Here are some of the headlines we hit on in this episode: “Whitey” Wistert is remembered on his birthday, and we reflect on the first time two SEC Rivals met in the game of football. This, plus the Football by the Numbers series, focuses on the number 7 with Larry Schmitt!

Come join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

We also feature great music by Mike and Gene Monroe along with Jason Neff & great graphics from time to time from the folks at Gridiron-Uniform Database.

Want more Sports History delivered to your ears, come see this podcast and many more at the Sports History Network - The Headquarters of Sports' Yesteryear!

We would like to thank the National Football Foundation, Pro Football Hall of Fame, On this day.com and Pro Football Reference Websites for the information shared with you today.

We have a great episode in store for you today because we are going to talk about a great event that happened in Georgia in football history and an awesome legend of the game who has a birthday today as well as talk with Larry Schmidt about the greatest number sevens ever to play in the NFL and wear that number seven jersey.

It's all coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history on a day to day basis.

This is your host Darren Hayes and we're podcasting from the Pig Pen in Western Pennsylvania to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

So with Mike and Gene Monroe as well as Jason Neff supplying us with the tunes, let's go no huddle through today's football History Headlines.

This podcast is part of the Sports.

History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear.

Of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.

Hello my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of Pixicindispatch.com and welcome to the Football History Headlines episode for February 20th in football history.

We have a great episode coming up.

We're going to talk about some legends of the game.

We're going to talk a little bit of history of the University of Georgia football which is an exciting time in their history.

And we're also going to talk about the greatest players in the NFL to wear the number seven on their jerseys.

Great discussion with Larry Schmidt of the Great Iron Uniform Database and Big Blue Interactive.

He's a great talker, he's a great historian.

We had him on the episode.

We're covering the Number Ones, our very second episode of this great pilgrimage through the Football by Numbers series that we're talking about on Pigskin Daily History Dispatch podcast in the off season here.

And we're exciting to have him on again because he brings a great wealth of knowledge and some awesome stories about the game.

The University of Georgia played its second game ever in a 100 loss to Auburn University.

1892 the University of Georgia journeyed to Atlanta to play Auburn University's team from Auburn, Alabama.

Chicago, Illinois the awesome Michigan Wolverine tackle Francis Whitey Weistert was born.

And that was his first season playing football.

Now we're going to get to our Number Sevens jersey Football by Numbers in just a second with Larry Schmidt.

But before we get into that interview, I want to thank all of you that have contributed to the website by buying me a cup of coffee on the front page of the pixion dispatch.com website.

There's that Buy me a cup of coffee pull down.

And those of you that have clicked that and donated any amount.

We have sent you our findings and our top lists of the Football by Numbers so far that we've taken and we really appreciate that you've done that and your generosity and we want to give you a gift and there's nothing better than have some great football history given to you.

But we have those lists totaled up and it's in a real nice package and I think you'll enjoy it and hopefully you do.

And we thank you, those who have contributed and those that want to you know where where to do it and you'll get that same gift that the others have got.

Now let's take you to our Football by Numbers, the greatest players ever to wear the number seven with Larry Schmidt.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Pig Pen, we are glad once again to have Larry Schmidt of the Gridiron Uniform Database and Big Blue Interactive with us.

And since I think this might be the third time you hear his voice on this podcast, maybe we can put him as a contributor to the Pigs Can Dispatch podcast too.

Larry Schmidt, welcome once again to the.

Pig Pen, thank you for having me back, Darren.

Well, we're sure glad that you were able to come back with us today, Larry.

We are still in our journey going the Football by numbers series is what we're calling it.

And we are all the way up to the jersey number seven and all the greats that have wore that jersey throughout the NFL history.

So we have 100 years to choose from, I guess.

Where do you want to start off?

Here we have seven hall of Famers, I guess, and we're going to try to come up with sort of our dirty dozen that the 12 best, most substantial players that have ever wore the number seven in the NFL.

So maybe I guess we should hall of Famers.

And we have, I think we have five or six guys who have had their number seven retired by their respective teams.

I believe you're right.

So I guess let's start off with the obvious choices.

We'll go off with the seven hall of Famers.

How does that sound?

Sounds good.

All right.

Where would you like to kick off at with those hall of Famers?

Well, we can start with chronologically the, the man whose fingerprints are all over the NFL as a player, a coach, an owner.

He was there at the Hutmobile showroom in Canton when the NFL was or the APFA was for him, George Hallis.

And he's in the hall of Fame.

And his, you know, interestingly, when I was going through my research, you know, the Bears retired number seven in George Hallis honor.

But as I went through the list and you know, not to jump ahead, but Ed Sprinkle also wore number seven.

And I remember Bob Avellini, you know, watching football in the 70s and early 80s.

Bob Avellini also wore number seven for the Bears, so obviously was retired posthumously for Mr.

Hallis.

I guess so.

Or it was like sort of a Brett Favre retirement where he kept retiring, coming back out with that number seven as a coach.

Yes, that's, that's right.

And you know, and he has the dual honor hall of Fame or triple honor hall of Fame number seven retired.

And he has his initials on the bear sleeve as well.

Gsh.

Yeah.

Definitely an important figure in NFL history and definitely should be in the hall of Fame with the inaugural class of the hall of Fame because of his contributions.

What do we know about him as a player wearing the number seven?

Mr.

Everything.

But he was a He was not a large man to play in, but he was known as being an effective player on defense and he was a hard hitter.

And the only statistics we have on him, you know, we don't have rushing yards, number of receptions, receiving yards, but we, you know, the only thing we know about him are his touchdowns scored.

Right.

And how many do you have for him on that?

He had one rushing apparent possibly on an end around and he had six receiving.

And he has three defensive scores to his credit, two fumble recoveries for a touchdown and also an interception.

So we have 10.

Do Everything Great, scored a touchdown and kick the extra point.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Well, he was a real renaissance man of the gridiron, that is for sure.

