NFL Network Top 100 Players

[white is right]

Don, Colonel, wir and jacknyc, Van Buren looks like a classic case of having to agree to disagree.

Noticing as I did in jacknyc's link Van Buren's kinky hair, I must ask of CasteFootballers in general: Have any CasteFootballer ever had a decidedly-looking white male acquaintance with kinky looking hair? As a college freshman 31 years ago, I had a fellow frosh in one class who looked very white but he had a big kinky afro.* How it got that way, I never thought of asking. I'd have to find time to comb my brain (like I do my already naturally straight hair) to find other examples over the years.

white is right, when the black reporter who interviewed LSU's Sadat-Singh did so, was he interviewed "at the time"Â￾ iykwim, or decades after the fact?

*He had an Irish last name fyi.

John

Yes, I had an acquaintance decades ago in school who looked more "black" than Van Buren. He was a good basketball player. This was when schools were segregated. Furthermore, our small rural Southern community was all white.

As the individual who started this thread, how about staying on the subject of the NFL Top 100 players from now on? This detour has gone on long enough.

The only reason I care for this topic is because he might have been the first "Black" to play in the NFL in the modern era, as the NFL was segregated until 46'. He broke into the league in 42' if my memory is correct. Trust me I'm not a member of the racial police.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

41. Rod Woodson
42. John Mackey
43. Alan Page
44. Mel Blount
45. Tony Gonzalez
46. Roger Staubach
47. Ray Nitschke
48. Red Grange.
49. Mike Haynes
50. Terry Bradshaw

Back to the list. In the "sixth ten" (I'm counting up from the bottom) we've got Nitschke, Staubach, Grange, Bradshaw and Gonzalez (you consider Gonzalez white, jacknyc?). Who (dis)agrees with this segment?

John

Gonzalez is mestizo/latino...not White. Also, Nitschke, Staubach & Grange should be higher in the top 100.

 

[GreatLakeState]

Van Buren with kinky/wavy hair? You all must not know many Dutch folk, a noticable percentage have very "Afroish" hair and most of them are blond and blue-eyed.

 

[white is right]

If Namath is 100th on this list because of his historical impact then Grange needs to be higher for that reason too. It will interesting to see where they put Thorpe who was considered the Bo Jackson of his time. Thorpe was voted the AP athlete of the first half of the 20th century. Football was as much of the reason for this as track and field. Also Gonzalez from what I have read of him is part African, White and Native American and isn't Mexican at all. His surname is really Goncalves which is Portuguese. I read that his grandfather had the name changed when he immigrated to the US.

 

[GreatLakeState]

"It was only a few years ago when the sprawling, close-knit family learned that Gonzalez's late paternal grandfather had not been Argentinian, as everyone had thought. He was actually born on an island off the coast of Portugal and moved as a youngster to Argentina. His grandmother, who just celebrated her 90th birthday, is half Jamaican and half Scottish.

"On his mother's side, he's African, American Indian, Irish and Polish.

"Intrigued by his varied ancestry, Gonzalez once took a genetics test and discovered he's also 12 percent East Asian. Where that part came from, no one is sure."

 

[jacknyc]

Van Buren with kinky/wavy hair? You all must not know many Dutch folk, a noticable percentage have very "Afroish" hair and most of them are blond and blue-eyed.

you're kidding right?! Dutch do not have kinky hair.
Some Irish do, and some Jewish do too. Dutch - no.

Anyway, it seems that probably Van Buren is half white, and half Honduran, which could be any mix of Indian, Spanish, black, etc.

 

[foreverfree]

I started a thread on Van Buren's ancestry on CF's Eagles forum.

http://castefootball.us/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12983&PID=196342#196342

John

 

[snow]

Van Buren with kinky/wavy hair? You all must not know many Dutch folk, a noticable percentage have very "Afroish" hair and most of them are blond and blue-eyed.

you're kidding right?! Dutch do not have kinky hair.

