Tag Archives: Oilers

Downtown DeSean Jackson

Yards-per-catch averages in the NFL have been going down, down, down for decades — from 14.5 yards in 1950 to 13.2 in 1970 to 12.5 in 1990 to 11.6 this season. You can blame it on everything from zone defenses to the West Coast offense to the rise of the tight end. So when a receiver averages 20 yards a reception, as the Redskins’ DeSean Jackson has done in the first eight games, it’s worthy of mention.

Thanks to a league-leading seven catches of 40 yards or more, Jackson is averaging 20.8 yards on 32 grabs. If he sustains that pace the rest of the way — 64 catches (a nice, round four a game), 20-plus yards a reception — he’ll be just the 10^th receiver in NFL-AFL history to reach those levels. Here are the first nine, many of whom should be familiar to you:

RECEIVERS WITH 64 CATCHES, 20-YARDS-PER-CATCH AVERAGE IN A SEASON

[table width=”500px”]

Year Receiver\, Team,Rec,Yds,Avg

1998 Eric Moulds\, Bills,67,1\,368,20.4

1988 Jerry Rice*\, 49ers,64,1\,306,20.4

1983 Mike Quick\, Eagles,69,1\,409,20.4

1967 Don Maynard*\, Jets,71,1\,434,20.2

1965 Lance Alworth*\, Chargers,69,1\,602,23.2

1963 Bobby Mitchell*\, Redskins,69,1\,436,20.8

1961 Charley Hennigan\, Oilers,82,1\,746,21.3

1960 Bill Groman\, Oilers,72,1\,473,20.5

1951 Crazylegs Hirsch*\, Rams,66,1\,495,22.7

[/table]

*Hall of Famer

Five of the nine are in Canton, so it’s not just anybody who has accomplished this feat. Note, too that Groman and Hennigan did it in the first two years of the AFL, when the league wasn’t nearly as strong as it would be later. If you eliminate them, you’re down to seven receivers — an awfully small group. And Jackson might join them.

(FYI: If you want to lower the bar to 60 receptions, you get four more names, including James Lofton.)

It’s hard for a high-volume receiver to average 20 yards a catch. He simply runs too many underneath routes. The most a 100-reception guy has averaged is 16.1 (the Lions’ Calvin Johnson on 122 grabs in 2012). The most a 75-reception guy has averaged ––since Hennigan, at least — is 19.9 (the Rams’ Torry Holt in 2000 and Cardinals’ Roy Green in 1984). Jackson, though, has only once caught more than 62 balls in a season, so a 20-yard average is more conceivable for him. Indeed, he averaged 22.5 in 2010 (but on 47 receptions).

Yards per catch certainly isn’t the most celebrated statistic, but it reflects an ability to make big plays. Every offense needs a receiver like that, one who can stretch the defense and create space for his teammates.

Jackson, by the way, has four 100-yard games through Week 8. Only one receiver in Redskins history has had more: Mitchell, who had five in 1962, the year he helped integrate the franchise. The others, besides DeSean, with four: Santana Moss in 2005, Henry Ellard in 1994 and Mitchell again in ’63. Interesting: Mitchell (’62), Moss and Ellard were, like D-Jax, in their first year with the club.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Work of Art

Defense doesn’t get nearly as much attention at Pro Football Daly as it probably should. So I’m going to give a shout-out here to Art Thoms, the long-ago Raider, who played one of the greatest games ever by a defensive tackle on this date in 1972. Before a “Monday Night Football” audience — that’s why I’m posting this in prime time — Thoms . . . well, why don’t I let you read what UPI wrote about him?

What Thoms did in one game — a 34-0 smothering of the Oilers — would make for a pretty good season for some defensive tackles. Two blocked field goal tries? An interception, plus a batted pass that led to another pick? Sure beats four quarters of “gap control.”

On a defense that featured Sistrunk (from “the University of Mars”), linebacker Phil Villapiano and a trio of celebrated DBs — Hall of Famer Willie Brown, George Atkinson and Jack “They Call Me Assassin” Tatum — Thoms was hardly a household name. Indeed, he never made the Pro Bowl and intercepted only one other pass in his eight-year career. But in this game he was Godzilla. Or maybe J.J. Watt after chugging a six pack of 5-Hour Energy.

Of his two blocks, Thoms said, “The guard opposite me [rookie Solomon Freelon] was firing out, which he wasn’t supposed to do. He was almost stepping out a little bit. I couldn’t believe it. I just sliced through. It was easier the second time because I was looking for it.”