Well, yeah, he is definitely on our list of 12, I would say being the hall of Famer.

And I think next.

Well, I'll let you take us in.

You want to keep going chronologically, go ahead and bring up our next candidate.

Next we would have Mel Hine of the Giants.

Right.

And I think this is one of a personal favorite of yours.

This is one of those ones.

When I said who would like to discuss the number sevens, your hand went up right away.

And I think this might be the gentleman you wanted to talk about.

Well, yep, he's, you know, one of the most legendary Giants.

He played, he held the record up until Eli Manning of the most seasons played as a giant with 15.

And that was, you know, most notable because he was a two way player.

He played offense and defense.

And most people remember or they recognize Milheim as being the greatest center ever, but they don't.

Very few people are aware of how effective of a defensive player he was.

You know, he was a prototype linebacker for the time.

He didn't have a hand down on the ground.

And I'm friends with a gentleman whose father Hat Morin played with Melhein Mike Moran.

He lives here in the same town as me.

And he told me that his father said Mel Hein was an impact player on defense and he could change the course of the game playing defense.

You know, much like Giant fans of my era, the 80s remember Lawrence Taylor taking over a game on defense.

He said Mel Hein could do the same thing in a game in the 30s and the 40s.

Well, that's impressive.

Yeah.

And through my research and reading Game summaries and newspapers.

You know, he could.

He's one of the few players who could tackle Bronco Nagursky, the Bears, who was this big, hulking fullback who, when he played defense, played defensive tackle.

That tells me how big he was.

You know, no hind could could tackle him one on one, but he would also.

Hein had the speed and the agility, the athletic ability to cover the best receiver of his era, Don Hudson on the outside, you know, Steve Owen and the Giants.

You know, Steve Owen, the head coach, the defensive genius who later invented the umbrella defense.

The Giants had a lot of pretty good success against Don Hudson, keeping his receiving statistics down.

And a lot of that was he would have Mel Hyne cover him, you know, through the first half of his route, you know, coming off the line through the middle of the defense, and then he would pass them off to the safety almost in a sort of an early concept of what a zone defense would end up being.

You know, that.

That's amazing to sit there and think about it.

Okay, so you have a man that played center on offense, offensive lineman, defensive lineman, covering the top wide receiver in the NFL at the time, you know, on all the under coverage.

That's amazing.

And then dropping the peds to take on Bronco Nagursky.

Right, right.

Wow, that's pretty rare ability.

And, you know, unfortunately, you know, a couple years ago, the Giants had me down to their facility for some interviews and, you know, we were talking.

I was talking to the producer and the director, telling him how I would love to do some players like Melheim and Tuffy Lehman's and, you know, because the show, this doesn't really go back further than the 50s.

And they said, you know, the problem is footage.

We don't have enough footage on these guys.

It's hard to put, you know, it's fine like, you know, the way we're doing it on a podcast, but when people are watching television, they want to see highlights, right?

You need the visual.

Yeah, there's very few.

There's just some newsreel footage of, you know, just little short clips.

And I guess that's why guys like George Hallis and Mel Hein aren't as remembered because, you know, there's not that much that you get to see on NFL film highlights of them as a player.

You know, everybody remembers George Hallis as a coach, you know, wearing the fedora and the trench coat and, you know, there's not enough footage of them as players.

And to find out about them, you have to go through the old Newspapers, game summaries and maybe you can find a photo here and there.

That's very true.

One thing that's impressive that the NFL does recognize Hind for he made the 50th, the 75th and the 100th anniversary all time teams.

I mean that's quite a feat right there.

To go back 100 years and you're still on the all time team.

Very substantial player.

Yeah.

And in my research I also learned that later on Melheim was a coach at USC and he was on the same staff with Al Davis and he became good friends with Al Davis.

And when Al Davis in the 60s took over the Raiders, his center was Jim Otto, you know, the all AFL center, right.

He's showing him film from a player a generation before him.

That's quite the role model to have, I'll tell you.

So just last year, my friend of mine, another friend of mine, John Birdie, he contributes the Giants all time roster for their media guide.

And it was last April or May, he sent me an email when he was going through his data and he was comparing it against the NFL encyclopedia.

He came up short three games.

You know, one of Mel Hines claim to fame on the Giants website, in the media guide on the Pro football Hall of Fame website.

You know Mel Hyde played every game.

He never missed a game in his 15 years.

So we said Larry, you know, I need your help.

I only have Hine playing 12.

I only have him playing 11.

How could this be?

You know, my whole life, you know, Mel Hind played every game.

He was a 60 minute guy, never missed a game, right?

I figured I would work backward and I was in November and I started seeing these clips.

They were AP clips that would be sent around the country.

And it said melhein, center of the New York Giants has missed only one game in six years.

I'm like, okay, so I never ever, ever heard this before.

But here it is in multiple newspapers in November.

So I did my due diligence.

I finished out the game programs, the box scores, all the summaries for 36.

He did play every game.

It's a very, very physical game.

The Giants ended up winning 3 to 0.

But there was a report in the newspaper in the middle of the week that Melheim came out of that game a little banged up.

You know, they didn't have injury reports, you know, probable questionable.

There was no specific mention of an energy.

They just said he was banged up and he wasn't practicing.

So on the next week, it was Sunday, the 26th, they were playing the packers at the Polo Grounds.

And it's fortunate that the game was in New York, because I have multiple newspapers that I can cross reference with the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Herald Tribune, and in this case, I also used one of the Brooklyn newspapers, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Because depending on the reporter and who was at the game, some guys, you know, they always list the starting lineup.

Some would just take the 11 that they had listed out of the program.

Some guys would take who was actually on the field for the first snap of the game, which was fortunate.

So I could cross reference them, because in this case, two guys used the program.

They had Hein in there, but then the other two had the Giants other center.

And I'm like, oh, no, what happened?

