Tag Archives: Atlanta Falcons

NFL

Millen, Hugh

Cards: GameDay 1992, ProSet 1991
Acquired: TTM 1992, Patriots Blitz, In Person 1993, Dallas Cowboys Training Camp

Hugh was a veteran journeyman whose best years as a quarterback came playing for the New England Patriots for Dick MacPherson during the early 90s. Millen was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams out of Washington in the 3rd round of the 1986 draft. After breaking his ankle in training camp he became an unlucky casualty of the Jim Everett trade the next season. For the next two seasons, Millen would back up oft injured Chris Miller in Atlanta, starting 3 games and picking up some garbage time. Heading Plan B to New England in 1991 and 1992, he’d share time with Tom Hodson and Scott Zolak as starting quarterback of the team. His most notable game was when the team upset the Oilers on the weekend of ‘Babygate’ throwing to Greg McMurtry in the final minutes of the game. With the team’s collapse again in 1993, Millen would be traded to the Cowboys and the Patriots would select Drew Bledsoe.  He wouldn’t play in a game, but would sign my Game Day card in camp that season- as he would be released with the signing of Bernie Kosar. With Aikman, Kosar, and Jason Garrett, Hugh was once again expendable and would sign with the Dolphins. In 1994, Hugh would sign with the Denver Broncos where he’d finish out his career over the next two seasons backing up John Elway. For the 1996 season he’d sign with the New Orleans Saints but would not make the roster of the team and retire. He currently lives in Washington.

GameDay really had a nice card set when they came out in 1992. Its unique design coupled with innovative Photoshop masks to desaturate the background,  leave the players firmly in the focus of the image. Well tracked type, does not cloud the picture plane and helps activate the white space outside of the image area. When I got signatures on GameDay cards it was because most of them had a certain “whoa” factor that really caught my eye.

G/Gs  40/25      Att 928     Comp 560     Yds 6440    Pct 60.3      Td 22    Int 35     Rat  73.5

NFL

Miano, Richard “Rich”

Card: Score Supplemental 1991
Acquired: In Person 1992, Philadelphia Eagles Training Camp

Richard “Rich”  Miano is a great story. Originally a walk on at Hawaii, Miano would end up becoming an All WAC defensive back for the Rainbow Warriors. Upon graduation in 1985 the New York Jets would draft Miano in the 6th round.

He’d end up starting one game a piece in his rookie season and his sophomore seasons winding up with 2 interceptions and 60 tackles providing valuable depth to the Jets secondary. Over 1987 and 88, Miano would be entrusted with the starting assignment at strong safety, making 5 interceptions  and 112 tackles, before being sidelined for nearly 2 seasons with a catastrophic injury in 1989. Losing his 1990 as well, Miano was exposed Plan B by the Jets at season’s end, thinking they could either sneak him through free agency or that he was done, but the Eagles opportunistically snapped him up. He’d work his way slowly into the lineup over 1991 making 3 interceptions, starting 1 game.  By 1992 Rich would become the defacto starter at strong safety for the Eagles, starting 11 games and making a career high 125 tackles. Granted the starting assignment again in 1993 Rich would start 14 more games and intercept a career high 4 passes at free safety, while making 104 tackles. As injuries piled up after the season, Miano would not see any signifigant starting time in the next two seasons finishing his 1995 as a member of the Atlanta Falcons. After retirement, Miano would return to his Alma Mater of Hawaii where he is an assistant coach for the Warriors.

I got Rich’s autograph at Philadelphia Eagles training camp that summer in West Chester. I remember the team had to run gassers because head coach Richie Kotite did not approve of the amount of fighting that was going on between teammates that day but I still managed to get a few autographs.

I felt like the Score Supplemental 1991 set was bloated, especially after the great success of Score Supplemental 1990. There were not as many impact rookies as there were the previous season, and seeding the lot with not exactly household names – like Rich, didn’t help either. As mentioned on a previous post, Score just got uglier and uglier for a while there during the 1990s.

G/Gs 135/57    Tac 525     Sac  0.5       Fum  3      Int   15    Yds  128    Avg  8.5    Td   0    Lg  39

Arena, CFL, NFL, usfl, WIFL, WLAF

Davis, Darrell “Mouse”

Card: ProSet 1991, ProSet WLAF 1991, ProSet WLAF 1991 Helmet card
Acquired: TTM 1992, C/o The New York-New Jersey Knights, TTM 2011, C/o The University of Hawaii Warriors
Sent: 2/14/11     Received: 3/10/11   (24 days)

Mouse Davis is nothing short of an innovator and a career coach with an extensive offensive coaching tree full of acolytes at every stop. Considered of great importance to the evolution of the Run and Shoot offense(- a passing offense that employs four wide receiver sets, no tight ends and a single running back,) the offense itself is also treated as the forerunner to the modern day spread offense. At every stop from the high school level to the professional level, Davis’ offenses have lit up the scoreboard and set team and league records. In college Mouse coached tiny Portland State to explosive levels (guided by future NFL quarterback Neil Lomax and June Jones). Portland State would set 20 NCAA records, and Mouse would briefly make a stop at Berkley before going on to be offensive coordinator of the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL in 1982. In 1984 he’d move to the USFL and be offensive coordinator under coach Jack Pardee and the Houston Gamblers with Jim Kelly, Richard Johnson and Ricky Sanders. His ‘Mouseketeers’ would dominate the offensive scoreboard and Johnson and Sanders would be the first 100 reception tandem in football history on the same team. 1985 would see his first pro head coaching gig, guiding the Denver Gold to the playoffs before the league folded. Soon thereafter Davis was named head coach of the St. Louis Lightning of the WIFL, but the league disbanded before it even took the field. After the failure of the USFL and WIFL, Davis was head coach of the New York-New Jersey Knights of the WLAF where the team in its first season had the league’s leading rusher in Eric Wilkerson and made the playoffs. In one notable game in 1991 the team set a football record for most faked punts in a game, but also set the record for futility in special teams as well. In the 1992 season under Davis’ guidance, quarterback Reggie Slack was the number 2 rated passer in the league with a 6-4 record before it folded.

Mouse has made numerous pitstops in the NFL as well, most notably when he was an assistant with the Detroit Lions during the late 80s – early 90’s building the “Silver Stretch Offense” and also spent time with the Atlanta Falcons. He was influential with Jack Pardee who adopted the Run and Shoot from him utilizing it with both the Houston Cougars to epic proportions in the NCAA level, the Houston Oilers in the NFL, and the Birmingham Barracudas in the CFL.

Davis returned to the college ranks after his stints in the NFL and WLAF. He currently serves with the Hawaii Warriors as their wide recievers coach and was inducted into the Portland State HoF. I sent off for his autograph while he was coaching the Knights in 1992 and then just this year while he was with the Warriors and he responded in under 30 days. His WLAF statistics are below.

W 11   L 9   T 0  Pct .555