The game also was memorable for another reason. As MNF staffers George Hill and Malibu Kelly Hayes reminisced in 2002:

As the game became a runaway and the fans started streaming out of the Astrodome, the TV audience became just as upset. Oilers officials claimed that as many as 75 calls came to the stadium from viewers (remember, there were only the three networks at that time) blasting everything from the play of the Oilers to the announcers’ commentary.

Despite the fact that the game turned into a rout, the evening was not without some historical significance to Monday Night Football. As the stands emptied, a cameraman spotted a solitary man sleeping in a near-empty section of the stadium. The camera zoomed in for a close up, and Cosell described the shot as, “A vivid picturization of the excitement attendant upon this game.” With the camera on him, the fan opened his eyes, looked up and casually extended his middle finger. This prompted Meredith to say, “He thinks they are number one in the nation.”

What a ballgame. You had Thoms running amok, you had Howard at his multisyllabic best, and you had Dandy Don getting off one of the great one-liners in sports TV history.

Friday Night Fights V: Ernie Ladd vs. Wahoo McDaniel

Not sure exactly when Ernie Ladd and Wahoo McDaniel, two heroes of the early AFL, met in this tag-team match at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. YouTube says it was “the early ’70s.” That’ll have to suffice. Wrestling’s records, I’m afraid, aren’t nearly as exacting (or available) as boxing’s are.

Each man was legendary in his own way. Ladd was as enormous as he was talented — a 6-foot-9, 325-pound (at his heaviest), all-league defensive tackle for the Chargers. John Schmitt, the Jets’ center, had a great quote about playing against him for the first time. “I looked up across the line of scrimmage,” he said, “and there was Ernie Ladd. His eyeballs weighed five pounds apiece.”

Ladd also had a prodigious appetite, and is said to have eaten 124 pancakes at one sitting in a contest. If you want to find out more about the “Big Cat,” as he was called, check out this piece I wrote about him in 2007, not long after he died. It only begins to do him justice.

McDaniel, a 6-1, 235-pound linebacker, was a novelty because of his Native American heritage. He came from Choctaw stock and would enter the ring wearing a feathered headdress. HIs celebrity skyrocketed when he was traded from the near-invisible Broncos to the Jets in 1964, the year before Joe Namath arrived. The Shea Stadium P.A. announcer would say, “Tackle by . . . guess who?” And the crowd would shout, “Wahoo!”

Bud Shrake wrote a classic portrait of him in Sports Illustrated 50 years ago. A must read (if only to be reminded of how great SI used to be).

It’s hard to say how many times Ladd and McDaniel met on the mat, but — wrestling being wrestling — it was certainly more than a few. Here’s an account of one bout in Dallas in 1966 that ended in a draw when “both were counted out on the ring apron.”

Guess it was part of their act, because they did it again in Lakeland, Fla., in 1978:

In the following clip, McDaniel is teamed with Cowboy Bill Watts, a former teammate at the University of Oklahoma, where they played under Hall of Famer Bud Wilkinson. In fact, Wahoo still holds the Sooners record for longest punt: 91 yards. Watts, a defensive tackle, left school early and signed with the Houston Oilers, but was cut in camp in 1961 (something I never knew until I researched this).

Ladd’s partner is the equally famed Billy Graham. You can watch the whole video if you want; I’ve just pulled out some footage of Wahoo and Big Cat going at it, a little over a minute’s worth. As you’ll see, they both do some damage.

“He was a wild, crazy Indian,” McDaniel’s daughter, Nicky Rowe, said when he died in 2002. “He was bigger than life. He was amazing.”

As we pick up the action, Graham, in trouble, is about to tag Ernie, who then climbs through the ropes to get at Wahoo. Brace yourselves.

Ernie Ladd revisited

Since Ernie Ladd, the mammoth defensive tackle for the Chargers (and others) in the ’60s, is featured in this week’s Friday Night Fight, I thought I’d post my tribute to him when he died in 2007. Hopefully it’ll give you a better sense of the man — large in every respect.

“He was so big and strong, he didn’t have to be mean.”

— Billy Shaw, the Bills’ Hall of Fame guard

Everything about Ernie Ladd was supersized, from his height (6-9, same as Too Tall Jones) to his appetite (124 pancakes at one sitting). He was a 325-pound defensive tackle in an era, the 1960s, when a 250-pounder was considered strapping. The ground shook — and so did opponents — when Ladd walked.

