Tag Archives: New York Giants

NFL

Mitchell, Brian

Cards: ProSet 1990, ProSet 1991, GameDay 1992
Acquired: TTM 2011, C/o home
Sent:  4/25    Received: 5/5  (10 days)

Brian Mitchell was a quarterback originally at Southwest Louisiana. An amazing athlete, he owned virtually all the quarterback records when he left the college and was the first NCAA player to throw for over 5,000 yards and rush for over 3,000 in their career. After graduating from college, he was drafted in the 5th round of the 1990 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins. The Redskins were deep at quarterback so the team decided they’d throw him back there as a return specialist, runningback, and as emergency quarterback. Brian would rack up the return yardage playing for the Redskins through 1999. An electric returner, Mitchell led the league in punt return yards with 600 in 1991,  and was a ProBowl selection in 1995 for the team. In 10 seasons with the Redskins Brian left holding virtually all the Redskins special teams records, racking up over 16,000 yards from scrimmage and 7 punt returns for touchdowns.  After leaving the team, he’d play for the Eagles from 2000-2002 and continued his assault on the record books, setting a league record at the time with 206 kick return yards in a single game.  Brian would play one final season for the New York Giants in 2003, before retiring as a member of the Redskins.

When I initially started this project, Brian was one of the players that I really wanted to honor. Incredibly upon retirement, Mitchell was ranked 2nd all time in yards from scrimmage, had 4 seasons of over 2000 yards, and holds the NFL records for kick returns (607), combined return yards (19013), punt return yards (4999), career kickoff return yards (14014), career fair catches (231), fair catches in a season (33), and punt returns (463). Still most people are unaware of the legacy Mitchell left upon the game and he probably won’t see the Hall of Fame, because of the lack of respect for special teamers. In the meantime, he was inducted into the Redskins Hall of Honor in 2009, works on his foundation (Brian Mitchell Foundation), and has been involved in broadcasting. I was pleased to get Brian’s autograph in 10 days flat from his home in Louisiana.

Great cards of Brian here. ProSet really did their homework and had a card of him before the end of his rookie season in their 1990 update set which was far and ahead of anything anybody produced by at least a year.  Oddly he’d appear in both of Pro Set’s 1990 and 1991 update as the last card in each set. (Sure there were additional inserts after him, but he was the last actual player card.) Mitchell was pretty decent in the first Tecmo Super Bowl, but by Final Edition, he was a dangerous threat in the game. Much like Mel Gray, Brian was a threat to return the kickoff every time he touched the ball and the secret to utilizing him correctly was basically to put him in the starting lineup.

G/Gs 223/16      Rush 388     Yds  1967      Avg  5.1     Td  12     Lg 85t   |
Rec  255      Yds  2336       Avg 9.2      Td  4       Lg 69  |
Kr  607   Yds   14014    Avg  23.1     Td   4       Lg   101t  |
Pr  463     Yds   4999     Avg  10.8     Td   9       Lg  84t

CFL, NFL, WLAF

Garrett, Jason

Cards: Pro Set 1991, Pro Set WLAF 1991
Acquired: In Person 1993, 1994, Dallas Cowboys Training Camp
Failure:  TTM 2010, C/o Dallas Cowboys
See Also: Jason Garrett (2)

A free agent signee of the New Orleans Saints back in 1989, Jason Garrett would hang on with the team through the 1990 season.

The WLAF San Antonio Riders would draft Garrett to be their starting quarterback but he’d separate his shoulder in the season opener against the Orlando Thunder and within a few weeks Mike Johnson would be firmly entrenched as the starter. (While Garrett would return to start games 7 and 8, Johnson would end the season as the San Antonio Riders encumbent, winning all their games as a starter going 4-2 for the team.)  Jason would not return to the WLAF after the season, and finish his career there with a 71 quarterback rating.

After a brief stint in the CFL for the Ottawa Roughriders, Garrett would be signed by the Dallas Cowboys where he would back up Troy Aikman. Initially a 3rd stringer, I was not high on the move by the team, however he performed well for the Cowboys over the next 8 seasons. During his time on the Cowboys, I’d get his autograph on these two ProSet WLAF cards. He’d be a premium backup policy through the rest of his career, seeing stints with the Giants (2000-03), Buccaneers and Dolphins (2004) before retiring.

