours in the game of football that played in the NFL. We have got a special treat today. We are going to talk about jersey number four, and we have a guest, Dan Newman, who is from Hello Sports Podcast on the Sports History Network. He and his brother Andrew have this podcast, and it is phenomenal. If you have not listened to it, make sure you do it as soon as you are done with this podcast because they are two brothers, and they debate about sports. They love a good list. They grew up in the New York area, and they are just phenomenal sports addicts. You can tell from the passion that they show because they cover not only football but a wide range of sports. It is a very interesting program, and I would like to bring them in right now. Dan Newman, welcome to the Pigpen.
Dan Neumann:
Thanks, Darin; I'm really glad to be here.
Darin Hayes:
Oh, we're happy to have you. We have the Jersey number four is our topic of the day as we go through our journey of Jersey number by Jersey number started at zeros. We're working our way up to 99 and we're just getting started here. So we're glad to have you here to start talking about some number fours.
Dan Neumann:
I'm glad to be here. You were good enough to guest on our podcast talk about Gail Sayers back in December on our In Memoriam series, so really glad to be a guest here and looking forward to talking about some quarterbacks, kickers and punters.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, it should be a good time. It should be a good time. We have some good players on here, though, for number fours. And what we're gonna try to do, just to explain to our audience, we're gonna come put a compelling case together to come up with our, what we think our top number fours of all time are. And it's mainly the NFL we're gonna be talking about. There may be a little bit of touching in some other leagues, but not really the college game because it gets kind of hairy there when you go into numbers there. Because gosh, you can have three or four number-fours on one team. By the way, the rules go. So why don't you? Well, let's start off and talk about it. We have three gentlemen in the Pro Football Hall of Fame who were the number four. So I don't know if we want to start off with them. Just a
Dan Neumann:
I think they're probably a good place to start, and I think, really, One of these guys is head and shoulders above the rest. It's the only one. If you were to say to anybody name a football player who's associated with the number four, I would say 95% of fans would take Brett Favre, all-time great passer 3, MVP awards century team, all of those things. So, I think if you had to pick one, it would definitely be Brett Favre.
Darin Hayes:
I think so, but I think it could be debatable. There's another one on the Hall of Fame list who played in a slightly different era that many may claim might have been as good or better than Favre, and that's Ernie Nevers. Ernie Nevers played in early football, and we'll get into more detail on him, but I could also make a compelling case for him.
Dan Neumann:
I think you could, definitely. I think the one thing Ernie Nevers was an inaugural Hall of Famer when. Actually, he was a part of the inaugural class of both the pro and college football Halls of Fame. I don't know what year the College Football Hall of Fame opened, to be honest with you, but the Pro Football Hall of Fame was in 63, and he was one of the, I think it was
Darin Hayes:
1954 was for the college for the college is there somewhere in the early 50s
Dan Neumann:
They never have played for five years, mostly with the Chicago Cardinals, but also a couple of other places. When the NFL about ten years ago did their top 100 players of all time, he was 89th. He doesn't often get talked about as much as guys like Jim Thorpe or Red Grange, but I think that at least as far as his NFL career, he had a much better career than Jim Thorpe did. He played for five years. He was an all-pro all five years. You talked about how our podcast, Andrews and Mine, talks about all different sports. So, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Nevers was also a pitcher. I think it was the St. Louis Browns in the American League and Major League Baseball for three years. And then the other interesting thing about Nevers is he had a record with six rushing touchdowns in a single game. A record that stood, and it still stands, but he stood alone with that record from the mid-1920s, almost 100 years, all the way up until Thanksgiving of 2020 when Alvin Kamara tied that record. That was amazing. That was a great game, and it was funny; I remember watching that, and I said, I think that Ernie Nevers might have this record, and sure enough, he did. So I would probably still lean far, but I think you can definitely make an argument for Ernie Nevers.
Darin Hayes:
Well, let me bring up a couple of things about Nevers that you didn't mention here. OK, well, you did mention the All-Pro five times, and you only played five seasons in the NFL. I don't know if anybody has been that. I mean, it wasn't All-Pro; it was All-NFL back then, but it's the equivalent of All-Pro. I mean, five for five, that's pretty good. You talked about Thorpe. Well, there's a quote on the National Football Foundation's website on Nevers' bio that Hall of Fame coach Glenn Pop Warner coached him, also coached Thorpe, and he picked Nevers over Thorpe as his personal choice for the greatest football player of all time. I mean, that's college; now he's talking, but still, that's pretty impressive because Thorpe had a much better college career than he did pro. The other thing is that he was Sort of the star of the 1925 Rose Bowl, and he played for Stanford at the time. Stanford was playing Notre Dame when the four horsemen were playing that famed year of 1925, and Stanford lost the game; Notre Dame won, of course, but he had more yards rushing than all four of the four horsemen combined in the Rose Bowl. So, I know we're going back into college a little bit, but that's just Sort of the background of this guy. I mean, he was a legend. And the other thing I really like about him, on the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I believe it might have been his enshrinement speech; here's what he said. I like the way I played it. You went up a full 16 minutes. We went from September to January and from Maine to Texas to the Pacific Coast. In all, we played 29 games and had only 16 men on the squad. If the coach took a man out of the game for a substitution, he got mad. That's how much we loved it. I mean, if that's not football, that guy is just, he's all.
