Jim taylor

[Don Wassall]

Anyone remember Bill Brown? He played from '61 through '74, all but his first year with the Vikings. He never went over 1,000 rushing yards in a season but he was a bulldozer who ran and caught the ball well and ended up with very impressive career numbers. He finished with 5,838 rushing yards and 52 TDs, and another 3,183 receiving yards and 23 receiving TDs, giving him over 9,000 total yards and 75 TDs.He made the Pro Bowl in '64, '65, '67 and '68 and finished in the top ten severalyears in rushing yards, rushing TDs, and total yardsduring a time when thousand yard rushers weren't a dime a dozen. Edited by: Don Wassall

 

[Kaptain]

Bill "Boom Boom" Brown's daughter is married to rich gannon. This last season he was inducted into the Viking's ring of honor. Unbelievably he had to delay his induction due to Complaints of Cris Carter. Apparently Carter was jealous and called team ownership. Does anybody know the details of this story as it sounds like quite an ordeal?


My dad played on an army platoon team and played against Bill Brown. He said he no one could bring him down - he was a horse.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Can anyone find some stats on Billy Cannon?

 

[Don Wassall]

I'd recommend bookmarking Pro Football Reference.Com:


http://www.pro-football-reference.com/


You can find anything about the NFL there you want as far as individual teams, league leaders, team records by season, etc. It also usually pops up at or near the top any time I do a player search for a current or former NFL player.

 

[Gary]

I remember Bill Brown.The Vikings had another white running back at that time named Dave Osborn.Does anyone remember Steve Owens from Oklahoma or Steve Worster from Texas two strong fullbacks?

 

[Don Wassall]

Owens won the Heisman Trophy in 1969 with Oklahoma. He and John Capelletti were the last two white runners to do so. Owens rushed for over 1,000 yards with the Lions in '71, then faded quickly.

 

[sport historian]

Steve Owens had continual injury problems after a 1000 yard season in 1971. Ironically, the Lions had drafted him because of the durability Owens had shown at Oklahoma. Owens seemed to be rounding back into form in mid-season 1974. I well remember seeing him in the Thanksgiving Day game that year against Denver.


Owens was ripping off good gains that day. Then, he broke loose for about 27 yards to the Denver 1 or 2 yard line. Unfortunately, Owens tore up his knee on that play. He never played another down in the NFL. In another oddity, the run which ended his career was the longest Owens ever made as a pro.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

I found this piece of info on Jerry Byrd's website. He's a longtime sports writer in the Shreveport, LA area. I met him back in the mid-90s and saw him at games quite often.

http://www.jerrybyrd.com/

"In 1967, when the Saints were preparing for their first season, they chalked up their first exhibition win here with a 23-14 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals before an estimated crowd of 28,500 at State Fair Stadium.
There was a brief flare-up on the Saints' sideline when Jimmy Taylor caught a pass from Billy Kilmer and was hit out of bounds, but cooler heads prevailed when the players realized it was only an exhibition game.
Playing only in the first half, Kilmer passed for 142 yards and two touchdowns (an 18-yarder to Tom Hall for the first score, after rookie Elijah Nevett returned the opening kickoff 59 yards, and a 28-yarder to Ray Ogden). Taylor led both teams in rushing with 10 carries for 40 yards.
A year later, the Saints returned for an exhibition game with the Minnesota Vikings. The most memorable event that night came before the opening kickoff, when Taylor, warming up with his teammates in the South end zone, walked off the field, ending his 10-year National Football League career.
After leading the Saints in rushing in their first season with the modest total of 390 yards (28 yards per game), the former LSU All-American and Green Bay Packers star had been assigned to special teams play by Coach Tom Fears.
His departure surprised both team owner John Mecom, Jr. and Fears. "It was a shock to me about Jimmy," Mecom said after the Vikings scored a 20-17 victory over the Saints before a crowd estimated at 23,000.
After posting a 3-11 record in their first season, tying the NFL record for wins by an expansion team, the Saints went into the 1968 season talking about a divisional title. "I'm glad they feel that way," said Fears. "But I have to be more realistic than optimistic."
The Saints' average attendance at old Tulane Stadium in their first season was 77,000 --fourth best in NFL history at that time. But the team was still a long way from being a playoff contender. They were 4-11 in their second season.
The Cowboys had gone through growing pains a few years earlier. But they were prennial title contenders by the end of the 1960s, and became "America's Team" in the 1970s.
Before their first Super Bowl victory, the Cowboys earned a reputation as "next year's champions."
That has been the theme throughout the existence of a Saints' franchise that always talks the talk, but has never walked the walk."

What is weird about this, aside from the obvious Caste workings, is that I've been right where Jim Taylor walked off the field, and never knew it till tonight.

 

[white is right]

Steve Owens had continual injury problems after a 1000 yard season in 1971. Ironically, the Lions had drafted him because of the durability Owens had shown at Oklahoma. Owens seemed to be rounding back into form in mid-season 1974. I well remember seeing him in the Thanksgiving Day game that year against Denver.


Owens was ripping off good gains that day. Then, he broke loose for about 27 yards to the Denver 1 or 2 yard line. Unfortunately, Owens tore up his knee on that play. He never played another down in the NFL. In another oddity, the run which ended his career was the longest Owens ever made as a pro.

I remember as a kid when a tailback blew out his knee he was closed to finished. The surgery was primitive back then and the brace for stability made the knee barely functional. This is part of the reason why guys like Sayers and Owens had mediocre lifetime stats for today's era. Give guys like that modern arthroscopic surgery and they could have double the rushing yards.