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Best Players Never to Play in a Super Bowl

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  • Bob806B Bob806 wrote on
    #4

    Why doesn't Hanford Dixon get any love? The guy was awesome, a true shut-down corner for many years. His last season here was bad, I know, but I think he's HOF worthy. Just imagine if we ever had a pass rush during the Dixon-Minnifield years (oh that's right, we played a 3/4 then too 😠 ).

    Karlis Missed
  • R roach wrote on
    #5

    Who is Tony Richardson?

    BTW, Sonny Jurgenson belongs on that list. His team made it, but i don't think Sonny played.

    The Metcalf inclusion is a joke.

  • ballpeenB ballpeen wrote on
    #6

    I agree Roach....he didn't retire until after the Super came to being.

    Wasn't Richardson a FB with the Chiefs or Broncos?? One of those blocking guys

    If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
  • nickersN nickers wrote on
    #7

    Zombo said:

    Here's another player you could put on that team. I didn't realize he lived here in my town:

    Super Bowl: Naples resident, former QB Hart impressed with Cardinals' fortitude after years of futility

    By ANGELA BUSCH

    Thursday, January 22, 2009

    NAPLES — Twenty-five years ago, Jim Hart felt discarded, done for.

    He’d been, in his words, “dumped” by the St. Louis Cardinals after four Pro Bowl appearances and back-to-back division crowns in 1974-75.

    At age 39, the Cardinals had given up on the aging quarterback. They wouldn’t win another division title in the next 15 years, moving from St. Louis to Arizona in 1988.

    Then, it was last Sunday — 2009. Hart sat at his home in Naples in front of the TV, surrounded by his family, and everybody held their breath.

    “Bad things always seem to happen to the Cardinals,” Hart said. “Then, they’re playing against the (Philadelphia) Eagles who are formidable.”

    It seemed to be another Cardinals collapse as they blew an 18-point lead to trail by one in the fourth quarter — until 37-year-old Kurt Warner led his team 72 yards down the field with less than three minutes left to earn a 32-25 victory and the Cardinals’ first trip to the Super Bowl.

    Hart thought of his days with the Cardinals, remembered that same owner: Bill Bidwill, telling Hart they weren’t bringing him back, weren’t paying him more.

    Now, Bidwill stood there on that platform, holding that George Halas Trophy over his head, and all Hart felt was pride.

    He picked up the phone and called his former offensive lineman, Dan Dierdorf.

    “Unbelievable,” the two stalwarts of the almost-forgotten St. Louis Cardinals kept repeating to each other.

    Hart then went over to his computer to e-mail more former teammates. His phone was still ringing with messages from friends and players.

    “We were so happy it was almost like you couldn’t say the words,” Hart said. “You almost couldn’t get them out you’re so happy for them. It was like surreal, you know?”

    “It was like it’s not really happening because there has been such futility for all these years. It’s the way the Cardinals have always been. I’ve been a part of it.”

    Hart, the 1974 NFC player of the year who threw 209 touchdown passes and 34,665 yards in his career, is a positive footnote in the long list of Cardinal tribulations. But even Hart felt detached from the franchise as it moved to Arizona.

    Along with most of his former Cardinals teammates, Hart remained in St. Louis until 2002.

    “We were Rams fans because it was our hometown team,” he said.

    Then, in December 2007, 14 years after Hart left the Cardinals, the team held an alumni weekend in Arizona. Hart said about 30 former players showed up, reminisced, and talked about the Cardinals of the past.

    Representatives from the organization told the alumni that they’d hold another alumni weekend in December 2008.

    “Yeah right,” the players muttered to each other.

    Hart checked his mailbox the next fall.

    “Lo and behold, here comes the invitation to come out again,” he said. “We had a great time. They made us feel like we were Cardinals again after all these years.”

    Earlier that year, on Dec. 7, the Cardinals’ new president Michael Bidwill, Bill’s son, had invited Hart and former St. Louis Cardinals safety Larry Wilson to sit in the owner’s box and watch Arizona crush the Rams 34-10 to clinch their first division title since Hart was quarterback in 1975.