He also hit Bobo Brazil over the head with a chair once.

This was in 1971, after his days as a quarterback cruncher for the Chargers, Oilers and Chiefs were over. Back then, you see, a fellow as large — indeed, mythic — as Ernie couldn’t simply be a professional football player. There was too much money to be made in the wrestling racket. As 49ers Hall of Famer Leo Nomellini, another moonlighting grappler, put it, “After you hit 30 or 32, football hurts your bones. A wrestler can go until he’s 45 or 50 and be good at it.”

Ladd, who died of cancer Saturday at 68, might have been the last of the breed. Sure, Lawrence Taylor and Fridge Perry did some rolling around, but no big name footballer since the “Big Cat,” as Ernie was called, has had anything resembling a career in the ring. (And none of them, of course, ever had to deal with Bobo Brazil’s dreaded Cocoa Butt.)

We forget how strong the connection was between the pro football and wrestling once upon a time. In the ’20s and ’30s, Jim McMillen, Gus Sonnenberg, Joe Savoldi, Bronko Nagurski and scores of other NFLers took to the mats and helped popularize the sport. Sonnenberg, the Providence Steam Roller’s 5-6 fireplug, introduced the flying tackle; Savoldi, the Chicago Bear by way of Notre Dame, gave us the dropkick. Nagurski, meanwhile, amazed the masses by keeping up a full ring schedule while playing for the Bears in 1937. In one 22-day stretch, he had five football games (from Green Bay to Pittsburgh) and eight wrestling matches (from Vancouver to Philadelphia).

Who knows how good these guys really were between the ropes? (A sportswriter once joked that Bronko was “one of the dozen or 15 world’s wrestling champions who flourished simultaneously a few years ago.”) In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. They put fannies in the seats — and turned the previously moribund mat game into the spectacular it is today.

It was in the cleat marks of Sonnenberg, Nagurski and the rest that Ladd followed. Pro football had never seen a behemoth like him when he joined the Chargers out of Grambling in 1961. In fact, he might still be the greatest extra-large player in the game’s history, a four-time All-Star who played in four title games in eight seasons before his left knee gave out.

“He was so big and strong, he didn’t have to be mean,” said Billy Shaw, the Bills’ Hall of Fame guard.

Courageous, too. After arriving in New Orleans for the 1965 AFL All-Star Game, Ladd and other black players had problems getting white taxicab drivers to pick them up. So they banded together and forced the owners to move the contest. Barely 15,000 showed up for the unplanned event in Houston, making it an embarrassment all around for the young league, but an important point had been made.

Ernie also played out his option that year and became a free agent, a rarity in those days. (Only the strongest of the strong dared to buck management like that.) He signed with Houston for much more money than San Diego was paying him but played just one more full season because of injuries.

There was still wrestling, though. And on the night of Sept. 14, 1971, after the tag team of Flying Fred Curry and the Stomper had fought to a draw with Mitsu Arakawa and Mr. Sato, Ladd tried to take Brazil’s U.S. championship from him. The end of the bout came suddenly, the local newspaper reported, when Bobo was “hit over the head with a chair . . . [and] counted out.”

Alas, because Ernie neglected to pin him — this is wrestling, remember — Brazil retained his belt. “A rematch,” the paper said, “has been set.”

The next time, you’ll be pleased to know, the Big Cat finished the job. After which he probably celebrated by eating “two shrimp cocktails, three dishes of coleslaw, three servings of spinach, three baked potatoes, eight rolls and butter, [a] half gallon of milk, three exotic desserts . . . and four 16-ounce steaks” — as he once did to impress a reporter.

It was just another meal for larger-than-life Ernie Ladd.

“You should see him eat when nobody’s watching,” a teammate said.

From The Washington Times, March 15, 2007

Why the Falcons eased up on the Bucs

One thing you never want to do in the NFL, funny as this might sound, is beat a team by too many points — by, like, 50 or more. The Falcons had that opportunity against the Bucs in Week 3, building a 56-0 lead through three quarters, and you could see they wanted no part of it. They basically said, “No mas,” put in backup quarterback T.J. Yates (who generously threw a pick-six) and gladly settled for a 56-14 win.

I say “gladly” because, well, look at the historical record. You’d think a 50-point margin would mean there’s a sizable gap between the two clubs. It’s the kind of blowout you might get if, oh, an expansion team had to play the defending Super Bowl champs in its NFL debut. (But only if the defending champs were total bullies.)

