Card: 1977 Topps Football Card #177

Team/Position: Seattle Seahawks / Wide Receiver

Cost: $3.75

Largent finished up his career at Tulsa as an All-American, yet slipped into the fourth round of the NFL Draft.  The Houston Oilers originally planned on cutting the great white hope, until the expansion Seahawks traded an 8th round pick for his rights.

Until a certain greatest wide-receiver of all-time and Dancing With The Stars Season Two runner-up came along, Steve Largent was arguably the best wide-receiver to have ever played the game.

When Largent retired from the Seahawks, he held every imaginable receiving record:  13,089 receiving yards, 819 career receptions, and 100 touchdown catches.

Largent didn’t display break-away speed, but caught everything that was thrown in his direction.  Throw in very crisp routes, and what seems like a veteran savvy from his first snap and you’ve a Hall of Famer: A 5’11″, 185lb, Hall of Famer.

Largent made seven Pro Bowls during his fourteen year career and was named to the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1980′s.  Along with the ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN DESPICABLE Jim Zorn, Largent became the face of the Seattle Seahawks.  Steve Largent became the first Seattle Seahawk inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995.

After his football career, Steve Largent entered the realm of politics. Largent served 4 terms as a member of congress for Oklahoma’s first district.  Largent never received less than 60% of the vote, but he was running in Tulsa, and he was a Republican.

I’m not particularly a fan of Largent as a politician, but he was one hell of a football player.  One of Largent’s most memorable political moments screamed, “I’m a effin’ idiot!”

Because two gay men are bound to rape little girls that they adopt, Largent proposed the following bill,

“On July 29, by a vote of 213 to 215, the House, under heavy pressure from homosexual groups, rejected an amendment to the District of Columbia Appropriations Act (HR 2587) sponsored by Rep. Steve Largent (R.-Olda) that would have stopped the District of Columbia from using federal dollars to promote adoptions by couples not related by blood or marriage.”  ( Article Link )

Lovely.

Card: 1985 Topps Football Card #251

Team/Position: Houston Oilers / Quarterback

Cost: $4.00

Topps 1985 football endeavor was a masterpiece, at least in my books. I love the dark black borders and horizontal layout: the cards are quite sharp.  It’s not in the same league as the Godfather of black bordered cards, 1962 Topps, but it’s still a damn good card.

Unfortunately, 1985 was one of the absolute worst years for Football Rookie Cards.  Baseball was fine; it had Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Kirby Puckett and Brett Saberhagen.  Football, on the other hand, got the shaft.  Contrast the  ’83 Draft spitting out 6 Hall of Famers (Dickerson, Elway, Kelly, Marino, Green, and Matthews,) with the ’84 Draft and you’ve got a 6-to-0 shutout.

Other than Moon, 1985 gives us three men that knew Dan Marino intimately:  Irving Fryar, Mark Clayton and Bills’ LB, Darryl Talley.  Jim Jeffcoat also came out of the ’85 set, but I’m just mentioning him to plug the 8-and-1 Houston Cougars, for whom he’s a defensive line coach.  Houston snuck by Tulsa 46-45 yesterday and I doubt they’ll improve on their #13 Ranking — We’ll see though.

The Canadian Football League’s regular season wraps up today, so there’s no better time to discuss Warren Moon.  Moon had all of the tools to be a HOF NFL Quarterback, but the colour of his skin made his journey harder than it ever should’ve been.

After posting great numbers in High School, Moon’s desire to remain a quarterback initially cost him a scholarship from a big-time program.  After playing a season in Junior College, only the Washington Huskies believed enough in Moon as a quarterback to offer him.  The Huskies were eventually rewarded with one of the biggest wins in school history, a Rose Bowl victory over the Michigan Wolverines.

After College, the cycle once again repeated itself:  Moon conveyed a strong desire to play QB, but NFL Scouts saw him as a Tight End.  Moon refused to budge which set the stage for one of the greatest professional football careers ever.  Warren Moon was off to the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos, where he proceeded to win five consecutive Grey Cups from 1978 to 1982.  In just six years, Moon threw for over twenty-one thousand yards and 144 TDs with the Eskimos.

When Moon announced he heading South for greener, less snow-covered pastures, a bidding war ensued.  Houston ended up with Warren Moon, who eventually found his way with the Run-and-Shoot Offense. Rather than talk about the passing records that Moon set, or the big-fat juicy contract extension that made him the highest paid player, I’ll talk about something much more important:

TECMO BOWL!

There’s a great thread over at VirtualSportsNetwork, which I’ll borrow some images from.

Houston Oilers Run And Shoot Playbook

There’s all sorts of great screen captures from Tecmo Bowl, and I’d recommend giving them a look-see (I can only assume that you cannot copyright a screen-capture).

History

Warren Moon was the first and to this day, the only, black Quarterback inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.  It was a pleasure to watch Moon prove the entire NFL wrong after dominating the CFL as a quarterback.  I’m not going to say that Moon opened the door for black quarterbacks, but he definitely reinforced that skin color has very little to do with the ability to play quarterback.