Dan Neumann:
To be fair, that may be the reason he only lasted five seasons, as he was playing both sides of the ball in 29 games a year.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, you had to be what a hundred and thirty games. Oh, yeah, that's a ten-year career these days. OK, well, let's go too far. Let's talk a little bit about him.
Dan Neumann:
Yeah, you know, I have always thought I've never been the biggest fan of Brett Favre. First of all, I think from a Statistical point of view. I think he was a little bit of a compiler, you know; there were those few years in the mid-90s where he was really good. I think he won three MVPs in a row. You know, I just think he might have split one with Barry Sanders, as strange as that sounds, But I think it's like 90 97 maybe he split one Barry Sanders, so I've often thought that Far does not belong on Sort of the United's Brady Montana paint manning, you know that Sort of upper tier, but and I also don't like the way He went out with his career. He, you know, the three or four years of I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna come back; I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna come back. So I will fully admit to never having been his biggest fan, but in a lot of ways, just the crazy numbers that he put up and the fact that he was able to be a top-level NFL quarterback for God, you know, well over 15 years. I think those Speak to themselves. He definitely had some years where he could have gone further in the playoffs and didn't both with Green Bay and then later with the Vikings, but He is a great great all-time quarterback
Darin Hayes:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, the interesting thing, OK, as good as he was with the Packers, do you realize his highest quarterback rating was his final year, 2009, with the Vikings? He had a 107.2 quarterback rating for that year for, you know, a pretty extended career. And that's, to me, that was kind of an unbelievable thing. I would have thought for sure it was, you know, 1995 or, you know, with the Packers. But yeah, she started off with Atlanta, came out of Southern Mississippi, started off with the Falcons. It was a second round pick. And they ended up trading him to the Packers. Holmgren really liked them up there. And you can see why Holmgren Sort of had some knowledge and the rest of us didn't, including the other 30 some coaches. And he replaced Don Medjkowski in the week three of that first season with the Packers and never looked back. It was a phenomenal career. He had a real gunslinger, as you might say, you know, it's kind of very fun to watch. But he threw a share of picks though.
Dan Neumann:
And many of them were ill-advised yes I think and I think that was it that last year when he was with Minnesota when in the co9 was New Orleans yeah I think they were in the NFC Championship game in o9 against against Minnesota or against New Orleans I should say and far late in the game when they could have just gone on for a game -winning field goal instead through a pass that he shouldn't have thrown out I think I'm remembering that correctly I think so ended up getting an intersection
Darin Hayes:
He did do that sometimes in his career, but that's one stat I love to look at with quarterbacks. I love to look at their touchdown to their interception over their career, and Farve actually has a halfway decent one. He has 508 touchdowns and 336 interceptions. Not horrible. I mean, you'll see some of these other quarterbacks that we'll talk about are less of a percentage than that.
Dan Neumann:
You know I guess I didn't I didn't think it was that I didn't think it was that lopsided I would have thought the numbers would have been much closer to each other for far
Darin Hayes:
I did too, I was kind of surprised because you think about him taking risks and throwing inopportune picks, but then he comes back with some great charge at the end of a game to make up for it. That's what I remember a lot about Brett Favre.