Some Irish do, and some Jewish do too. Dutch - no.



Anyway, it seems that probably Van Buren is half white, and half Honduran, which could be any mix of Indian, Spanish, black, etc.

Irish do not have "kinky" hair. Some of us have extremely curly hair but it is nothing like the pubic hair that jews and blacks have. I don't know about the Dutch.

 

[sport historian]

On Thursday night at 9pm ET, the NFL Network will show #40-31. A poster at the Pro Football Research Forum said O.J. Simpson will be in this group.

 

[Woody]

Yeah! Lets hear it for the Murderer! He's the ultimate hero for the black athlete...not only did he achieve some success on the field, he murdered a white woman!

 

[qj]

Yeah! Lets hear it for the Murderer! He's the ultimate hero for the black athlete...not only did he achieve some success on the field, he murdered a white woman!

Sorry to burst your belief bubble, Woody, but the evidence in the brutal killing of Nicole Simpson exonerates OJ. Unfortunately, the local cops fixated on OJ, to the extent they planted a few drops of blood on OJ's socks. The dumb cops should have known better because they were dealing with a multimillionaire who could afford a 1st class defense and not some crackhead. We know the blood was planted because it contained a preservative. There was plenty of other evidence which exonerates OJ, but the jury was not going to convict in any case once they learned the blood was planted. William Dear, a famous private investigator, conducted an multi-year investigation into the Simpson killing at his own expense, and he concluded OJ's kid, Jason, was the prime suspect. The link below is the story of the investigation:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7905933759946122795#

I highly recommend watching the video if you want to learn about what might have actually happened in the Nicole Simpson killing from a world class investigator.

BTW, I think OJ is an idiot and a thug, but he was a very good football player for a few years in the early 70's. Was he in the top 50? I don't know. He had a couple great years running behind FB Jim Braxton at Buffalo. Per wikipedia, "most of his [OJ's] 11,236 career rushing yards were due to Braxton." He rushed for over 1000 yards per year between 1972 - 1976. Not bad.

I highly, highly doubt a white player would be on the list with OJ's numbers if the white guy had the same story and rap sheet as OJ. No way.
Edited by: qj

 

[sport historian]

31. Bruce Smith
32. Jim Parker
33. Sid Luckman
34. Deion Sanders
35. Chuck Bednarik
36. Raymond Berry
37. Jim Thorpe
38. Lance Alworth
39. Gino Marchetti
40. O.J. Simpson

Raymond Berry at #36 was presented by Frank Deford, who was a bit defensive. Deford said (in so many words)that Berry couldn't be compared to today's players but was the best in his own time. His main point was how good Berry's hands were.

Cowboy's owner Jerry Jones presented Lance Alworth. Jones was a freshman at Arkansas in 1961 when Alworth was a senior. He said that Lance Alworth's talents influenced how the game is played to this day. Would Jones have Alworth on his team in 2010?

 

[white is right]

Without a body of work I think he would have a tough time making the Cowboys. Or if he did make the team would be underutilized. If he became a Cowboy in similar circumstance to how he became one in the early 70's he obviously would make the team and significantly contribute. Edited by: white is right

 

[Don Wassall]

31. Bruce Smith
32. Jim Parker
33. Sid Luckman
34. Deion Sanders
35. Chuck Bednarik
36. Raymond Berry
37. Jim Thorpe
38. Lance Alworth
39. Gino Marchetti
40. O.J. Simpson

Raymond Berry at #36 was presented by Frank Deford, who was a bit defensive. Deford said (in so many words)that Berry couldn't be compared to today's players but was the best in his own time. His main point was how good Berry's hands were.

Cowboy's owner Jerry Jones presented Lance Alworth. Jones was a freshman at Arkansas in 1961 when Alworth was a senior. He said that Lance Alworth's talents influenced how the game is played to this day. Would Jones have Alworth on his team in 2010?