And yet, five times since 1940 a club that’s been clobbered by 50 or more points has beaten its clobberer the next time they met — either later the same year or the following season. (Hell hath no fury like a team that’s been annihilated.) Stunning, no? After all, there have been only 23 losses of this magnitude in the last 75 years, playoffs included; so we’re talking about 1 in 5 odds, roughly, that the squashed-like-a bug club will get immediate payback.

Heck, it almost happened last season. In 2012, you may recall, the Cardinals dropped a 58-0 squeaker to the Seahawks, committing eight turnovers and failing to advance beyond Seattle’s 37-yard line. As stinkers go, it was sulfur dioxide. But in Week 16 last year, in the Cards’ second meeting with the ’Hawks since the Great Embarrassment, they upset the Super Bowl winners-to-be, 17-10, at CenturyLink Field — Seattle’s only loss in its last 20 home games.

Without further ado, then, here are, arguably, the Five Greatest Extractors of Revenge in modern pro football history:

● 1977 Falcons — In the next-to-last game of ’76, the Los Angeles Rams steamrolled them 59-0 at the Coliseum (and outgained them by nearly 500 yards, 569-81). The Falcons — and their Grits Blitz defense — got even in the ’77 opener in Atlanta, handing the Rams a 17-6 defeat. The L.A. quarterback that day: Joe Namath. Margin of first game: 59. Point swing between the two games: 70.

● 1981 Packers — Late in the ’80 season, the Bears hammered them 61-7 at Soldier Field, the most one-sided game ever between the two ancient rivals. When the Pack returned to Chicago in Week 1 of ’81, they turned the tables on the Bears, 16-9. Margin of first game: 54. Point swing: 61.

● 1990 Houston Oilers — The feud in the ’80s and ’90s between Bengals coach Sam Wyche and Oilers counterpart Jerry Glanville was one of the most entertaining of all time. Wyche considered Glanville “probably the biggest phony in professional football,” and Jerry’s feelings toward Sam weren’t much warmer. So when Cincinnati got the chance near the end of the ’89 season, it poured it on Houston, onside kicking with a huge lead, booting a needless field goal in the final seconds and burying the Oilers 61-7 at Riverfront Stadium. The next time the clubs crossed paths, the following season in the Astrodome, Glanville was no longer in Houston. (He’d moved on to Atlanta and been replaced by Jack Pardee.) Too bad. He missed seeing Warren Moon toss five touchdown passes in a 48-17 rout of Wicky Wacky’s Bengals. Margin of first game: 54. Point swing: 85.

● 1979 Jets — In the second game of the season, the explosive Patriots pummeled the Jets 56-3 in Foxborough as Steve Grogan threw for TDs of 49, 37, 50, 44 and 28 yards. The rematch at Shea Stadium produced a much different result: a 27-26 Jets win that killed the Pats’ playoff chances. Margin of first game: 53. Point swing: 54.

● 1989 Steelers — Everything went wrong for Pittsburgh in its opener, a 51-0 loss to the Browns at Three Rivers Stadium. It gave the ball away eight times, managed just 53 offensive yards and watched in horror as the Cleveland defense scored three touchdowns (two on fumbles, one on an interception). Five weeks later, the Steelers rebounded to beat the Browns on the road 17-7, thanks to seven takeaways of their own. Margin of first game: 51. Point swing: 61.

Others of note:

● 1954 Baltimore Colts — It wasn’t just that the Rams obliterated the Colts 48-0 in Week 1 (in Baltimore, no less); it was that their first score, an 80-yard bomb from Norm Van Brocklin to Skeet Quinlan, came on a now-illegal Hideout Play. Quinlan stayed on the Los Angeles sideline until just before the snap, then stepped inbounds and darted downfield, uncovered.

The teams met again in L.A. in December. There wasn’t much to play for except pride; both were out of the championship hunt. The Colts had a little extra incentive, though, and avenged their earlier stomping, 22-21, on a late field goal. (I’d love to see Artie Donovan’s bar bill after that one.) Margin of first game: 48. Point swing: 49.

● 1981 49ers — In ’80, when the Niners were still a work in progress (and Steve DeBerg was still their quarterback), the Cowboys crushed them 59-14 in Dallas. But the next year, with Joe Montana at QB and rookie cornerback Ronnie Lott terrorizing receivers, San Francisco broke the Cowboys’ hearts twice at Candlestick Park — 45-14 in the regular season and 28-27 in the NFC title game – en route to winning the Super Bowl. Margin of first game: 45. Point swing: 76.