Dan Neumann:
I have a little just a slight piece of trivia about Brett Favre and the first ever pass he ever completed in the NFL And there's really two two Sort of interesting Sort of factoids first of all he completed his pass his first ever pass completed was to himself It was a deflected pass He grabbed out of the air and got for like you know a a negative one yard gain and then the play -by -play guy That was doing the game for CBS was a guy by the name of Mike Emmerich who? listeners to Football podcasts might not recognize, but his nickname was Doc Doc Emmerich one of the probably the most well-known and prolific NHL Broadcasters of all time and it was like one of the few NFL games he ever did But I guess CBS had a bunch of games that weekend and they needed somebody so they threw Doc Emmerich in there So Brett Favre's first pass completed to himself and called by a Hall of Fame hockey announcer Wow
Darin Hayes:
that is some good trivia that'll win somebody you know a free beer at the bar on trivia night one of these days so hopefully one night soon right yeah right OK well let's go to our our third Hall of Famer and that's Tuffy Lemons and Tuffy played back in the early NFL his career span from 1936 through 1943 and he was up in your neck of the woods he was a New York giant for his whole career
Dan Neumann:
He was, and it's one of those names you just hear of as a Giant fan, and I'm not going to pretend that to be an expert in the career of toughy lemons, but the Giants, you know, as with a lot of teams, I think in the 19th, you know, maybe like the 1950s, probably retired numbers at a greater clip than they should have, and I think all of a sudden people realized, look, we're an NFL team, we have 60 people on our roster, we can't be retiring all these numbers, and they'd stopped eventually. So for instance, for the Giants, the only numbers they've retired anytime recently are Sims and LT, and I imagine they'll do Eli at one point, and I don't even think they've done Strahan, but toughy lemons has his number retired by the Giants. So if you go to a giant game, or if you just, you know, look it up, he's one of the handful of numbers that are retired for the Giants, and in fact, he and Favre are the only two guys that have number four retired, and lemons, just like Ernie Nevers, he played both ways. He leads the Giants, he was an all -pro in 1938, leads the Giants to the NFL championship, makes a couple of NFL title games throughout his career in 39 and 41. His rookie year, which I think was 38, he led the league in rushing, and even though the stats for this weren't really very good at the time, or they weren't not good, they were nonexistent, a teammate of his says that lemons may actually have been better on defense than he was on offense, which for a name like, with a guy with a name like toughy, you got to be good on defense, you got to be tough. So yeah, I think a lot of times with these old football players, you know, pre -1940, you're going more on word of mouth and Sort of the remembrances of their contemporaries and maybe to some extent also on how often they won, so lemons scores high marks in both of those areas, and so, you know, a deserving Hall of Famer.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, he has kind of a real interesting story how he got on the Giants. I'm not sure if you've ever heard this one before, but he was playing at George Washington University and he was a standout there and didn't get a lot of notoriety in the press. But Tim Mara's son, Tim Mara was a founder of the Giants. His son Wellington Mara, who's very famous himself for being owner of the Giants, was vacationing as a high schooler. He saw Tuffy play at GW and came back and told your dear old dad and the coaching staff about him. And lo and behold, they signed him that next year and he was a good pick. So I can thank Wellington Mara for that, the Duke.
Dan Neumann:
Well, yeah, and he was, he was there, it's crazy, just, you know, Mara was there from those days all the way through to the early days of Eli Manning, so crazy, ran the team well at times, ran it not so well at other times, but Leamons was one of the ones he got right.
Darin Hayes:
Right, and he's also got his nickname on NFL football, too. That's called Wellington because of Wellington more. OK, so I think we can probably agree. Those three players, Farve, Lemons, Nevers, those are in our top five, definitely. And now we've got a sort of a mixed bag here. We've got probably the quarterbacks is probably who we want to talk about next because there are some kickers and there's some good kickers on there. But the kicker's not equivalent to the quarterback for they're not on the field as much. They're not taking the hits that the quarterbacks are. But we've got four quarterbacks that are still playing that are worth mentioning because what I have on my list, I don't know if you have anything differently there. I think I...
Dan Neumann:
I may have only had three of them, so I'll be curious to hear.
Darin Hayes:
Well, one just wore four for a brief moment, so it's my hidden gem. But who do you want to talk about first of our active quarterbacks that wore number four?
Dan Neumann:
Maybe because he's been so much in the news recently, I would start with Deshaun Watson. OK, that's a great one to start with. Who knows where he'll be next year. Three Pro Bowls in his first four years led the league in passing yards this year and has been to the playoffs a couple times. So wherever he ends up for the 2021 season and beyond, they'll be glad to have him. They'll be lucky to have him.
Darin Hayes:
Absolutely. Yeah, he has, again, I like to go to that touchdown interception ratio. And for a young player, he has 104 touchdowns so far, only 36 interceptions. So that's a pretty good ratio there for quarterback. He's just a phenomenal athlete and has instincts that are just off the charts. So I can see why every fan base in the NFL is clamoring for their team to trade for Deshaun Watson. And I personally don't think that the Texans are going to trade him myself, but that's just my own opinion. I think he's just that valuable to him. How good of a player do you think he'll be? I mean, he's young right now. He's got the legs. He's known for that. What do you think he's going to be five to 10 years from now?
