Tag Archives: Action packed 1991

NFL

Hampton, Rodney

Cards: Score Supplemental 1990, Action Packed Rookies 1990, Action Packed 1991, Proset 1990
Acquired: In Person, 6/11/2012 Houston Fan Fest III
Failure: TTM, C/o Home 2010

Now I was absolutely giddy to get Rodney Hampton at Fan Fest.  I had just found a new address for him and was ready to drop $20 to get a few autographs from him TTM, but while I was preparing cards to be sent out in May, I saw an update to Fan Fest that had him included on the guest list and decided to get him in person instead. Again, Hampton marks another member of the Action Packed 1990 Rookies set that I am trying to complete out as thoroughly as possible, but in general he just had some great cards to get autographed from his rookie season, and I beat that dead horse to death going back a second time for 2 more autographs. Talking to him and the Ruben Studdard clone that was sitting next to him, I recalled his rookie season and how I had used him in the stone ages of Fantasy Football to wallop a friend.  Hampton had an incredible preseason game his rookie year and dismantled the Bills, breaking off some monster runs. I picked him up for the regular season contest and he didn’t disappoint rushing for a bit over 100 yards against them. I really enjoyed meeting him, and also had been talking to him through Sotl.com until they changed the format of the site.

Hampton was a member of the much ballyhooed runningback class of 1990. Among the group was Blair Thomas, Emmitt Smith, Darrell Thompson, and Steve Broussard, – all taken in the first round before the Giants selected Rodney with the 24th pick,  who needed a set of fresh legs to spot aging Ottis Anderson.  (There would be over 40 runningbacks taken in the 1990 NFL Draft.)

Rodney followed in the footsteps of guys like Herschel Walker at Georgia, and finished with 2,661 yards over 31 games for the Bulldogs, good enough for 2nd All-Time in the school annuls.  In 1987, he set a Georgia record with a whalloping 7.06 yard per carry average.

Hampton’s rookie season showed flashes of potential as he electrified the crowd taking his first carry of the preseason 89 yards against the Bills for a touchdown. I remember it, and it was one of the most impressionable carries I ever saw. Behind Ottis, Hampton played sparingly in 1990, registering a modest 455 yards rushing, 32 receptions, and playing sparingly on special teams.  After the season the Giants won SuperBowl XXV against the Bills. 1991 started a string of 5 straight 1000+ yard seasons, while the team went through transitions at both quarterback and fullback. In 1992 and 1993, Rodney got his due with Pro Bowl nominations as the team’s workhorse back. A consistent and thorough runner, Rodney played for the Giants through 1997 when injury sidelined him for all of 14 games of the season. With the signing of Gary Brown, Hampton essentially passed the torch to the team’s new runningback star, Tiki Barker. He would be a free agent and both the Cowboys and Cardinals expressed interest in him, but Rodney opted to retire instead.  At the time of his retirement, Hampton was the team’s All-Time leading rusher, but has since been surpassed.

One has to wonder how the record books would be written today if the Cowboys had taken Hampton over Emmitt Smith, as after the smoke cleared, Hampton emerged as the only back to challenge Smith from the 1990 draft pool.  In 8 seasons for the Giants, Rodney rushed for 6,897 yards and 49 scores.

Hampton at this time is heavily involved in after school and summer athletic camps for kids which are run in Houston, Atlanta, and Newark. You can visit Hamp’s Camp Inc at: www.hampscamp.com. He is also partnered with Player Protect- a company that employs police officers as escorts for NFL players. As quite the entrepeneur, Hampton is also an endorser of fitness equipment, charity events, strength and conditioning, and orthopedic surgeons. Rodney also remains an ardent supporter of Big Blue as a Giants Ambassador.

 
Absolutely love these cards. I am not sure when he started the practice, but for two of these you can see that Hampton, who loved
running through defenders, double cluched the ball.  In a bit under 2000 touches (rushing/receiving) Hampton only fumbled 18 times- a reliable and remarkably low .9 %.  Rodney was a dynamo in Tecmo Super Bowl on the Nintendo. I loved eating up the clock when I played against Josh, and Hampton was a monster for that. In Tecmo Super Bowl MI, Rodney rushed 10 times for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also had 2 receptions for 32 yards and a 3rd TD to stomp the hated Cowboys 32-26.

