Tag Archives: cleveland browns

Arena, NFL

Tomczak, Mike (2)


Cards: Skybox 92, Action Packed 1989, Score 1989
Acquired: TTM 2016, C/o Work
Sent:  12/4/16    Received: 2/11/17 (65 days)
See Also: Mike Tomczak

Mike’s dreams came true when he joined the Chicago Bears- a team he idolized as a kid. While Ditka put so much pressure on Mike that he considered quitting the sport he loved, Mike ended up carving out a 15 year career in the NFL playing at a variety of stops in the league after Chicago. Infamously during his stay in Green Bay he opted to hold out for a better contract- which caused the team to cut him, and brought about the Brett Favre era that much quicker. Mike had no problem spreading the love around, throwing to 35 different players in 88 touchdown strikes. While Mike only topped the 300 yard mark one time with the Bears, Packers, and Browns, he blossomed late in his career adding 3 more to his career with the Steelers. Mike is known for being the lead guitar player during the Bears infamous 1985 ‘Super Bowl Shuffle’ video. He also shares the same birthday with fellow quarterback Doug Flutie.

Tomczak had some great cards over his career. It took me some time to figure out which ones to send him. After some deliberation I decided on these three. I liked the design and photo for all three of these cards. Action Packed did a short run test promo in 1989 that covered a few NFC teams. It was pretty much identical to their 1990 run, minus the copyright. Score 1989 was blockbuster by any right with the vibrant colors and strong action photos standing out. Skybox was a late addition to the market, coming from the basketball arena, but its initial offering was simple, clean, and impressive.

CFL, NFL, ufl

Holland, Johnny ‘Mr. Everywhere’

Cards: ProSet 1990, Topps 1990, Action Packed 1990, Topps Stadium Club 1992
Acquired: TTM 2016, C/o The Cleveland Browns
Sent:  11/28/16   Received:  1/6/17     (39 days)

Johnny Holland was one of the galvanizing forces behind the ‘Wrecking Crew’ of the Texas A&M defense during the dying days of the Southwest Conference of the mid to late 80s.  At the time of his graduation from A&M he was the school’s all-time leading tackler and garnered Johnny the nickname ‘Mr. Everywhere’.

In 1987, the Green Bay Packers selected Johnny with their second round pick of the draft.  The ’87 draft has an impressive pedigree of linebacker talent that included: Cornelius Bennett, Shane Conlan, Brian Bosworth (SUP), Dave Wyman, Winston Moss, Michael Brooks, Scott Stephen, Byron Evans, Hardy Nickerson, Al Smith, Dennis Gibson, Greg Lloyd, and Jessie Tuggle (UDFA). Johnny fit right in, and the Packers were glad to have him, as he’d earn team rookie of the year honors from the franchise.  Johnny was a smart, instinctual, consistent, and reliable force for the Packers over the next 6 seasons- prized traits for linebackers. Although not flashy, Holland could be counted on by the Pack to post 100+ tackle seasons with regularity. During the 1992 season he herniated a disc in his neck. He rehabbed from the injury and returned to form in 1993 recording a career high 145 tackles, but learned that he had blown a disc in his back during the season. Johnny opted to retire.

He jumped almost right into coaching from there in 1995, first with the Packers until 1999. Holland served in a variety of capacities from Special Teams to Linebackers to quality control.  He then spent the next 3 seasons with the Seahawks as an assistant conditioning coach, special teams, and linebackers coach. From 2003 to 2005 Johnny was an assistant defensive coach and Linebackers coach with the Lions before his longest stint with the Houston Texans (2006-2010) as their linebackers coach.  He’d coach for the Virginia Destroyers of the UFL in 2011, and then after serving 1 season as the LB coach of the Oakland Raiders (2012), Johnny took a dip in the pool of the CFL with the British Columbia Lions LB corps (2014-2015).  He coached the ILB crew of the Browns for 2016, and as of 2017 is with the 49ers in a similar capacity.

Beloved by the Packers’ faithful, Johnny was inducted into the franchise’s Hall of Fame in 2001.  He also has been honored by both Texas A&M (1993) and the Cotton Bowl (2000) for his contributions to the sport.

Johnny is a very good signer through the mail. He signed these 4 cards for me via the Browns back in 2016. Johnny’s Proset 1990 card is a beast and his Stadium Club entry does not disappoint either.  The other two entries are kinda bad. Action Packed gives an entry of him from behind. That’s not what  you want to see, however I selected it because I got so many duplicates of this card when I used to get them at the 7-11 I might as well get it signed too. Topps 1990 suffered from a lot of bad things. Bad design and lazy photography riddled the set. Still it was a foundation of my set collecting of my childhood and sometimes the portrait photos of the players just stick with me, like this one of Johnny.

G/GS  103/100    TAC 777     SAC  3.5      FUM  15
INT  9     YDS  130      AVG  14.4      TD  0      LG  32

NFL

Byner, Earnest (2)

ud91 byner MVP pset89 byner

Cards: Upper Deck 1991 Team MVP, ProSet 1989, ProSet 1989 Traded, Skybox 1992, GameDay 1992
Acquired: 2012, Canton Acquisition. 2016, Future Considerations.
See Also: Earnest Byner

After his stint as a coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars runningback coach from 2010 to 2011 Earnest Byner was signed to the Tampa Bay Buccaneer staff in 2012 serving under Greg Schiano. Unfortunately Shiano’s style didn’t mesh in the pros, and he was gone after two seasons. Byner was not retained as ownership decided to clean house after 2013.

Since that time Earnest has addressed ‘The Fumble’ in public, apologizing to fans for what happened, and giving a tear-jerking recollection of it during the 30 for 30 ESPN documentary “Believeland”.   Time heals all wounds though and the vast majority of Browns fans really embrace Byner as one of their own without judgement.  It goes without saying that it’s great that Byner has been able to move on from what happened- something that he said stuck with him and changed his playing style for the remainder of his career in the NFL.

Earnest has done a lot of motivational speaking too. He also has no problem engaging his fans in public and is very popular in Cleveland. My friend DeadHorse scored these Byner autographs for me along with Kevin Mack and Greg Pruitt at an Ohio based Cleveland Browns event they attended.  DeadHorse was kind enough to accommodate me on the 3 cards which I felt were his best action shots of Byner (Skybox 1992, ProSet 1989 CLE, and GameDay 1992).