And I went through the substitutions.

And Mel Hine sat the first half of this game against Green Bay, but he did enter in the third quarter.

He played the second half, so he didn't have a start, but he had the game played.

Ah, wow, that's some great due diligence there.

And then the Giants next game being Thanksgiving, it was on Thursday.

It was a short week.

They played the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn on the 30th.

And being a short week, Hine couldn't go.

He ended up not playing.

And again, it was.

I had to check multiple box scores, scores.

Hind didn't start, and he never entered the game.

He wasn't listed in the substitutions.

His next game played was December 12th.

I'm sorry, December 3rd, they played the Pittsburgh Pirates at home at the Polo Grounds.

And then Hine came back, finished out the season, played the championship game.

So that was his one game missed.

So when I got back in touch with my friend John, I said, all right, here's what I got.

We had to let people know.

So he had to let the Giants know.

And The Giants.

You know, I checked the hall of Fame website this morning.

They still haven't updated it.

They still have him never missing a game.

But the Giants corrected their media guide.

They have hide in a couple of places.

They have his hall of Fame bio, and they note that he did miss the one game.

But because of that odd discrepancy in the Pro Football encyclopedia, even though we had him missing a game, we increased his games played total by two because they had it at 170.

We actually increased him to 172 games played out of 173.

They were actually shorting him three games.

We found he missed one, but we increased his overall total by two.

But I think he definitely deserves an asterisk by his name for that one game missed being on a short week of Thanksgiving.

Hey, Thursday football.

It's always.

It's never been a good idea.

Yeah, we don't like it now.

They didn't like it then, that's for sure.

It wasn't uncommon for teams to play three games in seven days.

The Giants played on Thanksgiving, but then they played three days later on Sunday.

It's not like you play on Thursday and then you get.

It's like 10 days off.

You just play three games in seven days or three games in eight days and you play both ways.

You play defense, you play offense.

No Sundays off.

That's incredible.

Well, definitely Milheim is on our list there.

That's definitely great research on your part.

How about we talk about Mr.

Bob Waterfield next?

He's also in the hall of Fame.

What do you have on Bob?

He played for the Cleveland and the Los Angeles Rams hall of Fame.

The Rams have his number seven retired.

They beat the Redskins that year on a frozen field.

They average just short of 39 points a game.

Wow.

Think of modern football with all the rules that favor offense and passing the ball.

Here he was about splitting time with Norm Van Brocklin.

Yeah, that's for sure.

And to boot, he was married to Jane Russell for a while.

That's right.

It's a good move for him going from Cleveland to Los Angeles, wasn't it?

Right.

Yeah.

Ms.

Russell probably wouldn't want to live in the cold of the.

No, I know.

Midwest of Cleveland.

The weather's much nicer there in Hollywood.

I agree.

Well, I say definitely Bob Waterfield on the list.

Great, great athlete in the NFL.

Who do we have next up on our hall of Famers?

For number seven, we have Dutch Clark.

Oh, yes.

Of the Portsmouth Spartans.

And then later the Detroit Lions.

One of the.

He might be the last true triple threat player.

He could run, he could pass, and he could drop kick.

Very like George Hallis.

Although he kicked a lot more extra points than George Hallis did.

I think Dutch Clark led the NFL.

I think two.

I know he led the NFL in touchdown scored three times.

And he led the league in extra points three times as well.

And he led the league in field goals once, too.

And he did it drop kicking.

You know, by that point, the NFL started using the modern, more streamlined ball for passing.

So still for, you know, three, four or five seasons, he was still drop kicking.

It was fatter and you could drop it and boot it with a lot more accuracy.

But the old melon ball, they called it.

I think Halas called it a pumpkin.

A pumpkin, yeah.

They streamlined that to make it a little less girth so a quarterback could get his fingers around the ball, get a little bit better spiral.

So good move on the NFL's part.

Yeah.

I'm just.

I'm just punching up that box score real quick just to make sure my memory isn't too fuzzy.

Yeah, he was part of that.

As a first postseason game in NFL history, decided to, because Portsmouth, actually, back then, they had the NFL.

The team with the best record was declared the champion.

Portsmouth was percentage points ahead of Chicago.

Mr.

Hallis decided, hey, we can't have that.

He challenged Portsmouth to a championship game which ended up being played and Chicago ended up winning.

But yeah, Dutch Clark playing in that game.

Right.

They had a lot of that to change a lot of rules to fit them into Chicago Stadium.

Well, actually, you know what?

Gutsch was not able to play in that championship game.

I recollect because he was the head basketball coach of Colorado College and his hoops team, which was his regular job, had a game at December 18th.

He couldn't get off work to make for the very first NFL championship game.

He was probably making more money coaching college basketball than playing professional football.

Absolutely, absolutely changed.

That's right.

That's amazing.

Definitely Dutch Clark on our list of some of the most substantial number sevens in NFL history.

Who do you have up next for our number sevens of all time?

Clarence Ace Parker of the Brooklyn Dodgers and also the Boston Yanks and the New York Yankees of the All America Conference.

Which is a little bit of a story in and of itself because that's still all one franchise.

Right.

He was a leader, he was a passer, he was a rusher, he played strong defense and he led.

They were contenders for the East.

They finished second both years and you know, Parker was the guy on the team and they were actually during those couple of years were actually up considered in the New York area on the same plateau as the Giants who were always, you know, the kings of football in New York.

Right.

And he was another triple threat player back then.

He was two way player, great, great ball player.

He was, he was probably the best player in New York at the time, you know, other than Mel Hine.

But you know, Melhein was the center, he was, you know, Parker was the ball handler.

So Parker was the quarterback for the Boston Yanks for one season.

It was planned to just be a one year merger like the Pitt Filled Steagalls and card Pittsburgh hit.

But the All America Conference was being formed and the owner of the Tigers decided he wanted to jump leagues and get involved with the All America Conference.

