Has this happened to anyone else? Maybe you went to a ball game and saw a player hit three home runs or saw a running back rush for 150 yards and 2 TDs. You go home marveling at the talent and the spectacle and remember it for years. Then years later you realize that player had their career game the day you were there and never did anything else.
For me it was the Philadelphia Eagles return man Vai Sikahema. Aside from having one of the greatest names of all time, I remember watching an Eagles game on TV when I was pretty young and saw him return a kick for a TD and it was electrifying. I always figured he was a historic return man… until I went to post about him recently on the Dope. I decided I had better double check his stats before talking about him and sure enough he was never anything special. Looking at his career stats, in two seasons with the Eagles he returned exactly one kick for a TD, and I saw it.
So what say you? Been fooled by anyone’s career game?
Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes hit three home runs on the opening day of the 1994 season. The only reason I saw it was because he was playing my beloved Mets. But it was a powerful display and I thought Rhodes would go on to a long and distinguished career as a power hitter.
He ended up finishing the season with 8 home runs.
And he would then go on to play the next 15 seasons in Japan. Where he amassed 452 home runs, which I guess is pretty impressive.
I remember being 8 years old in 1987 and being impressed by the “flashy” win totals that Neal Heaton of the Montreal Expos was accumulating…until a while later I realize he was only 13-10 with a 4.52 ERA…not too bad, I guess for that season, but nothing special, either. I should have been more impressed with Jimmy Key’s 17-8 mark and league leading 2.76 ERA for the Toronto Blue Jays that year.
Well, there have been LOADS of players I’ve seen put up big numbers for a little while, guys I was sure were going to be stars, who never amounted to much.
If we’re sticking to my childhood, the Yankees had guys like Ron Blomberg, Kerry Dineen, Dave Pagan and others, who occasionally LOOKED like budding stars, but who fizzled out after a few years.
But that STILL happens all the time.
When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought you were asking about players you loved as a kid, guys you really believed were great, but who you came to realize later weren’t really very good at all.
Well, as a kid, I love the AFL. My memories were of high scoring shootouts, bombs away passing, and great quarterbacks. But you know, if you lkook at the quarterback ratings of the old AFL quarterbacks, you come to realize a lot of that league’s star quarterbacks really WEREN’T very good! Look at the completion percentages or yards-per-attempt of Daryle Lamonica, Joe Namath and Lenny Dawson, and you realize that those guys would be regarded as TERRIBLE quarterbacks today!
To elaborate a bit on what I said earlier… back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, those of us who liked the AFL thought of the AFL as the exciting, pass-happy league, while the old NFL was a league of boring, grind-it-out, run-oriented offenses. We thought the AFL was the league of glamor QBs and the NFl was the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of dust league.
But were we right? Not necessarily.
Example: in 1966, Joe Namath’s completion percentage was 49.3, he averaged 7.2 yards per pass, and he threw 8 more interceptions than touchdown passes. Namath was the epitome of wild, wide open, pass-happy AFL football. In the AFL, numbers like those made you a superstar! And yet… look at Bart Starr’s numbers in 1966. He averaged 9 yards per pass, completed 62.2% of his passes, and threw 14 touchdown passes with just 3 picks all season.
In other words, the allegedly boring, conservative Bart Starr was a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better passer than Joe Namath! Nor was Bart a rare exception. Look at the 1966 stats, and you’ll find that MOST of the NFL’s quarterbacks put up much better numbers than Joe Namath.
Or look at 1967, the MVP season of my idol, Daryle Lamonica. He completed 51.8% of his passes and averaged 7.6 yards a pass. In the old AFL, numbers like that made you a superstar. And yet… look at an ORDINARY modern quarterback like Trent Green, and you’ll find that’s his career numbers are (AT LEAST) equal to or (often) MUCH better than Lamonica’s numbers were in his best season.
As much fun as the AFL seemed to a kid watching at the time, the numbers indicate that
A sub-par modern NFL quarterback in 2009 is MUCH better than the AFL’s top quarterbacks were, even though he faces infinitely tougher defenses.