Finally, there are the 1961 Detroit Lions. Can’t forget about them. They got ambushed 49-0 in Week 3 when the 49ers unleashed their innovative Shotgun offense. In the Week 8 sequel, however, the Lions rose up in all their fury and . . . tied the Niners in San Francisco, 20-20. Ask yourself: Has there been a more satisfying deadlock in the annals of the game? Margin of first game: 49. Point swing: Ditto.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

Friday Night Fights II: Mark Gastineau vs. Alonzo Highsmith, 1996

Now we’re getting to the Good Stuff. This was one of those classic Shield vs. Shield bouts, as Roger Goodell would put it, between two former NFL players — Mark Gastineau, the erstwhile Jets sack dancer, and Alonzo Highsmith, who’d had a more modest career as a running back after the Oilers took him third overall in the 1987 draft.

Both had a fair number of pro fights under their belts, though Gastineau’s were more of the State Fair variety. Indeed, Mark (15-1 with 15 knockouts) hadn’t fought in 2 ½ years. He’d supposedly gone into the gym — after a four-round no-decision against the immortal Craig Thurber in Topeka — to learn some ring craft and had emerged, at the age of 39, a more polished pugilist.

Highsmith, eight years younger and 31 ½ pounds lighter (223 ½ to Gastineau’s 255), had a somewhat better track record (15-0-1 with 13 KOs), but that’s not saying much. Two of his recent victims had records of 2-24 (Jim Wisniewski) and 0-23 (Ed Strickland) when they climbed between the ropes. In fact, Strickland was winless in 30 career bouts.

The Gastineau-Highsmith tussle took place Nov. 3, 1996, in Urayasu, Japan, outside Tokyo. Believe it or not, it was on the undercard of George Foreman’s bout against Crawford Grimsley for Foreman’s dime-store IBA and WBU titles. George, 47, won a unanimous 12-round decision, but laced up his gloves only twice more before returning his full attention to selling grills.

Our two gladiators are ready to rumble. Let’s go to the ring for the introductions:

Once again, the beginning of the end for Gastineau:

Bruce Keidan in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Highsmith is no great boxer, but compared to Gastineau he is Sugar Ray Robinson. . . .

“Gastineau didn’t even know how to quit,” an eyewitness reports. “He finally sat down. You’ve heard of guys taking a knee? He took a buttock.”

“The referee was counting in Japanese,” another reports. “Gastineau couldn’t be sure when it was safe to get up. So he just stayed down until he was sure the referee was done counting.”

Obviously, the second report was embellished. The referee, Tom Vacca “from Ashland, Ohio,” most definitely counted in English. But at that point, Gastineau was so groggy it probably sounded like Japanese.

Highsmith went on to fight 13 more times, against better competition, before calling it quits. Final record: 27-1-2 with 23 KOs. But for Gastineau it was his last bout — and wisely so. A better matchup for him would have been Sylvester Stallone — with the winner getting Brigitte Nielsen.

Thoughts on the Logan Mankins trade

For me, there are two surprises in the following chart. The first is that only eight rookie tight ends in NFL history have had 50 or more receptions. The second is that every one of them went in the first 40 picks of the draft except for Tim Wright, the guy the Patriots just acquired from the Bucs for six-time Pro Bowl guard Logan Mankins. Wright, who played his college ball at Rutgers, was passed over by all 32 teams a year ago.

ROOKIE TIGHT ENDS WHO HAVE CAUGHT 50 OR MORE PASSES

[table]

Year Tight End\, Team,Rec,Yds,Avg,TD,Round-Pick

1988 Keith Jackson\, Eagles,81,869,10.7,6,1-13

2002 Jeremy Shockey\, Giants,74,894,12.1,2,1-14

1961 Mike Ditka\, Bears,56,1\,076,19.2,12,1-5

2008 John Carlson\, Seahawks,55,627,11.4,5,2-38

1973 Charle Young\, Eagles,55,854,15.5,6,1-6

1998 Cam Cleeland\, Saints,54,684,12.7,6,2-40

2013 Tim Wright\, Bucs,54,571,10.6,5,Undrafted

2010 Jermaine Gresham\, Bengals,52,471,9.1,4,1-21

[/table]

That’s right, no Rob Gronkowski (42 receptions). No Jimmy Graham (31). No Tony Gonzalez (33). No Kellen Winslow Sr. or Jr. (30 combined in their first season). No Shannon Sharpe (7). Maybe this Wright kid is better than we think. (Of course, before today, when the deal was announced, how often did he even cross our minds?)