And the Yankees actually had a very good season.

They won the east and they, they played the Cleveland Browns in the first All America Conference championship game.

Yeah, I've read an interesting story on that.

Why they end up changing from the NFL to the afc.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but according to what I read, the Maras were upset because the Yankees wanted to play in just across the river in the stadium.

The Giants, that's part of their territory.

You can't do that, you know, go back out to Brooklyn and play.

You know, you're too close to our fan base.

And.

Right.

The gentleman, I forget his name, who owned the Yankees at the time, decided, hey, well, forget it.

We're going to join this other league so we can, you know, get in.

The city and an entry fee, which, you know, that, you know, this is.

I don't want to get too much off topic, but that was a very, very, very expensive competition that, you know, the All America Conference and the NFL had against each other.

Competing for players salaries went way, way up.

And this is right after the war and you know, Yankee Stadium was walking distance from the polo ground.

You just walk right over the bridge across the Harlem river and you know, sometimes the two teams will be playing at the same time and they're, you know, competing.

You know, so the Giants attendance goes down because some players go across the river to watch Ace Parker with the Yankees.

By jumping leaf, they don't have to pay an entry fee to the Giants because they're competing with the NFL.

And it was.

I can't remember, I can't remember the Brooklyn owner's name, but he had a very famous quote that I found in several of the newspapers where he claimed the NFL as being a racket by the Big Four, meaning the Giants, the Redskins, the Bears and the Packers.

He said, the whole system is rigged.

Nobody else gets a chance.

And that's part of what had Commissioner Burt Bell.

That was what his.

He used this as evidence of why to start the NFL draft, which we know is probably one of the greatest things ever happened to the NFL.

So, wow, great, great stories on Ace Parker, too.

Definitely, definitely making our list here of our greatest number sevens.

Who do we have Next on our.

List we have our second number seven from the Bears, Ed Sprinkle.

Oh yes, he was a member of the true monsters of the midway.

He was, you know, he had the nickname, the meanest man in pro football.

So he put the monster in the Bears.

Wow.

Definitely, definitely a great player there too.

I had, he had four interceptions in his career.

He had 32 career linemen, right.

32 career passes caught for 451 yards and seven touchdowns.

Truly amazing.

Oh boy.

Okay, well, I guess that's it for our older era.

Players that were the number seven that made the hall of Fame.

But we have a couple more contemporary players that many of those listening probably got an opportunity to at least watch play on television show.

Martin Anderson and John Elway, number sevens.

Two more in the hall of Fame.

I think I mentioned last time when we were talking about number one, my, my affinity for left footed kickers.

Yeah, that's incredible.

And he's one of the very few players who's on more than one all decade team.

So not only was he playing for a long time, he was obviously a very, very effective player for 25 years.

Truly a great career.

Yeah.

And I know for the longest time, you know, again last time when we were talking, we're talking about, you know, kickers and how records, you know, the accuracy just keeps going up and up and up and guys make 50 yarders, no problem.

And he, I know he held the record for a very long time for field goal percentage.

You know, it's since been passed by more recent players, but he held that record for a very, very long time.

You're absolutely right.

He did it with his left foot.

He did it with his left foot.

Putting a different spin on the ball.

Yes, he was one season for the Giants.

He was.

The bulk of his career was the Saints.

He started with the Saints and he played a long time for the Falcon and then he bounced around a bit his last couple of years.

Definitely a great player.

Definitely deserving of being in the hall of Fame.

And on our list of the greatest number sevens to play the game.

Okay, now we get to sort of one that everybody knows, Mr.

John Elway.

What do you think about Elway?

I think he is, no question, one of the most unique players I've ever seen play the quarterback position.

I'm like, oh, we got to play him again.

Because the Giants played the Broncos in the regular season in Giants Stadium and that was a really, really tough game.

The Giants were, you know, that game was in question all the way till the end.

They had a last minute drive to kick a field goal to win.

Elway, he had this.

He could for a big man and he could move and he could throw the ball farther than anyone I've ever seen on the probably even including up till today, you know, he could run to the left sideline and throw a ball 50 yards downfield diagonally toward the right sideline and hit a guy between the numbers.

Yeah, I just watched a program the other night.

Peyton Manning has a program on ESPN plus called Peyton's Places and he had John Elway on just a few weeks ago.

And John Elway was Peyton Manning's boss for a few years when he was with Denver.

But they showed the replay of that famous pass and I forget who his wide receiver was, that the slant route that he found open in the end zone when the linebacker pulled off on his back.

But he, Elway threw that off balance and sidearmed and threw a powerful ball into for that strike for the touchdown.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember seeing him running and making those plays in that muddy jersey.

I mean, and he was tough.

He was physically tough.

A lot of hits and yeah, it was Mark Jackson that he's correct.

That's right.

Yeah.

They also talked about the infamous Elway cross.

And I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.

Yeah, John Madden used to talk about that, you know, in practice he would throw the ball so hard to receivers that, you know, the point on the ball would get embedded in the player's chest.

Matter of fact, Manning, just to show that Elway still had the arm strength here, you know, these many years later after his playing days are over, they had a gelatin like ballistic dummy set up and they had Elway throw a ball at him, you know, and the Elway cross was showing up on the gelatin, man, still to this day with Elway's arm strength.

So great ball player, great baseball player too.

He could have had a great baseball career.

He had the mechanics, you know, he threw the ball with his whole body.

He had, you know, he had those big legs.

And his body mechanics, he would just get his whole body behind the throw.

And I'm sure some of that came from his training of being on the pitchers, man.

It's interesting you say that because Elway, in that Peyton Manning episode, talked about when he was starting high school playing football, he played running back when he was younger in Little Gritters, and he's going to his first high school practice.

His father, who was a coach, I believe at the time, was driving him to practice and asked John what, what position he's going to go out for.