Berry at best would be a "possession receiver," but likely wouldn'tgetto the NFLnow (or for the past 30 years) because of a lack of "measurables." Alworth would have the "measurables" to be invited to the Combine after excelling as a walk-on somewhere, but likely would also be relegated to a "possession" role if drafted, given thatWhite receivers mysteriously lost the ability to be "playmakers" that same fateful day they lost the ability to run the ball. And if he did make the NFL, he wouldn't be on Jerry Jones' Cowboys.

 

[sport historian]

I found an item at Associated Content by someone named Gary Davis who is not impressed by Lance Alworth. He writes:

"Alworth did not have a huge career, but for the time he played (136 ganes over 11 seasons), he was a major standout. He was known mainly for his speed and was lucky that he learned under Sid Gillman."

 

[pt.guard]

I've seen clips of Alworth and he was one of the all time greats. World class spped, soft hands and precise route running. He was able to dominate in an era where the DB's basically were able to mug the receivers all the way down the field. In fact, if he played under today's rules which forbids a receiver to be touched after 5 yards, he might have set Jerry Rice type records..

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

Alworth was a near world-class sprinter on the track, as well.

as an aside, his sister was also very fast, earning an invitation to the Olympic Trials as a sprinter.

 

[Don Wassall]

My hazy childhood memories of Alworth center aroundhow elusive he was. He made a lot of great after the catch runs. His astonishing career average of 18.9 yards per reception is testimony to that.

 

[sport historian]

I recall seeing Alworth play for Arkansas in the 1961 Cotton Bowl. He ran a punt back for a touchdown, but Duke won 7-6. I saw him throughout his pro career.

Alworth could jump in the air and catch the ball with the defenders hanging all over him. If he was close to the sideline, he would do a tap-dance to bring both feet down in bounds (Bob Hayes couldn't do this in a million years). With a Google search you can find several Lance Alworth highlight films showing him do this in addition to hauling in long bombs and spectacular runs after the catch.

In a way, Lance Alworth is similar to many present-day white pro football players in that he had a somewhat affluent background. His father is supposed to have been an oil man who moved around. Alworth went to high school in Brookhaven, Mississippi, a town that according to wikipedia is now just over 50% black.

A 21th Century Lamce Alworth would have attended a private school and probably wouldn't have received any scholarship offers from major colleges (In 1957, every SEC and SWC school wanted him).

He is said to have run a 9.6 hundred. On today's surfaces, he would have been faster than that.

 

[sport historian]

The next new episode is on Thursday night at 9pm ET. It will have numbers 21-30. Advance reports have Tom Brady at #21.

 

[sport historian]

21. Tom Brady
22. Gale Sayers
23. John Elway
24. John Hannah
25. Dan Marino
26. Bob Lilly
27. Merlin Olsen
28. Emmitt Smith
29. Jack Lambert
30. Night Train Lane

 

[DixieDestroyer]

I'd not rate Tom Brady ahead of Marino (should be top 15) & Elway just yet.

 

[DWFan]

I was struck by that too, Dixie.

 

[Don Wassall]

When prompted by Fran Charles yesterday on the NFL Network, Jamie Dukes and Rod Woodson both said theythoughtBrady being ahead of Marino and Elway wasn't deserved, but most of their whiningcentered aroundEmmitt Smith being 28th. They couldn't understand the all-time leading rusher -- or, as Dukes keptreferring toit, admitting it was an ebonics saying, "ever ever" -- being ranked that low but they had nothing to say about Gale Sayers, who had only4,956 career rushing yards because of injuries, less than Mike Alstott finished with, being ranked 22nd.




I've heard Dukes and Deion Sanders complain about the ranking of other players too, every time it's been blacks they thought were shortchanged.Edited by: Don Wassall

 

[white is right]

It's similar to Aaron being the all time home run king(until Bonds). Nobody thought he was the best slugger or all around player in baseball history. Emmitt Smith is the greatest compiler who played on maybe the greatest offense in the history of football.