 

G/Gs 104/85      Rush 1824     Yds 6897      Avg  3.8     Td 49     Lg 63t |
Rec 174      Yds 1309       Avg 7.5    Td 2   lg 62

College Football HoF, Heisman Trophy Winner, NFL, usfl

Walker, Herschel

Cards: Action Packed 1991, Action Packed Rookies 1992, Pro Set 1991 Heisman Heroes, Score 1989, Score 1990 Ground Force
Acquired: In Person 1994, 1997, Philadelphia Eagles Training Camp, Dallas Cowboys Training Camp.  TTM, 2011. C/o Home
Sent: 1/13/11    Received: 7/5/11  (173 days)

Herschel Walker? In my estimates of some of the great runningbacks in football, I would say I was enthralled by Herschel Walker. I knew who Herschel was before I even watched football. A record breaking machine for the Georgia Bulldogs in college, Walker would be a 3 time All American and win the Heisman in 1982. Herschel was a shrewd businessman, and realized that with the advent of the upstart USFL he could effectively carve his own destiny and make more money off of endorsements. Plus without rules regarding underclassmen, Herschel could declare for the USFL draft as a Junior- something he couldn’t do in the NFL. With that being said, Walker would be drafted by the New Jersey Generals of the USFL in 1983.  He’d go on to crush opposing defenses winning the rushing title in both 1983 and 1985 before the league dissolved. In the meantime however, the Dallas Cowboys waited, dropping a 5th round choice on Walker suspecting it would just be a matter of time.

Herschel would join the Cowboys in 1987, and go onto etch his name into the Cowboys faithful minds for years to come not only for his incredible play of which he’d earn ProBowl berths in 1987 and 1988 – but for what would later come to be known as “The Trade”.

The Minnesota Vikings believed they needed one more piece in order to get to the SuperBowl, and in 1989 the Cowboys were looking to rebound from a 3-13 season. Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones found the offer from the Vikings too good to pass up. Without going into details the final totals were astounding. The Vikings would trade the Cowboys 5 players, and 8 draft choices – including 3 first round choices over the next 3 years. Minnesota in return got Walker, 2 3rd round choices, a 5 round choice and a 10th round choice. The implications were far reaching and would set the foundation for the Cowboys championship runs. Looking back in retrospect, it’s hard not to see that Herschel took the trade hard. In the end he was treated as a commodity and his Viking tenure was filled with pressure as being the hailed savior of the franchise.

Walker had just come off a 1500 + yard season rushing for the Cowboys and the Vikings were struggling on the ground.  Inexplicably the Vikings really couldn’t figure out the right way to use Herschel even though he was utilized on kick returns and also as a running back, – he became the butt of jokes in Minnesota. After a failed suicide attempt (by carbon monoxide poisoning) the writing was on the wall for the franchise, and by 1992 the Vikings cut Walker.

Immediately the Eagles came calling with fans hailing Walker as their savior. Walker would not disappoint rushing for over a 1000 yards for the Eagles and posting another 200 plus yards receiving in 1992- his best rushing effort since leaving Dallas. Walker would stay with Philadelphia another 2 years afterwards where I’d get his autograph in West Chester at Eagles training camp that year.

Walker would sign in 1995 with the Giants as a free agent and play one non-descrpit season there before returning home to the Cowboys in 1996. The Cowboys would put him to use as a fullback his final two seasons, where I’d get his autograph in 1997 at Berger stadium (next to Michael Irvin), before he retired.