John GOES out, I'm going to be running back, of course, you know, that's, that's a position I've been playing.

And he said his dad pulled the car over and 15 minutes later he got out of the car and said, hey, Coach, I want to be quarterback.

You can't waste that arm talent running the ball.

Right.

You got to deliver it.

And they should.

They showed footage of him in high school, you know, so this is, you know, late 70s, he's playing a spread formation and he's probably eight, nine yards back in the shotgun formation, almost the position of a punter playing the spread formation football in high school, which the NFL hadn't even really adopted yet, that was pretty rare.

You know, I remember the Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills, they were the few teams that used the shotgun.

Everybody was under center at that time.

Right, Okay.

I think we covered all seven of our hall of Famers that were the number seven now.

So now we want to try to get to that dozen.

So we have to come up with five other names and we have quite an array of folks to choose from.

One that I want to bring up because he's from my team and currently still playing.

Of course, we don't know about next year, but Ben Roethlisberger wearing number seven.

Speaking of big quarterback.

Yes, yes.

Big Ben.

What do you have on Big Ben, if anything?

Big.

Yeah, well, I have a lot.

Big Ben, he's actually one of the few players on this list that I've actually seen play in person.

And of course Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger came out of that very famous.

Quarterback class that year along with Philip Rivers.

That year and Philip Rivers.

Right.

And Big Ben is still going at it.

Philip Rivers just played his last game and you know, like you mentioned, you know, Ben, we're not sure yet, but he's, you know, he's led the, you know, still playing quality football.

He had a big year last year and Steelers won a lot of games and he's led the NFL in passing yards twice and he's been in three Super Bowls and he came away the winner twice.

And that's not a bad resume for someone who you and I, I think probably both agree, will end up in the hall of Fame one day.

I believe he will.

I always like to look at that.

Touchdowns, interceptions on quarterbacks.

And so far in his career, three 396 TDs, 200 interceptions.

So almost a 2 to 1 touchdown interception, which is pretty good for quarterback.

And he's thrown for just over 60,000 yards, which is another pretty dynamic statistic to look at.

And who knows, he's probably not done.

All the categories, completions, yards, touchdowns, played in a bunch of playoff games.

But at the time he won his first four consecutive starts as a rookie quarterback.

They finished 15 and 1.

And Roethlisberger, how many games was it 13 in a row or.

I think he won all 15, 14 because the game that he lost was the game he came in.

He came in against the Ravens.

He was, he didn't start that game and I believe it was Tommy Maddox.

And that was their one loss during the season.

They were one and one.

So he won four.

So the.

He pushed the record from four wins to 14.

And one or two playoffs.

Good luck for the next rookie to break to win 15 in a row.

End up you kind of one or two playoff games that they won because they end up losing the AFC championship game to New England that year and a young Tom Brady.

Right.

They beat the jets, so.

So he did get 15 in a row, but they only count, you know, it's 14 in a row in the regular season.

Right.

That's not too bad for a rookie.

No, not too bad at all.

Not too bad.

And if it is, you know, we don't know.

But if this past season was Roethlisberger's last season in the NFL or last with the Steelers, I mean they lost a bad heartbreaker to Cleveland sort of a game got away from him real early, but he threw for over 500 yards.

At 38 years old, that's still a pretty impressive number to bring them back.

On that shoulder after the game.

He probably still has it on.

Right.

A month or so later.

Okay, we.

There are a lot of other real good quarterbacks that are on this list and I'm not sure if you have any in particular you want to bring up or you want me to mention one.

I have one guy who's really interesting.

He had a very unusual career arc is Joe Theisman.

Oh, yes.

He's a big time quarterback for the Washington Redskins in the late 70s and the early 80s.

And they are actually on that list of highest scoring teams ever.

For a while they came just a little bit short.

I think it was almost.

I think it was 34.

Yeah, it was 33.8 points per game.

They were coming off the Super Bowl.

They had a great year that year and they were actually favored to beat the Raiders in the super bowl, but didn't quite work out that way.

But The Redskins were 142 and they were just demolishing teams and they beat the Rams in the divisional playoff 51, 7.

And then they played, you know, a classic game against the 49ers in RFK Stadium in the NFL championship game.

But before Theisman became the quarterback, you know, he played at Notre Dame.

And he wasn't drafted in the NFL.

He ended up playing a couple of years in Canada in the CFL and including returning punts.

He was just such a competitor and he wanted to get on the field and he was just, he was willing to do anything.

He played three years in Canada.

He was a punt returner.

And then he joined Washington in 74.

And he was the backup for a number of years before he, he took over.

And, you know, you could see some of that skill that he had.

You know, he was a running quarterback.

He could.

He wasn't as big as guys like Elway and Roethlisberg, he was, but he would run and he played with a single bar face mask and he wasn't shy about, you know, dropping his shoulder and fighting for extra yards as a runner.

And he could throw the ball well.

And he was, you know, one of the guys that I watched, you know, growing up.

He was in the NFC East.

I got watched him twice a week, twice a year against the Giants.

And he was playing great games against the Cowboys and got to a couple of Super Bowls, played in Pro Bowls.

Yeah, probably one of the games against the Giants he regrets because it sort of ended his.

His careers when Lawrence Taylor hit him on that vicious sack.

And probably one of the most horrific plays that anybody could ever watch in football with his leg going a couple different ways like a warrior.

He was like one of the Roman gladiators.

You know, they carried him off the battlefield on his shield and.

Yeah, that was.

I remember watching that.

That was a tough one.

I think that was a Monday night game too.

I believe it was.

Yeah, it was a Monday night.

Yeah.

Oh, that was a horrific injury.

All right.

He's definitely under consideration.

I have another person that you probably watched from the 70s that was in the AFC East.

Ron Jaworski were number seven.

Unlike Joe Theisman, Ron Jaworski was not known as a runner.

No, no, he was a classic drop back, throw the ball from the.