    As the seconds ticked down to zero, Michael Bidwill turned to Hart: “I’d like you and (Wilson) to come down on the field with me.”

    The two former Cardinals were introduced around the locker room by Bidwill, who used to be their ball boy in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

    “He didn’t have to do that,” said Hart, who had his past disagreements with Michael’s father, Bill. “It was emotional. It brought a tear to my eye looking around and still seeing some of the people that I knew. I thought, hey these guys are doing something that hasn’t been done before. You want them to do it so badly.”

    http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jan/22...-hart-impresse/

    Jim Hart was a hell of a QB...never got the print like the Tarkentons and Namaths did...but just a terrific passer all the same...

    Nickers...."There are no old running QB's in the NFL "~Sam Rutigliano~
  • ballpeenB ballpeen wrote on
    #8

    He was a excellent qb.

    If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
  • ballpeenB ballpeen wrote on
    #9

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
    nickersN R 2 Replies
  • ballpeenB ballpeen

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    nickersN nickers wrote on
    #10

    @ballpeen said:

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    Leroy Kelly is the reason I became a Brownsfan...I remember seeing him return a kick from our 20 to the opponents 20 and stumbling and bumbling the football all the way there...I thought it was downright amazing that a person could have that much body control...LONG LIVE LeROY!

    Nickers...."There are no old running QB's in the NFL "~Sam Rutigliano~
  • GipsG Gips wrote on
    #11

    Strange they would have metcalf down as a reciever for the browns when he was utililized mostly as a halfback and KR for us he went to atlanta and was ultilized as a full scale reciever and was as awesome as most of us knew he would have been as a full reciever for the browns all along..

    We have been rebuilding since 1964, Why stop now? GO BROWNS!
  • rich4eagleR rich4eagle wrote on
    #12

    roach and ballpeen nailed it with Sonny Jurgensen ........he was one of the best QB's ever...........he lit it up at all times when he played mostly for bad teams............

    Sonny was one of the best QB's ever in the NFL................PERIOD!

    no score was beyond his coming back .......unfortuately he played on teams with non existent D's

    and you betcha Leroy Kelly was one of the best RB's ever...........he came after a legend..........and that hurt his legacy

    Offense Wins.......Franchise QB's are the key.............Defense keeps you in the game.........Go Buckeyes
  • ballpeenB ballpeen

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    R roach wrote on
    #13

    @ballpeen said:

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    You're right. The entire list is way too bizarre. Leroy Kelly was on the 1964 Championship team. Is that why he was not listed? But Hickerson was on that team too. So why is Hickerson listed? If Hickerson is listed because he was pre-Superbowl, then why is Jim Brown left off?

    ballpeenB 1 Reply
  • rich4eagleR rich4eagle wrote on
    #14

    Roach so sad with the passing of the GREAT Dante Lavelli..........I got your signed poster as always on display in my office.............THANK YOU SO much........for sending me that of one of the greatest ever to play the game

    Let's US BROWNS FANS DEDICATE 2009 to Dante Lavelli one of the greatest receivers the game has ever known

    and he made all the world Brownstown...........love yah Dante......and you too Ed

    Offense Wins.......Franchise QB's are the key.............Defense keeps you in the game.........Go Buckeyes
  • R roach

    @ballpeen said:

    I don't know how i didn't think of this earlier....don't think he has been mentioned...

    Leroy Kelly.

    You're right. The entire list is way too bizarre. Leroy Kelly was on the 1964 Championship team. Is that why he was not listed? But Hickerson was on that team too. So why is Hickerson listed? If Hickerson is listed because he was pre-Superbowl, then why is Jim Brown left off?

    ballpeenB ballpeen wrote on
    #15

    @roach said:

    You're right. The entire list is way too bizarre. Leroy Kelly was on the 1964 Championship team. Is that why he was not listed? But Hickerson was on that team too. So why is Hickerson listed? If Hickerson is listed because he was pre-Superbowl, then why is Jim Brown left off?

    I think the list includes players who finished their careers after the SB started....so Kelly and Hickerson retired after 67 where Brown retired before a SB was played.

    If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
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