Garrett is a student of the game and was immediately in demand as a quarterbacks coach. He quickly transitioned into the role for the Dolphins and served there for two seasons through 2006. Jason would return to Dallas (where clan Garrett is based now), and became offensive coordinator scaling the ranks of the organization. He was named interim head coach in 2010 after Wade Phillips was dismissed midway through the season, and at the conclusion of the season had the tag removed to become Dallas’ 8th head coach.

I sent off for all of clan Garrett (Jason, Judd, and John) last season, but did not hear back from them. As Jason only has 1 card (Ultimate WLAF 1992) that I do not have an his autograph on, I may try this again at a later date. Listed below are his WLAF statistics:

G/Gp  5/3    Att  113      Comp  66         Yds  609             Pct 58.9         Td  3      Int 3          Rat  71.0

NFL

Brown, Gary “Tecmo Man” (1969-2022)


Card: Upper Deck Collector’s Choice 1994
Acquired: In Person 1994, Houston Oilers Training Camp
Failure: TTM 2013, C/o The Cleveland Browns

Gary Brown of Penn State originally played at safety. I remember vividly watching Gary in the Holiday Bowl stripping the ball from Ty Detmer in spectacular fashion and running 53 yards the other direction for a touchdown.

The Houston Oilers drafted Gary Brown in 1991 and converted the defensive back to runningback. He’d back up Allen Pinkett and Lorenzo White in 1991 and see mop up duty in his first season cleaning up the Los Angeles Raiders in the 4th quarter of the first game, running for 60 yards and a touchdown on only 5 carries. Once I saw his performance I was very comfortable with Brown- and at 5’11”, 230 was impressed by his perfect balance of power, explosiveness, and speed.

He’d get some more playtime in 1992, where he’d again show up in mop up duty, this time squarely behind Lorenzo White, rushing for almost 100 yards on the season, however 1993- that would be Brown’s long awaited coming out party.

Gary Brown did what few runningbacks had done before him, galloping for 1000 yards starting 8 games subbing for injured starter Lorenzo White that season. Brown helped the Oilers pull of their best record in Oiler history at 12-4.  He’d rush for 166 yards in a 38-3 victory over the Bengals and then follow that up with 194 yards over the Browns. Later in the season he’d post 100+ yard efforts against Cleveland (again), Pittsburgh, and San Fransisco,  just clearing 1000 yards by 2, and averaging 5.1 yards a carry. Unfortunately nicks and tears caught up with Brown, and injuries increasingly took their toll on him in 1994 and 1995.

By 1996 Gary was out of football, but returned in 1997 to play for the Chargers. He’d fit in well with the Chargers, running for 945 yards in 14 games. (He’d lose comeback player of the year honors to Jerome Bettis.) Brown kept running and sign as a free agent with the New York Giants for 1998. He’d endear himself to Giants fans with his churning style, rushing for a career high 1063 yards. (The 4 seasons between 1000 yard efforts was for a while an NFL record.) He’d play 2 games into 1999 for the Giants before losing the rest of the season on injured reserve, where he’d subsequently retire.

Gary Brown is rumored to have earned the nickname “Tecmo Man” for his obsessive playing of the game Tecmo Super Bowl. The game did not really do him justice in the 1991 incarnation, but the Super Nintendo one honored his power and speed making him a fun runningback to pilot. 

After retirement he went into coaching and worked his way up from the high school level and into college where he coached runningbacks at Rutgers in 2008. In 2009 he moved on to the Browns where he worked on the coaching staff as their runningbacks coach- a role he held through 2012. He’d then join the Cowboys in 2013 in the same capacity, holding that role through 2019. After a battle with cancer, Gary decided to coach again, this time at Wisconsin in 2021.

I tried him TTM back in 2013 when he was coaching with the Browns, but no dice. He stopped signing essentially in 2009 and never looked back.

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4/10/22 UPDATE:

Gary Brown, who spent this past year coaching running backs at Wisconsin, passed away tonight. He was in hospice for the last couple of weeks at in hometown in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Gary- was 52.