Throw the ball from the pocket.

But he was a very, very intelligent player.

He was a guy who could read a defense and he would, you know, go through his progressions and he would deliver the ball in the right place at the right time to the right guy.

And he was a tremendous leader.

And, you know, the Eagles had struggled through much of the 70s, and it was, you know, in the later 70s when Dick Vermeil took over.

Yeah, I think the Raiders like playing.

The way of beating the NFC east teams in the Super Bowl.

I was going to say that the.

You know, the Eagles, they were 12 and four.

I remember they had a big, big win against the Cowboys at the Vet in the NFC Championship game.

It was freezing cold and the Eagles wore white jerseys to force the Cowboys to wear blue.

And you know, they had a big game and they went to the super bowl with a lot of momentum.

But you know, that didn't take away from Ron Jaworski's year.

There's a lot of parallels between Theisman and Jaworski besides both playing in opposing teams in the NFC EAs.

But again, if I look at that couple different statistics, which this kind of surprised me because I thought them to be pretty, pretty much equal as far as starting quarterbacks.

But Theisman, his touchdowns, he had 160 touchdowns to 138 interceptions.

Jaworski was 179 TDs to 164 interceptions.

I didn't remember Jaworski throwing that many interceptions, but obviously he did.

Well, that was just the style of football at the time.

It was not abnormal for quarterbacks to have higher interception totals.

You know, it was Bill Walsh with his west coast offense with the 49ers that really reduced that intercept.

You know, always have a safety valve, always have a place for the quarterback to deliver the ball when he's in trouble.

You know, the offenses prior to Bill Walsh were more vertical.

You know, throw the ball downfield and you know, coaches would tell their passers, you know, don't be shy about throwing at the coverage.

You know, make the play and you know, if you're going to throw in, make a mistake, make it deep.

You know, a long interception is almost as good as a punt.

So it was just a different mentality.

And a quarterback say throwing 20 touchdowns in a season with 16 or 17 or 18 interceptions wasn't uncommon.

You know, today you'd be horrified, like, oh my God, he's killing my fantasy team.

He's throwing touchdowns.

But look at all these interceptions.

That it was just different back then.

And you know, defenses were at, were able to play against receivers.

You know, you could have the five yard chuck rule, but still you would see guys running downfield with hand checking and contact and quarterbacks were allowed to get drilled in the pocket.

You know, you'd release the ball and a guy could still take a couple of steps and slam you.

And that was just good football.

It was just a different era.

The other things, the other thing that sort of surprised me was, was his overall.

Jaworski's overall record was only four games over 500.

I showed you some of the teams that were struggling of the Eagles in those early 70s, before Vermeil got there.

Yeah, it was.

He was part of the turnaround.

He was part of the turnaround.

He was part of the growing process, definitely.

And you can tell even to this day you see some of Jaworski's film study of current players.

It's just he does a great job of breaking down film that forever.

You know, like Madden.

There's a generation of football fans who knew Madden as the guy with the telestrator broadcasting games.

And there's a generation of fans that know Jaworski as the guy on the, you know, the, on ESPN doing the NFL matchup with the same stuff with the diagrams and breaking down plays in real time for everybody.

You know, that was, he was very, very, very intelligent.

He was an excellent player.

All right.

And I have a few other quarterbacks that I think probably ought to talk about.

Well, we have another one that played in the Super Bowl, Boomer Esiason, and.

I'm not sure played in one of the great super bowls of the 80s.

That was the year that the Bengals had there.

It wasn't a hurry up offense, but it wasn't a no huddle.

But I think he was.

It was before Jim Kelly and the Bills had the K gun because they played the Bills in the playoffs and that's what gave Marv Levy that idea.

But they were, you know, rushed up to the line, call the play at the line, you know, Boomer Siasson, another intelligent player who could read the defense pre snap and then after the snap, he would go through his progressions and deliver the ball to the right guy at the right time and they darn near won that Super Bowl.

But you know, I'm sure when you get to number 16 in a week or two, you'll be talking about Joe Montana, but that's a whole other story.

Right, right.

They were a very, very prolific, prolific offense, the Bengals under Esiason.

But here's here's his stats.

247 touchdowns, 184 interceptions.

Not a bad ratio there.

But his win loss as a starter, 80 and 93 under, under 500 and it sort of shows.

Well later in his career he had a couple of rough seasons with the jets and then he went to the Cardinals.

I'm sure his.

I'll bet his record with Cincinnati is.

Above 501 game over.562 and 61 with the Bengals, 15 and 27 with the jets and 3 and 5 with the Cardinals.

Yeah.

But again an interesting one to talk about because you did take a team to a Super Bowl.

Yes.

Now I have quarterback that I really enjoyed watching when I was younger in the 70s and that's Burt Jones, played for the the Colts.

I thought he was an interesting quarterback to watch and that sort of in that post unitis era of the Baltimore Colts, they're looking for Mower.

He was a great quarterback and you know, a lot of arm talent.

He was a, you know, great thrower of the football with mechanics and he had a strong arm and he was accurate.

You know, unfortunately his career was shortened by injury.

Yes.

When he played the Rams, I believe.

Yeah.

He played his last season with the Rams, nine with the Baltimore Colts and one with the Rams.

124 touchdowns in his career, 101 interceptions.

Had an overall record of 47 and 49 with the Colts he was dead even.

46 and 46.

Yeah, they had.

He had a lot of good teams in Baltimore but then toward the end there in the early 80s they were declining and they wanted to get younger when they sent him to Los Angeles and then he had his injury that unfortunately ended his career.

Yeah.

And he was a first team all pro and MVP of the NFL.

I show too.

I'm not sure.

Possibly.

So a very interesting player, number seven for the Baltimore Colts.

Another interesting quarterback I have on this list is Mr.

Randall Cunningham of the Eagles.

Another Eagles quarterback that wore seven.

Hey, didn't we talk about him?