Dan Neumann:
You know, I think it'll be good. He's already good. I think it'll be. I think it'll be very good. I don't see him as Sort of an all-time great. I don't see him on the level of some of the guys who are Just leaving or getting ready to leave Breeze, Raffles Burger Brady obviously is his own case. It's certainly not as good as Sanchez you know Yeah, you know look Lamar Jackson's won an MVP Watson hasn't so I'd probably put Lamar Jackson a little bit above I kind of envisioned Watson having Sort of a Phillip Rivers like career maybe he'll win more than Rivers, but a guy who's good player on some good teams Probably not an MVP or a Hall of Famer
Darin Hayes:
OK, that's that's fair enough. I mean, here's Sort of where I see his path going a little bit. Traditionally in the NFL, I can't think of too many examples that didn't follow this path, but young players that come in that have some great rushing yards at those rushing yards as they get a little bit older and they take the hits and their bodies wear a little bit, they have to rely more on their arms than they do their legs that they did in their younger game. Absolutely. And I think he's got the tools to be a pretty good pocket passer. I think that's where he has an advantage more so over a Lamar. You know, definitely over, you know, Michael Vick sort of struggled in that area when he had to get kept in the pocket. You know, he was known for Sort of what the Shawn does, but I think the Shawn just has a skill set and a knack for finding an open, open receiver. And he goes through his reads pretty well, and he makes outstanding throws, too. I think he may survive and become a pretty good pocket passer as he gets a little bit older, and I think he may have the potential to make call of fame. I don't think he'll be on the Breeze and Manning and, you know, Tom Brady and Montana, Joe Montana, Echelon, but I think he'll be in that next year, I think. That's my personal opinion. It's possible.
Dan Neumann:
It's definitely possible.
Darin Hayes:
Well, there's a couple other interesting quarterbacks that we have that are currently playing. What do you think about Dak Prescott? He wears a number four with the Dallas Cowboys right now.
Dan Neumann:
Like Prescott I think he hasn't yet done much winning which I I wonder I don't know have they even made the playoffs in the time that he's been the starter and I want to just take a look at that I guess he has rookie year they were 13 three so they definitely would have made the playoffs that year and then 10 and six in in 2018 so yeah he's taking them to playoffs he he won a playoff game in 18 he I remember in 2016 he when he was he was rookie of the year that year and it was him and Ezekiel Elliott both rookies and there were talks at each of them was a candidate both for rookie of the year and for MVP he his rookie year may very well have been his best year when you combine not just the stats but the winning I think that unlike Watson the fact that Prescott has a team that he's with and a team that he's happy with and he's also presumably he's got the running back as well in Elliott I think that maybe he has a bright future ahead of him in Dallas if they can get the pieces around and the other thing I like about Elliott is he was heard a lot this year but prior to that he was very very durable very durable he for his first four seasons he didn't miss a game didn't miss a start so I would say I like Elliott in some ways I'm more I'm more optimistic about him than Watson actually even though I think Watts has probably got more skill I like what Zeke or I'm sorry what Prescott has done in Dallas
Darin Hayes:
It's interesting, like you said, 2016 the Cowboys were 13 and 3. He actually threw more yards; his best year was 2019. He had threw over 4 ,900 yards, which is 1 ,300 more than he did his next best season. He had 30 touchdowns, before that his best was 23, that was his rookie year. And his touchdowns 106, 40 interceptions. So he's Sort of on par percentage wise, real close to what Deshaun Watson is, both in their young careers, real comparable numbers there. But I think, yeah, I think you're right, Dak is, he's, I mean, he's got some legs. He's not the speed demon that Deshaun Watson is or Lamar is. But if he needs to get outside and pick up some yards around the end, he can. And but he's got a very accurate arm. And he, again, he's a very cerebral quarterback. I think for a young man in the NFL, he has some decent reads. And that doesn't have the big turnovers that you see some of the young quarterbacks make.
Dan Neumann:
And as a giant fan, I can speak to just how weak the NFC East is right now, so if he can, if he can get himself healthy, and if he can keep having some of these pieces around him, he's well -positioned in the NFC East for the next few years. Oh, absolutely.
Darin Hayes:
Absolutely. I have two other quarterbacks that are active, one that plays quite a bit, and that's Derek Carr. Derek Carr, the Las Vegas Raiders. I have to be careful how I say that. I keep slipping up in St. Oakland.
Dan Neumann:
He's already first all -time in passing yards, all -time for the Raiders franchise, and that's a team that's had Lamonica and Kenny Stabler, you know, guys that are in the Hall of Fame. Rich Gannon had a couple of years with Kratie, a crazy yardage. Carr is already, and he's been on the team for seven years, maybe I shouldn't say already, but he's first all -time in passing for Derek Carr. He's been in the Pro Bowl three times. Talking about durability, he's another one. He's only missed two games in his entire seven -year career, which is really impressive. Wow, that is impressive. I hate to put, I hate to put too much weight on this because he is still only one player, even if he is the quarterback. The fact that he's never, I don't believe he's ever been to the playoffs, has he? Derek Carr, I saw that he had a 12 -and -3 record in 2016. I find it hard to believe that they didn't make the playoffs. Maybe I'm just missing things, but I don't see any postseason stats on his stats page.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, I don't remember him being in the playoffs, but gosh, for 12 and 3, they had to be in the playoffs, you would think. They lost to-
Dan Neumann:
Houston in the in the first round in 2016 and I'm just looking at car was maybe he was hurt
Darin Hayes:
Well, he only had 15 games and so maybe got hurt at the end of the season and missed the playoffs.
