Tag Archives: 100 greatest football players of all time

AFL, NFL, Pro Football HoF

Mackey, John (1941-2011)

CARD: Upper Deck Legends 1997
ACQUIRED: EBay, 2020

CAREER SNAPSHOT:

  • John Mackey played RB and WR at Syracuse from 1960-’62.
  • He rushed for 259 yards on 58 carries, scoring 2 TDs while catching 27 passes for 481 yards and 6 TDs over his college career.
  • Selected by the Baltimore Colts in the second round of the 1963 NFL Draft.
  • Made an immediate impact as a TE, catching 35 passes for 726 yards and 7 TDs.
  • Over the next 7 following seasons- he never failed to reach 400 yards or catch at least 22 passes.
  • In ’65 he had 30 catches for 814 yards and 7 TDs.
  • Then in ’66 he caught 50 passes for a career high 829 yards and 9 TDs.
  • Finally in ’67 Mackey caught a career high 55 passes.
  • Caught an acrobatic75 yard TD from Johnny Unitas in Super Bowl V over the Dallas Cowboys.
  • He’d play with the Colts through the 1971 season.
  • After an acrimonious departure from Baltimore, Mackey played a final season in 1972 with the San Diego Chargers.
  • A knee injury ended his career- but over that period he played in 139 out of a possible 140 games- a testament to his durability.

ACCOLADES:

  • Syracuse Orangemen #88 retired
  • NFL 50th Anniversary All-Time Team
  • NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team
  • NFL 1960s All-Decade Team
  • Pro Bowl 1963, ’65-68
  • All Pro 1966-1968
  • Baltimore Ravens Ring of Honor
  • Pro Football Hall of Fame
  • 100 Greatest Football Players
  • Nassau County High School Athletic Hall of Fame

NOTES:

John Mackey is considered one of the greatest tight ends of all time and he was the second pure TE inducted into the HoF in 1992. He revolutionized the position with his combination speed and power.

He was also instrumental in unionizing the players into the NFLPA, serving as the group’s first president after the merger, and held that capacity from 1970-’73. (He was blackballed at the end of his career, but squeezed out a final year in San Diego.) Mackey organized the first labor strike, and helped overturn the ‘Rozelle Rule’ (which was in regards to free agency).

Frontotemporal dementia entered his life and it became harder and harder for him to function, and after a few bizarre social episodes, he entered full-time assisted living. Mackey’s wife reached out to Paul Tagliabue, who then worked with then current NFLPA president Gene Upshaw to create a new plan that would help cover the cost of former NFL players struggling with dementia and Alzheimer’s. It was called the ’88 Plan’ in Mackey’s honor.

In a final note, it’s very important with Mackey to make sure that you are getting a certified autograph of his- as there is a bustling market of fake autographs of his circulating in the wild.

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EPITAPH:

7/6/2011- John Mackey passed away at the age of 69. His brain was posthumously donated to science, where it was discovered he suffered from CTE.

NFL, Pro Football HoF

Fouts, Dan

udlgd97 foutsCard: Upper Deck Legends 1997
Acquired: TTM 2013, C/o Home
Sent: 3/18   Received: 3/28    (10 days)
Failure:  TTM 2011, C/o Home

Dan has always been good to fans and through the mail, so I was a bit miffed when I did not receive anything back from him a few years ago. I patiently waited for a response, – one that I never got. Since then I saw a lot of traffic on him recently, I chocked the Topps 1977 card of him up to the mail gods, and finally worked around to another attempt.

Dan Fouts numbers are misleading based on the era he played college ball in and it was frequent during the early 70s for quarterbacks to struggle with both their TD/Int ratio and also their completion percentage. While at the college, Fouts shattered 19 different career and season records for quarterbacks at Oregon.

Standing at 6-3, 204, Fouts was not the highest rated quarterback in the 1973 draft however. That honor fell to Bert Jones. In the meantime, Dan had to wait until the middle of round 3 (pick #64) and would be the 5th quarterback off the board.  He had a rough patch early on, as he honed his craft, but with the Don Coryell bringing his revolutionary vertical offense (also known as ‘Air Coryell’) to town under offensive coordinator Bill Walsh, Dan gave it his best shot. The Chargers offense matured and became one of the most prolific and exciting offenses in the league, bringing a thunderous end to the ‘Dead Ball Era’.  Fouts guided the Chargers to the playoffs from 1979 to 1982, but the team was never able to advance beyond the AFC Championship game.  Fouts played in 6 Pro Bowls, and was AP 3 times.

By the time of his retirement in 1987, Dan pretty much owned most of the Chargers all time records for quarterbacks. He is also the first quarterback to throw for back to back 4,000 yard seasons, and one of a select few who have thrown for back to back 30 TD seasons. Considered ‘The Greatest Charger of All-Time’ by fans, and one of the 100 Greatest NFL Players of all time, Fouts was inducted into the NFL HoF in 1993.  He has spent a lot of his time in broadcasting, both radio and TV color commentary for NFL games, and appeared in the movie “Waterboy”.

G/Gs 181/171    Att 5604     Comp 3297     Yds 43040     Pct 58.8     Td  254   Int 242    Rat 80.2  |
Rush  224    Yds  476    Avg 2.1   Td 13  Lg 32

AFL, College Football HoF, NFL, Pro Football HoF

Alworth, Lance “Bambi”

Acquired: Austin Citywide Garage Sale 1996

So I was wandering around a citywide garage sale and saw that a bar was selling all of its close out merchandise at breakneck prices. For 20 bucks I got a nice lot of autographed memorabilia, so I didn’t think it’d be a bad deal to get- even if they were bad considering how much they’d cost in real life. I started a new binder where I kept photo and other types of autographs than cards.

Well, Lance Alworth is a class of 1978 Hall of Fame receiver that played his career for the San Diego Chargers and Dallas Cowboys.  Nicknamed “Bambi” by his teammates because of his almost effortless moves he was originally drafted by the Oakland Raiders,  who almost immediately traded to the Chargers where he played the majority of his career from 1962 to 1970, often playing quietly through injury including fractures to both of his hands in 1966. He was named an AFL All Star 7 times, and lead the AFL in yardage 3 seasons ( 1966, 1968, and 1969). After the 1970 season he was traded to the Cowboys where he scored the first touchdown in Superbowl VI and afterwards subsequently retired with both an AFL championship ring and a Superbowl ring.

Things have been slightly rough for Alworth. Players of that day and age weren’t paid like they are now, and he had a bad patch there. Since the mid seventies Alworth has opened a series of storage units across California. He’s been also inducted into the Chargers Hall of Fame (1977), San Diego Hall of Champions (1972), his number (19) was retired by the Chargers, named to the NFL’s 75th anniversary team, the College Football Hall of Fame (1984), the AFL All-Time Team, the Mississipi Sports Hall of Fame, and finally was named number 31 on the 100 Greatest Football Players of all time list from “The Sporting News”.

 

G 136   Rec 542   Yds 10266    Avg 18.9    Td 85   Lg 85