He also wore number one.

I think you're right.

Yeah, we did.

Your last time you were on a.

Couple of different teams, a couple of different numbers.

So he's going to show up a lot.

Right.

And probably his best Number is number 12.

He wore seven with the Vikings.

Am I correct?

Yep.

Three.

Three seasons with the Vikings and one with Dallas.

He wore number seven.

Yeah.

And he was with Minnesota throwing the ball to Randy Moss's rookie season.

Yes.

He was high arcing passes to that Tall, skinny leg receiver down field, Randy.

That is definitely right.

But yeah, he was probably his better years were wearing the number 12 with the Eagles.

Except for, you know, like I said, those Vikings years.

He did have some good years there too, but definitely somebody to put a name in there to talk about.

Another name that I had is we have Ken O' Brien wore the number seven for about nine, 10 seasons with the Jets, I believe.

You know, he had some very famous quarterback duels with Dan Marino.

I think both quarterbacks threw for over 500 yards that day.

The jets won an overtime.

It was something like 51 to 45.

But anytime, you know, in the middle 80s when the jets and the Dolphins were playing, you knew there was going to be balls in the air and a lot of points on the scoreboard.

Oh, you know, and something I failed to mention with Cunningham, he had, I mean I thought this was a Pretty great stat.

207 touchdowns, 134 interceptions.

So he took care of the ball better than I remembered him doing.

Plus all the yardage he gained on the ground with his legs, you know, phenomenal.

And O' Brien ended up having 128 touchdowns in his 10 year career and 98 interceptions for that.

So definitely some names to consider there.

And let's see Michael Vick wearing the number seven.

Probably his best years were Atlanta and with the Eagles and he wore the number seven with both those teams and.

He had a thousand yard rushing season.

Yes, yes he did.

Are they probably the only quarterback in the modern era, you know, first guy since like, you know, the ninth?

Definitely is.

And for his stats, he had 133 career touchdowns, 88 interceptions, a record of 61 and 51.

So definitely a much better record than I remember.

I guess his sort of tainted after his years absent from the league for some things we won't mention because we're positive football here.

We don't want to talk about that.

But he came back, wasn't quite the player he was before that.

That run in.

He had.

The other, the other player I had that I think that you'd like to talk about is Elmer Angsman.

All right.

Going way back.

Yes.

Chicago Cardinals.

So he probably has one of the most eye catching box scores for a championship game in history.

They beat the Eagles 28 21.

Engsman had two 70 yard rushing touchdowns in that game, including one in the fourth quarter that proved to be the game winner.

But for the game, Engeman had 10 carries for 159 yards.

Wow.

Two touchdowns including the game winner.

So that's a big game performance right there.

16 yards to carry and two touchdowns.

Absolutely.

A couple other more modern day quarterbacks.

Well, this one's another one from the 70s.

Dan Pastorini wore number seven with the Oilers and with.

He was.

He had a year in Oakland where He wore number seven.

That's the majority of his career.

10 of his 12 years were number seven.

He ended up having his touchdown to interception ratio not that great.

103 touchdowns, 161 interceptions.

So didn't really care for the ball.

Right.

Of course, when you have Earl Campbell.

Yeah, Earl Campbell standing behind you certainly takes some pressure off your statistics too.

Yeah, yeah.

Well he played a lot of years before Earl Campbell was on the team.

But I'm sure Earl made his job a lot easier once he arrived.

Most definitely.

Most definitely.

Another one I have is Doug Fluti who's sort of an interesting.

Didn't wear number seven long.

He wore with the Buffalo Bills and with the San Diego Chargers and another.

Guy who actually he had big years.

In the middle of his career he left the NFL for Canada and he's, he's in the Canadian Football hall of Fame and I believe he's pretty universally regarded as the best player in CFL history.

Really?

Over Warren Moon?

I think so.

Yes, I think so.

I saw an NFL films feature on Flutie a few years ago and they had a lot of guys from Canada, general managers and players and coaches and I think north of the border in Canada.

There's a lot of regard for Doug Flutie.

They like him up there.

The cfl.

Well, we had a friend of mine, Oz Davis, on discussing the number twos and Flutie also wore the number two on his jersey.

And Oz is really enjoys the CFL game, knows very knowledgeable about CFL and he talked quite a bit about that too with Luti and the CFL career and his NFL career and he ended up making our top five list for the number two players.

So yeah, very, very interesting player there.

I have one other one that I wanted to mention, actually two other ones.

We have Colin Kaepernick who played in the super bowl that wore the number seven.

An interesting and controversial figure.

Yeah, another running quarterback.

Yes, yes.

Used his legs well.

Was really when he played for San Francisco was just a real threat.

You know, you didn't know what to do if you were a defender.

You know, you didn't want to leave him because he was pretty good with his arm too.

That there's a couple seasons he had that were really outstanding.

And another one is Craig Morton who is a longtime player in the NFL.

Didn't wear seven for very long.

Most of the time he was a 14.

But with Denver, when he probably had some of his greatest seasons near the end of his career, he was a number seven for Denver before he made.

A Super bowl in that number seven.

Because he was.

Spent two years with the Giants.

No, three years with the Giants.

He wore 15.

He was 15.

He came from Dallas and then the Giants traded him to Denver and then he went on to a Super Bowl.

Yes, he did.

He had a great, great regular season.

But like some of our other number sevens had a.

Had a rough game in the Super Bowl.

You know, the Dallas had the doomsday defense going and they ended up with two defensive linemen were CO MVPs for the game because they were playing a game of let's meet at the quarterback.

It's never a good day for a quarterback when they're playing that game, that's for sure.

No, it was Randy White and Harvey Martin, if I remember correctly.

They were kind of meeting.

Right.

You're right.

Well, okay.

I think we have a pretty good collection of.

I mean we already said we're going to put the seven hall of Famers in.