Dan Neumann:
Yeah, their starting quarterback in this game was a guy I have to admit I have no recollection of was Connor Cook. So I don't know much about him. They lost to Brock Osweiler and the Houston Texans that year. But I guess you can't really blame him for not playing in that game. He did lead the team to the playoffs. I retract my criticism slightly but none the less even one playoff appearance in seven years is not much to write home about.
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, that's not and I am look at his touchdown to interception. He is you could tell he's not quite with the Deshaun and Zach or Dakar. He's 170 touchdowns, 71 interceptions. I think that's Sort of his, his moniker that's on him a little bit as he'll, he'll try to feed a ball and where he shouldn't and take takes the picks. That's probably why the Raiders struggle from now and then. And so Mr. Gruden is a quarterback whisperer though. You'd think he would be having him come around a little bit here as his career goes on. Give him a couple more years with him. And he actually has a, he's picked his second year with Oakland. He had 32 touchdowns. This last year he had 27 and he was Sort of in between. He was Sort of on a roller coaster ride. So maybe Gruden's got him going in a positive direction. Now, here's my sleeper who I said is still active player and this is kind of a surprise to everybody, but that's Ryan Fitzpatrick. And Ryan Fitzpatrick did, doesn't wear the number four now, but did wear the number four for one year in 2013 with the Tennessee Titans. So he probably doesn't have much, many stats and with the number four on, but he still was an active quarterback on there. Now, how about you mentioned, go ahead.
Dan Neumann:
I was gonna say you mentioned Andrew my podcast the hello world sports one of the things that we did recently I think it was a few episodes ago. We did a Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks for every team in NFL history and I Think there were probably four or five teams or there abouts were Ryan Fitzpatrick was like Just missing the cut. He didn't make it under the top four of any of the teams But like for the Jets and for Miami and for Buffalo He played the whole
Darin Hayes:
A .F .C. East, I think he played yeah, he's never been a new week.
Dan Neumann:
But other than that yeah, so there were like there were three or four teams where it was like Oh, can we put Ryan Fitzpatrick on so yeah? He's played on What one two three four five nine different teams it looks like and he may not have done yet So he's he's also like only a month He's only a month younger than me So I'm sorry a month older than me so I want him to stay in the league so that there's still some NFL players Who are older than I am
Darin Hayes:
I've heard some conversations on some talk radio and and that about him You know that he probably won't be a dolphin next year and I've heard some speculation, you know, maybe the Colts or That was one of the teams I've heard mentioned Trying to think who the other ones Oh Chicago Bears is another one that would have take a lot of interest in him But a lot of people are saying though to that mr Tua down there really relied on Fitzpatrick and it might behoove the Dolphins to try to resign them just to have that you know Sort of Old guy on the sideline that can give you some good advice for your young quarterback starting out. So
Dan Neumann:
He's kind of everything that a backup quarterback should be. He's able to go in for a couple games, and just with his experience and his guile, and a little bit of skill he's got left, he's able to win you a game or two, maybe a sort of a nice change of pace. When you think about it, it's a totally different quarterback than Tua. And also, he doesn't seem to have much of an ego, so he's a good guy to mentor a young quarterback. So I think that he's kind of, if you're a coach and you're looking for a backup quarterback, you could do a lot worse than Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Darin Hayes:
Right and I think it was was it this year last year he even showed at his advanced age He showed that he still had some wheels on on him to them Get around end and makes it pick up some yardage, which was surprising it goes against everything I said earlier about quarterbacks as I get older being more mobile Now I have only one other substantial quarterback on my list who's retired now And I don't know if you have any other quarterbacks But I have Trent Dilfer on it were the number four for three seasons when he was a Seahawks
Dan Neumann:
I did not have him on my list, I don't think, I don't seriously learn they don't think of him as a number four, I think of him as a number 12, especially in that one year with Baltimore where they beat the Giants in the Super Bowl, which I still am pained by, so I did not have Dilfer on my list. I did have one other retired quarterback, unless you had something else you wanted to say about Dilfer. No, no, please. The only guy I had was Jim Harbaugh. OK, yeah, I forgot about him. Later the coach of the 49ers, and he was Sort of the quarterback in Chicago in the last few ditka years, I think, I don't want to swear to this, but I think he made the playoffs once or twice with Chicago, and then he was also the quarterback on this 95 Colts team, it was the only time Harbaugh ever made the playoffs, and it was this Colts team that kind of came out of nowhere, and I remember watching this game as a kid. You're starting to hit it.
Darin Hayes:
You're starting to hit a sore subject, you know, I'm a Steelers fan. I can feel the knife going in a little bit.