One wonders how Herschel would have been remembered if he did not go to the USFL or if Michael Irvin was traded to the Los Angeles Raiders instead (as was originally rumored). Combining his numbers from his years in the USFL with his NFL numbers, Walker ranks 5th all time on the rushing list. Herschel also holds the all time record for rushing yards in a football season with 2411 yards. In 1999 he was inducted into the College Football HoF, is widely regarded as the best runningback in the history of college football, had his number retired at Georgia and wrote an autobiography. One of my favorite athletes, (-and easily my favorite Cowboy,) I even owned Herschel’s Starting Lineup figurine. If you played the original Tecmo Bowl, all you could do with the Cowboys is run with Herschel, and that gave you a leg up on the puny Colts. The 1991 offering of Tecmo Super Bowl endeared him to us as a member of the Minnesota Vikings. Despite his popularity Walker has remained a stalwart TTM signer, and I got his autographs on the Pro Set 1991 Heisman Heroes, Score 1990 Ground Force, and Score 1989 cards in 173 days.

Herschel at the time of his retirement minus his USFL numbers, was ranked 3rd in total yards from scrimmage with 18,168 combined yards rushing, receiving, and kick returning. Including his USFL numbers, Walker would hold the combined yards from scrimmage number with an additional 7,115 yards. He is also one of a select few players to have a touchdown rushing, receiving and kick returning, all of over 90 yards.

Walker is a through and through athlete. He remains in peak physical shape, and has over the years participated in the Winter Olympics, is a 5th degree blackbelt, and recently taken up mixed martial arts winning by TKO his first two matches.

NFL
G/Gs  187/138   Att 1954   Yds  8225    Avg 4.2   Td  61    Lg 91 |
Rec 512    Yds  4859     Avg  9.5    Td  21   Lg  93 |
Kr  215    Yds 5084     Avg  23.6    Td   2    Lg  94

NFL

White, Lorenzo “Lo”

Cards: Action Packed 1991, Score Supplemental 1989, GameDay 1992
Acquired: TTM 1993, C/o The Houston Oilers
See Also: Lorenzo White (2) , Lorenzo White ‘Lo’ (3)

Wow… Lorenzo White had these suckers stamped.

Unlike the Jeff George cards that I had in 1992 that had suffered the same fate, (that I later replaced with real autographs) I was unable to replace these in time for this post. The ink didn’t pool at all on these cards. It is obvious though because the signatures are all at the same angle and there are articles of missing ink across each signature. I dislike stamps. I don’t mind autopens if they look legit. I compared this one to others and while there are some of these floating around, it’s obvious in comparison that this was lifted from his contract as opposed to his ‘natural signature’. I’d rather have a player return a card unsigned than stamp them, as it just ruins these cards for me.

Lorenzo White played with names such as Bobby McAllister, Willie Bouyer, and Andre Rison at Michigan State, during one of the team’s last heydays. He was drafted in the first round by the Houston Oilers in 1988 and had some exciting highlight film and some longer nicknames such as the “Great White Hope from the Green and White”. Lo was also an excellent receiver out of the backfield with deceptive speed at 5’11”, 222.

The problem was Lorenzo was a fumbling machine that rarely double cluched the football with both arms. In about 200 touches in 1990 he had 7 fumbles. The game Tecmo Super Bowl infamously memorialized  this by giving him some of the worst ball control in the game. He was almost guaranteed to fumble the ball once a game, and I’d always run out of bounds instead of take the hit with him. While his numbers improved and he became a pretty surehanded back after that, White never could completely erase those memories from fans.

With a new coach in place in Jack Pardee, he’d begin to thin the herd in 1990 after a conversion to the Run N Shoot offense. Gone were Alonzo Highsmith, Mike Rozier, and eventually Allen Pinkett. Lo would be one of the survivors and would produce a career high 1226 yards rushing and 641 yards receiving in 1992 starting for the team. His 1992 season would earn his one and only Pro Bowl moment.  He also gobbled down over 1,800 yards from scrimmage- the most by a runningback probably since Earl Campbell.

My best memory of Lo was that season when he made a 69 yard grab on a screen against the Cleveland Browns in the final minutes of the game to help the team engineer a comeback. He’d be injured during the 1993 season, clearing the way for Gary Brown to take the starting job.

In 1995, White signed via free agency and played for the Cleveland for one final season, but not before going down in Super Tecmo Bowl history as a member of the Browns.

Rush  1062         Yds  4242            Avg  4.0           Td 30              Lg 44            
Rec  192          Yds  1738          Avg 9.1            Td  6                lg  69