Now just to review that, we have Morton Anderson, Dutch Clark, Elway, George Hallis, Mel Hein, Ace Parker, Ed Sprinkle and Bob Waterfield.

Seven hall of Famers.

We have those seven locked up into our dozen greatest players of wearing the number seven.

NFL history.

Now we have all these other ones, a lot of them quarterbacks to decide.

If we can come to some agreement who those other five names should be.

Who would you think on your list?

I mean, I've got a list of five that I'd want.

I can go first if you want.

Sure.

Okay.

I'm gonna say Ben Roethlisberger, not only because he plays for my team But I think he's going to be probably a first ballot hall of Famer when his name comes up after he retires.

No question.

And I'm gonna.

The other ones are going to be a little controversial and debatable.

I'm going to say Michael Vick is a number seven should be on the list because I think early in his career his stats should show that he was a truly great, substantial player.

I'm going to say Boomer Siason, Ron Jaworski and Randall Cunningham.

That rounds out my five.

That I think.

Yeah, I like that five.

I think, you know, I'm an NFC east guy.

I definitely got to go for Theisman.

I like his style of play.

I like that he played a few years in the cfl, returning punts, came to the NFL, you know, as a quarterback and he was multi dimensional.

He could run, but he could throw.

He made it to two Super Bowls.

He won one of them.

So, you know, I'm going to put a vote in there for Joe Theisman.

Okay, well, I can't debate that.

Who do you think we should take off that between Roethlisberger, Vic Esiason, Jaworski and Cunningham?

Who would you take off that list to put Theisman in there?

I guess either Vick or Esiason.

That's who I'm thinking.

Also one of those, you know, Esiason, he did have a couple of very, very high peak years, but you know, those few.

Not that his fault the jets weren't a good team when he went there or the Cardinals, but you know, his overall career losing record.

But still, you know, he was part of an innovative offense there with Sam Weiss in Cincinnati.

Michael Vick, I think of him more as a runner than a passer.

I'm one of those two guys.

Okay.

I mean, I guess you could go either way with that.

I'm going to say probably, you know, I think you convinced me.

I'm thinking I'm going to take Michael Vick off and put Theisman in there.

But I think Vic is like a 12A if we're talking to top 12 on there.

So he talked me into it.

I agree with you.

I think Theisman ought to be on that list.

So hey, just again, just a review.

We have Morton Anderson, Dutch Clark, John Elway, George Hallis, Mel Hein, Ace Parker, Ed Sprinkle, Bob Waterfield, Ben Roethlisberger, Boomer Siason, Ron Jaworski, Randall Cunningham and Joe Theisman as our top 12 number sevens ever to win the game.

That's the list that Larry Schmidt and I have come up with for this pigskin dispatch football by numbers.

And Larry, we really appreciate your time and coming on again to talk with us.

Before we let you go, do you have anything coming up that you want to talk about, any projects you have with the Big Blue Interactive or with the Gridiron Uniform database that you got coming up that our listeners could take a look at?

Bill and I are.

We're always busy behind the scenes doing lots of research for the Gridiron Uniform database.

We spent the last few days, he and I.

There's going to be a little bit of a makeover that might be a little, might be a little surprising.

You're going to see the Bears come up with a change.

He and I have been working on that and I'm just, you know, I'm working on my book.

Slowly but Surely.

That's right.

That's right.

All right.

Well, it's going to take me a long time.

It's going to take a couple of years.

Well, I'll tell you what.

If you, if you or Bill make sure you drop me a line when you put out your announcement on your findings, I'll be sure to share on the podcast and on pigskindispatch.com website so that folks can be steered your way to take a look at that Gridiron Uniform Database website to see what the surprise is.

I'm anxious.

I'll let you know.

It should be, I think.

All right.

Well, Larry Schmidt, thank you once again for joining us.

We really appreciate your time and for all the great research and history that you brought to us here on the podcast.

My pleasure.

Thanks for having me on.

It's always lots of fun.

It definitely is.

Thanks, Larry.

Well, we have great thanks to offer to Larry Schmidt for once again joining us on a great discussion on the number 7 jerseys.

Hope you enjoyed that and hopefully we'll have Larry on again.

But we have some other great guests coming on to discuss football by numbers.

Coming up for the number 10s and 11s, we have Warren Rogan of the Sports Forgotten Heroes podcast you can find on the Sports History Network.

Very interesting guy he is, and great historian of sports.

I think you'll really enjoy the number 10s and 11s with him.

And for the number 12s.

We have another great Sports History Network podcaster, and that's Dana Auguster of the Historically Speaking Podcast.

And Dana brings some great, great insight to the great legends that Wore the number 12 jersey, and I think you'll enjoy that too.

And like I said, we have a lot of things coming up in the near future and I think you'll enjoy.

And don't forget, February 25th we have our great interview with Upton Bell, the son of Burt Bell, the former commissioner of the NFL.

And Upton has a great football resume to himself too, in the NFL, as well as his grandfather.

This family's been around four football for ages and I don't want to spoil anything for you, but I'm just telling you what you don't want to miss it.

February 25th, it's his father Burt Bell's birthday and what a better way to do it than to celebrate with his son Upton, who has some great cherished moments to share with you about football history.

So we'll wait till February 25 to have that one.

But we have plenty of podcasts in between, so make sure you join us tomorrow.

Hit that subscribe button, hit us up on Pixiandispatch.com podcast or see us on sportshistorynetwork.com where you can see other great sports podcasts too.

On your sports history sportshistorynetwork.com so till tomorrow, everybody have a great gridiron day.

Peeking up at the clock, the time's running down.

We're gonna go into victory formation, take a knee and let this baby run out.

Thanks for joining us.

We'll see you back tomorrow for the next podcast.

We invite you to check out our website pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well.

As our own football comic strip cleat marks comics.

Pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and don't forget the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talented of Mike and Gene Monroe as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of Sports History.

Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.