By the Numbers: Best #80 in NFL History

By the Numbers: Best #80 in NFL History

by | Jun 4, 2013 | 80's, By the Numbers, Hall of Fame

We’re going from a not very impressive list of players who are competing to be the Best #25 in NFL history to one of the most storied numbers in league history.

The #80 rivals the #81 as perhaps the deepest and most competitive jersey digit the league’s teams have ever handed out.

Of course one stands out: Jerry Rice. But with the induction of Cris Carter later this summer, there will be eight players in the Hall of Fame that wore #80 as their primary number, which appears to be the most for a single number.

And there are several more on the list who might eventually find their way to Canton.

The best players in NFL History to wear #80 include: (more…)

By the Numbers: Best #81 in NFL History

By the Numbers: Best #81 in NFL History

by | May 29, 2012 | 80's, By the Numbers, Hall of Fame

We’ve reached the dog days of the NFL–I consider myself a pretty big fan of the NFL, and even I can’t get that jazzed up about OTA’s. And it’s not just because my team went 3-13 last year–seriously, if you get excited about OTA’s, you might need professional counseling. Or you might be a Packer fan.

While there’s some great debate going on in our annual Hall of Fame thread, we’ve decided to fill the dead space with a series of posts that has been kicking around in my head for some time, and recently came back to the front of my brain when I heard a local radio host discussing the uniform number choice of a highly touted rookie (in this case it was hockey, but that doesn’t matter).

A few years back I bought a book that discusses, across all professional sports, who the best players to wear each number was. Of course, some of the numbers skew towards football (50-98, where fewer athletes in other sports wear numbers that high regularly), but I also thought some of the lower numbers tended to focus more on baseball/basketball than I would have expected.

So I figured we would start a series of posts discussing each number in the NFL (randomly) and who wore that number the best in the history of the league (we’ll gladly consider AFL, and even some CFL and USFL where applicable), and allow the fans to vote for who they think was the best.

The first number up is one that has had a significant tradition of star players: #81

(more…)