The average NFL quarterback of 1966 was much better than the AFL’s top quarterbacks were.
Not really a fair comparison. Namath still hadn’t reached his prime in 1966 and was playing for a lousy team, which meant more bad passes as the team had to play catch-up. Starr also played on a team that concentrated on a short passing game; he rarely threw long, so had fewer interceptions. Indeed, the Packers were 11th in passing that year; they were primarily a rushing team. Namath’s big strength was in total yardage, in any case.
Namath was a dominating QB when he was healthy. The real problem with his career is that he only had four or five good seasons due to injuries. And clearly he wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame if he hadn’t won the Super Bowl.
You really can’t compare. Offenses and defenses were much different back then. Also, there’s a factor people forget when comparing across eras: Lamonica and Namath call their own plays. Trent Green does not, which makes the job easier.
Well, the AFL was still new, but by the time of the Super Bowl, Namath correctly pointed out that there were several AFL QBs who were better than Earl Morrel (IIRC, Lamonica, Hadl, Dawson, and Griese)
Boyd Dowler was a great receiver, but I think the numbers show that Bart Starr is highly underrated.
Yes, it sounds odd to say that a Hall of Famer could be underrated, but he was. Ask people about the Packer dynasty of the Sixties, and they picture the Power Sweep, the running game. People picture Bart Starr as a conservative sink-and-dunk passer who threw nickel-and-dime passes just to keep defenses honest.
Wrong. In 1966, the Packers made it to the Super Bowl via Bart Starr’s arm, not Jim Taylor’s legs. A quarterback who gets 9.0 yards per attempt and throws only 3 picks all season is PHENOMENAL.
Okay, in 1966, Joe Namath was still young and hadn’t mastered his craft yet, so maybe that’s a bad year for comparisons.
Let’s try 1969. That year, Namath was in his prime. He was the AFL MVP. His completion percentage was 51.8, he averaged 7.6 yards a pass, and had just slightly more touchdown passes than interceptions (19/17).
How did that compare to his brethren in the NFL? Did anybody in the NFL have a better completion percentage, more yards per pass, or a better TD/interception ratio?
Craig Morton of the Cowboys topped Namath on ALL of those stats.
So did Bart Starr.
So did Bob Berry(!?!?!?!?)
Fran Tarkenton had a higher completion percentage and a MUCH better TD/Int ratio (23/8).
Roman Gabriel also had a higher completion percentage and a MUCH better TD/Int ratio (24/7).
Sonny Jurgensen had a MUCH higher completion percentage, more TD passes and few interceptions (22/15).
So, even when Joe Willie was at his best, he’d have been a middle of the pack QB in the older league.
No, that’s exactly what I was going for! I added the bit about happening to see a career game to reference what happened with my example. I was looking for exactly what you mentioned, though it doesn’t have to be in childhood! I’ve certainly held an opinion of a player, even recently, and upon a little research found out I was way, way wrong. In both directions!
But a key part to this thread is the belief that the player is actually good, not just that you thought he might be good eventually. I thought Vai Sikahema was a really, really good return man from when I saw him in '92 until a couple months ago!
On 01/31/1987, Pete McCordic of Houston, TX bowled the 4th perfect game on TV since the inception of the PBA TV broadcasts (breaking a 13 year drought). He had beautiful style and great control. I thought he was going to just blow the PBA away like Dick Weber, Walter Ray Williams and others had done. Instead, he went on to only win 2 titles in his career and never placed again after 1992.
I remember watching an NCAA tournament basketball game in the first round and thinking I was watching the next Jordan. His name was Brian Penney and he played for Coastal Carolina in a game against Indiana. He was the only player worth guarding on Coastal Carolina and he hit shot after shot with three men on him. We are talking beautiful turnaround jumpers from NBA three point range.
Turns out he was pretty damn good for Coastal Carolina, but they lost that game and I presume he went on to sell cars or teach PE.
