Card: GameDay 1992
Acquired: 11/23/2012, Fiterman Autograph Event
See also: Bubba McDowell

After Bubba’s career ended because of his Achilles heel injury, he had a hard time adjusting to post-football life. His wife advised him not to watch pro ball so he took up golf and drag racing to fill up the spare time in the meantime, and didn’t watch a game for 2 years. He became involved in the NFL Minority Fellowship Coaching program, and has seen stops at Texas Southern, the University of Houston, the Tennessee Titans, the Green Bay Packers, the Miami Dolphins, the Houston Texans, and currently with Prarie View A&M. He performed some miracles for the A&M Panthers bringing a nearly whole rookie safety group up to speed and record career highs in numerous categories and offenses under 200 yards passing in 2012. He’s been an active member of the Houston Texans Ambassadors program and is very popular in the Houston area for his charitable contributions and time he volunteers to the community.

A hard hitter for the Oilers over his time there, McDowell is remembered for a terrifying helmet-to-helmet collision between himself and Cleveland wide receiver Danny Peebles, left Peebles in a heap and with numbness in his extremities. He also was an excellent special teams player- that had an odd clause in his contract that the team paid him 5k for every blocked punt, as he had a penchant to do it dating back from his playing days at Miami. Bubba was originally a cornerback for the Hurricanes, but converted to safety during the 1988 season.  I was really happy to get this card signed and still have a few other cards I’d love to get signed at a later date. In the meantime, Bubba did some great videos through Sotl, and we talked from time to time about the Texans franchise. Unfortunately SotL went to a news feed format, and I lost all my contact to players through their site.