At the every least, Wright provides low-cost Gronk Insurance in the event the all-world tight end is slow coming back from knee surgery. When No. 87 was out of the lineup last year, the Patriots’ supercharged offense seemed more like a stick shift. Wright also creates significant cap space in case the Pats want to hang onto Darrelle Revis, whose 2015 option is a gargantuan $20 million. Mankins, after all, had the Pats’ second-highest cap number after Tom Brady; Wright, meanwhile, like most undrafted free agents, subsists on gruel.

Still, trading a guard with Mankins’ resumé . . . how often has that happened? Well, I dug up one similar example back in the ’70s. (Which isn’t to say there might not be others.) I also found a couple of guards who were dealt after being voted to five Pro Bowls — and two more who were sent packing after being voted to three. The particulars, chronologically:

● Walt Sweeney, Chargers to Redskins (January 1974) — A nine-time Pro Bowler in San Diego (1964-72), Sweeney joined George Allen’s Over the Hill Gang at the age of 33. He started for two seasons in Washington before calling it a career. The Chargers received fourth-, fifth- and sixth-round picks spread over three drafts.

● Ed White, Vikings to Chargers (July 1978) — White had made three Pro Bowls in Minnesota and would make another in San Diego. Though already 31, he ended up playing eight more seasons (which Mankins might try to do just out of spite). The Vikes, in return, got Rickey Young, who caught 88 passes in his first year with them, a record for running backs (since broken).

● Joe DeLamielleure, Bills to Browns (September 1980) — Hall of Famer DeLamielleure, then 29, had been selected for five Pro Bowls in Buffalo and added a sixth in Cleveland. The Bills came away with second- and third-round picks.

● R.C. Thielemann, Falcons to Redskins (August 1985) — Atlanta needed a wideout. Washington wasn’t sold on its right guard. So the 30-year-old Thielemann, a three-time Pro Bowler with the Falcons, was swapped Charlie Brown, who was coming off an injury-marred season after tying for the NFC lead in receptions in ’83. R.C. was just a spoke in the wheel with the Redskins, but he did start on their ’87 championship team.

● Kent Hill, Los Angeles Rams to Houston Oilers (September 1986) — This was the trade, two games into the season, that enabled L.A. to obtain the rights to unsigned QB Jim Everett, the third pick in the ’86 draft (who had no desire to sit behind Canton-bound Warren Moon). Hill, part of a mega-package that included DE William Fuller and two No. 1s, was 29 and had gone to five Pro Bowls. He played that year and one more in Houston and then retired.

As for Everett, he didn’t win the Super Bowl in Los Angeles, but after moving to the Saints he did leave us with this memorable clip:

Anyway, yeah, this Mankins trade is extremely rare. I wouldn’t want to be the team that comes out on the short end of it.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, NFL.com

About those concussions . . .

The firestorm over concussions in the NFL spurred me to dig up these two wrestling videos. (Yes, wrestling videos.) The first features Wahoo McDaniel, the AFL folk hero, against Ric Flair. The second has Ernie Ladd, the mammoth Chargers defensive tackle who played at the same time as Wahoo, tangling with Dusty Rhodes.

That was quite the head-butt Wahoo laid on Flair. And those were quite the elbows Ernie took from Rhodes — right on the noggin.

McDaniel and Ladd both wrestled during the offseason, as did scores of other pro footballers in the early years. How much head trauma do you suppose they absorbed in the ring? Was it all just playacting, or were there some hard knocks? (Too bad we can’t ask Andy Kaufman.)

By the way, did you see Rhodes hurl that referee through the ropes? It’s a good thing no NFL officials moonlighted as wrestling refs. Or did they?

Just having a little fun here. Unless, of course, I’m dead serious.

Bubba Smith in “Police Academy”

Bubba Smith was such a beast on the football field that Baltimore Colts fan Ogden Nash was moved to write:

He’s like a hoodoo, like a hex,
He’s like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

He also appeared in six Police Academy movies, Bubba did, as Cadet/Sergeant/Captain Moses Hightower. (How could anyone deny a 6-7, 265-pound, quarterback-munching defensive end a promotion?) One memorable scene:

PRO FOOTBALL DALY

The whole 100 yards — and sometimes the end zones, too.