Dan Neumann:
but it shouldn't be a sore subject because you guys won and there was a play and I think it was a controversial play in the end zone if I'm remembering correctly oh yeah absolutely because wasn't that play part of the reason why they brought replay back
Darin Hayes:
It that's just one of the reasons yes because Harbaugh through that Desperation pass from like his own 40 to the end zone His his man got up over top of the DB's for the Steelers who were obviously all back in the end zone waiting for it And he got his hands on it started bring it down and it just fell to the ground Actually when it happened real time It looked like he caught it because his body sort of shielded the ball from the viewer and I This is a year after the Steelers had lost the AFC championship game to the Chargers and Stan Humphries if you remember That's right That's right And so you just got that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach as a stealer fan when you watch that done Oh, no, it can't be can't happen again. Yeah, not this way, but it did fall to the ground But yes, that's that's one of my main things. I remember Harbaugh as a player And that quarterback room when he was a Chicago bear They had four pretty notable notable quarterbacks on that team. You know you of course had Jim McMahon you had Harbaugh I'm trying to think gosh he even
Dan Neumann:
The backups for McMahon were Steve Fuller, and Mike Tomczak, in 85, and then in 86, they brought in Doug Flutie, and it was like all of a sudden they had four quarter packs.
Darin Hayes:
Evans to roll
Dan Neumann:
Mobile, I think that was a that was earlier. That was the early 80s. OK. OK. Evans was the early 80s I think he was before McMahon OK, but the one year they had the four of them and then the following year. They drafted Harbaugh I think in the first round so crazy quarterback controversies and Yeah, Jim Harbaugh right right in the middle of it. But so he was the only other Retired quarterback that I had on my list the rest of mine is kickers and punters
Darin Hayes:
that that's what I have also yeah I'm glad you mentioned Harbaugh we don't want to forget him well we have probably probably one of the top kickers ever to play as it was a number four and I don't know if you want to bring him up go ahead
Dan Neumann:
Adam Vinitieri, 48 years old, and third oldest player of all time behind George Blanda and the second person escapes me at the moment. And I think there's talk that he might try and come back again next year. He's at least considered it now. He's been really kind of on a decline the last couple of years, but there's at least some talk that he might come back and try and play next year. He made it to, he's kicked in, I want to say, six Superballs. Everybody remembers him those three, the first three years of the Patriots dynasty with Belichick. But he was actually the kicker on the Parcells team that lost to Green Bay in 96. I think that was either his rookie year or his second year. He's kicked game -winning field goals in the first two Superballs that the Patriots won. He, I believe, is the only guy who scored a thousand points for two different teams in New England. And he was one of the two kickers on the NFL 100 team last year with Jan Stenerud. Or no, was it Stenerud or it might have been one of the Andersons, but either way, Vinatary was one of them. I think it was Stenerud. Was it Stenerud? Yeah, I think so. And I mean, I got to say, I think Vinatary's going to the Hall of Fame. If you're going to put a kicker in the Hall of Fame and they've let a couple of them in, you got to put Vinatary in.
Darin Hayes:
I totally agree I mean he was great kicker with the Patriots and then you know back in that era you know back when Peyton Manning was still playing he ended up leaving the Patriots with Tom Brady and going to the Sort of the nemesis of the Patriots you know the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning and I mean he still had a great career with with the Colts even so you know he might have stayed a year or two longer than he should have probably last year was probably not his best season of statistically he had a couple real bad key kicks that he missed it would have won his team another game or two I think you ever
Dan Neumann:
There was the one game where he was like you almost got the impression that he was planning to retire the next morning He's like well I got to go home and assess this and then he ended up ended up sticking around not only for that But also for all of this year so yeah, that's true knows true
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, that's I'm hoping maybe he he retires because I want to remember him The way the way he was with the Patriots in his early Colts days a Few more kickers on here that are worth mentioning. I'm not sure Jay Jason Hansen John Casey Phil Dawson Dean BS uchi Jay feely Neil rackers is who I have is Sort of rounding out the kickers that were substantial
Dan Neumann:
I was a little more parsimonious with the kickers than you did. The only two that I had down on my list to talk about were Hanson and John Casey. OK. Hanson, I think, is, Hanson 21 years with the Detroit Lions, and I guess he just, he must have just found a place where he liked to be, and they respected him, and he must have liked living in the Detroit area, and I don't know what his situation is, but maybe he had a family, maybe he had kids in school, you know, whatever, like it's weird that a guy would spend that much time with the Detroit Lions and not at least try to leave, but...
Darin Hayes:
But don't you think that maybe a dome, a dome is a very friendly place for a kicker and it seems that it gives them some longevity. I mean, Veneteri going to Indianapolis, you know, Gary Anderson who, you know, left the Steelers and I think the Giants and he played for the Giants, maybe not, maybe Anderson didn't. But what goes to Minnesota and has a brilliant career at the end of his career, you know.
Dan Neumann:
in Atlanta.
Darin Hayes:
break. Those are, I think the domes are very friendly to the character.
Dan Neumann:
two. Hanson is the all -time Lions leader in points by over a thousand points. There's only one other guy, and that's Eddie Murray, the the Lions kicker, who was the kicker for the 12 years before Hanson. So they had one, they had two kickers basically for over 30 years. Wow. Hanson, I'm sorry, Murray is the only other guy with over a thousand points besides Hanson. So Hanson leads every other scorer in Lions history by a margin that's more than those people even have. So in other words, 21 .50 for Murray, 21 .50 for Hanson, 11 .13 for Murray, and then 7 .68 for the next guy down. So Hanson's got everybody but Murray beat by a good, you know, almost 1 ,400 points, which would be enough to be the leader in the first place, so.
Darin Hayes:
Right, that's impressive, that is impressive, great career.
Dan Neumann:
And then this Sort of similar with John Casey wasn't there for as long Best known as the longtime Panthers kicker, and he's there all time points scored leader as well
Darin Hayes:
But he ended up having 20 seasons all in, not all with Carolina, but he had four with Seattle and one with New Orleans after that. So he was real close with the two decades of kicking. Absolutely. But yeah, some good players there. I have one punter, I think, that's worth mentioning, that we're number four. And that's a... I actually had two. Oh, did you? Oh, OK. I did, I did. Well, I had Reggie Roby. I thought he was a great quarterback, or great quarterback, great punter for his time. Time was mostly, I believe, with the Dolphins. I just remember he led the league a few of those years with his punting statistics and really put defenses of the opposition into some tough spots with his accurate punting. So I thought he was worth mentioning in our list.
Dan Neumann:
Yep, he's on the all 1980s team. He's a two -time all -pro. The worst game of Robey's career was probably Super Bowl XIX against the 49ers. He had a horrible punting day against the 49ers, so much so that Shula mentions it in the postgame. He said, we have a really good punter, but we didn't have a really good punter today. So how often do you hear a coach who loses a Super Bowl mentioning the punter as a reason why they lost? So, yeah, a guy I remember Sort of as a young football fan, Reggie, when you asked somebody to name a really good punter, Reggie Robey was the guy who you often would mention. And then the other guy I had was Brad Maynard, who was, um, and I believe he was a number four, unless I'm uh...
Darin Hayes:
Yeah, he's a number four.
Dan Neumann:
And he was a punter, first with the Giants, and then later with the Chicago Bears. Giants drafted him in the third round in 1997, which is high for a punter. Now, he didn't actually wear number four with the Giants. He wore number nine, but he wore number four with the Bears from 2001 to 2010. Selected in the third round, he leads the NFL in total punting yards three times, and then going back for the second time to that horrible, horrible Super Bowl 35 where the Giants were annihilated by the Ravens, Brad Maynard has the record for the most punts by a punter in a single Super Bowl, which just gives you an idea of how terrible the Giants offense was that day. And then after that season, he goes to Chicago, punts for another 10 years, and that's where he wears number four. So just one other that I thought was worth a mention.
Darin Hayes:
I agree all right well I think it's we Sort of put the compelling case for all the substantial players covered basically three three position groups that would wear the number four in this day and age and even some of them in the olden days before they had the numbering restrictions and I think if we want to try to round it out to say a top five we already said we're gonna put Favre and Sort of get that automatic nod who out of all our other people who do you think should be our other two gentlemen that joined them
Dan Neumann:
I would say you have to have Vinotary, because he's probably going to the Hall of Fame, and he's quite possibly the best kicker of all time.
Darin Hayes:
That's a good point.
Dan Neumann:
I would I would say you have to put him on there home and then after that I mean it's probably been it's probably one of these three modern quarterbacks right car Prescott or Watson
Darin Hayes:
That's who I have it Sort of narrowed down to too, so you almost gotta pick who you think the best of those three are. And they're all comparable. Well, let me say this. I think probably Derek Carr, just based on his statistics and his win -loss, is probably a little bit below where Dak Prescott and Deshaun Watson, is that fair to say? Yeah, I would agree with you there. I would agree with you there. So it's Sort of a two horse race here between Dak and Deshaun. Very comparable number.
Dan Neumann:
I'm gonna say Prescott because I think he's Geez, you know You know now I'd probably say Watson Watson's numbers are more eye -popping. I said darn it
Darin Hayes:
I thought we were gonna have a debate cuz I was gonna I was gonna go on that that Watson fence. Oh
Dan Neumann:
Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I could make the case for Prescott, I think, but I think the case for Prescott is that he's won a little more, and like I said, I think he's better positioned going forward to win. But if we're just basing it on Sort of current resume, I would say Deshaun.
Darin Hayes:
OK, I would agree with that. So we have it for the record. Dan and Darren are going to say that we have Favre, Lehman's, Nevers, Venetary, and Deshaun Watson as our top number four jersey wearers of all time in the NFL. That's as it stands in 2021 here. Now, I'd like to change gears here a little bit to wrap up the show. First of all, we appreciate you coming on here today and having this discussion with us. But we want to hear a little bit for the listenership of the Pigs Can Dispatch. A little bit about your low old sports. What can you tell us about that? What would a listener expect to hear?
Dan Neumann:
You know, a little bit of everything, you mentioned in the intro that Andrew and I grew up in New York, and so there are a lot of episodes, not a lot of episodes, but there have been some episodes that have had more of a New York bent. Our most recent episode was Super Bowl 25, where we kind of went through the whole game. That was when the Giants beat the Bills 20 -19 in 1990 season, 30 years ago. So that's Sort of one Sort of episode that we do where we kind of look back at a specific topic, and then we do a lot of lists. We did the Mount Rushmore quarterbacks. Early on, we did a couple baseball themes where we did Sort of all -time rosters for the Yankees and for the teams that played in New York in the National League, so we've done that type of thing. We've done a few sort of deep dives into specific topics. We talked about 1920 in sports. We did a couple early on where we talked about boxing and Sort of the history of the heavyweight boxing title and what it used to mean, what it means now, that type of thing. So really, it's very eclectic. I mean, it's ironic given what just happened a couple days ago in the Super Bowl, but right around the time, right around the fall, when the Rays were in the World Series and the Bucks were riding high with Brady and the Tampa Bay Lightning had won the Stanley Cup, we did an episode about the history of sports in Tampa Bay.
Darin Hayes:
and Nostradamuses here.
Dan Neumann:
We got an episode, we're trying to do a little more basketball in February, because we've kind of neglected that. We've got an episode coming up with a guy who wrote a book about the Knicks in the 90s, so we got that coming up in a couple weeks. So we're really Sort of all over the place. And the one other thing that we did that I really enjoyed doing, and we spent a lot of time putting it together, and Darren was good enough along with a few of the other hosts on the Sports History Network to jump on with us. We did, it was three episodes throughout December. It was an immemoriam thing, where we talked about several dozen of the players and coaches and others who had passed away during the year. And some were guys like Gail Sayers or Tom Siever or Whitey Ford, guys you've heard of. But then we also talked about Ken Riley, or we talked about Jim Nielsen from the Rangers hockey team, some of the lesser -known guys. So that was something we did that had a lot of fun. A long -winded answer to your short question is that we really do do a little bit of everything. We tend to have Sort of army football. That was another one. We did a couple episodes of army football.
Darin Hayes:
to mention that that was probably one of my favorites that you've done and I'm not an Army fan I'm not from that area but I mean it was outstanding the history that I didn't realize that happened with Army football I was I was a great show and I love that tribute that you did it those that three -part series too that I was I was honored to be a part of that but a great great way the way that you presented and honored those those folks that had fallen in the year 2020 in sports history that was a great tribute to them and very appreciative and we are very appreciative that you joined us today and you said you got some basketball coming up in the future anything else coming up that we can look for from the global
Dan Neumann:
Sports, we got some basketball coming up everything from the other thing that we're doing and we did the basketball one And we're gonna do we're doing the football one next. I don't know when that's actually gonna be it might not be until April or May, but we're looking at Sort of rival leagues So for football that would be the AFL, but then also the AFC Oh, yeah, and we'll talk about even going to like the World Football League and then you know the XFL both both
Darin Hayes:
Got version three coming up this version three exactly. Yes
Dan Neumann:
you know both previous iterations and then and then the next one so that's another thing we're looking at I always you know I I live in DC now and the joke is if you don't like the weather in DC just wait five minutes and I kind of think the same thing applies to our podcast if you don't like if you don't want to hear about the Patrick Ewing mix of the 90s wait till next week cuz you'll probably be hearing about you know some Super Bowl or some baseball player from 1915 so we're just all over the place
Darin Hayes:
It's outstanding and like I said, if you haven't listened to Hello Old Sports, you really have to do yourself a favor and give it a listen because it is great as long as, or as well as we have, I believe, 17 different podcasts on the sports history network .com. We're really growing. Yeah. Every time I say that, I look in, you know, Arnie Chapman, it's some great work over there. He adds one or two more. I just said it last week, we had 15 and somebody commented to me, hey, you didn't look a sports history network has more now. I'm like, Oh, OK. That's great. So sometimes under the cover of the night, we have, we have another podcast coming on and it's some great, great hosts there for everybody to listen to, including Dan and his brother, Andrew on the Hello Old Sports. And Dan, thank you very much for joining us and we'll look forward to listening.
Dan Neumann:
Darin, it was my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Transcript by Notta.AI