When I was a little kid I idolized Terry Hanratty, who played QB for Notre Dame in the late 60s. Then he went to the Steelers as a pro and I, being a Browns fan at the time, thought the Browns were going to be in a lot of trouble with Hanratty running the Steelers.
As it turns out, during the 70s the Browns WERE in a lot of trouble with the Steelers but Hanratty, who was usually wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard on the sidelines, had very little to do with that.
9 yards per attempt seems to refute that characterization. If he really were a dink and dunker you’d expect his YPA to be a more Chad Pennington-esque 7.3.
I disagree with this; I think modern QBs do better when they call their own plays. Sure, the defense might be softer in 2 minute drills, but modern QBs don’t seem to have any problem whatsoever calling their own plays and would almost certainly excel at it if they had to do it all the time.
My impression is no doubt colored by being a Giants fan, where Eli is vastly superior calling his own plays compared to getting them over the headset, but I think it generally holds true throughout the league.
Meaningless statistic. Yard per catch also factors in how far the receiver ran with the ball. In 1969, when there was little zone coverage, that could extend things quite a bit. Back then, Starr was criticized for sticking with the short game when other QBs went long.
Pure opinion on your part, since most QBs only call their own plays when an audible is needed. Back in the 60s, the QB had to call not only the current play, but have rough plans on what he’d be doing next. In addition, he would need to spot weaknesses in the defense (which are now noticed by the coach in the booth). It makes the job harder then when the play is called for you and you can concentrate solely on execution.
Sure, you can cherry pick if you want, and choose the stats that prove your case, but lets get back to 1969 (a down year for Namath statistically after 1968) and look at the statistic that was actually important back then.
Total Yardage:
Namath 2734
Starr 1648
Morton 2619
Berry 1087
Gabriel 2549
Tarkenton (2918) and Jurgenson (3102) beat Namath, but on the main statistic that proved a QBs worth at the time, Namath was in the top five. And, again, that was a down year for him – it was his lowest yardage total since his rookie season. But still he managed to be second in passing yards, second in TDs, Third in passer rating, and third in yards per game and yards per attempt.
Take a look at his two top years – 1967 and 68 to see what he could do.
I’m a fan of Namath, but I agree he is an overrated QB. Not because of his statistics or what he could do on the field – he was the most exciting QB in football at the time – but because of injuries plus the too short careers of his top receiver – George Sauer (HOF-quality receiver who tired of football and retired after only five years in the league). He basically had two great seasons, several good ones, and a rash of mediocre ones and is in the Hall of Fame solely because of Super Bowl III (one of his great seasons). But it wasn’t just the media who thought he was one of the sports great QBs in his prime; it was the players both in the AFL and NFL who thought so, too.
My irony meter just broke. You say: “You can cherry pick if you want, and choose the stats that prove your case” and then you … cherry pick a stat that proves your case. But it doesn’t even prove your case, because total yardage is a crappy indicator of "good quarterback"ness. It just shows he threw the ball a lot.
I think Namath is easily one of the most overrated players in the history of the NFL/AFL/AnyFLyou want. Without his off the field hype and Super Bowl III (which, by the way was won by the Jets defense, not Namath), nobody would even remember the guy. He’d just be yet another middle of the road QB. A middle of the road QB with horrible completion percentage, pathetic TD/INT ratio, and a catastophically sad 65.46 career passer rating. Right up there with Rick Mirer.
In 1987, the Pittsburgh Pirates brought up a player named Mike Diaz. The guy hit a home run every time I saw him. One of my Dad’s friends remarked that “He has more HRs per at bat that Babe Ruth!”.
Another point in favor of Bart Starr: the Packers’ running game was NOT as great as you think it was.
Really. Look again at that 1966 season, the season in which Starr took the Pack to Super Bowl 1.
Again, Starr average 9.0 yards a pass, had 14 TD passes and only 3 interceptions, and completed 62% of his passes at a time when that was rare.
You think he was only a dink passer and that the running game carried the team? Think again. That season, the great Jim Taylor averaged just 3.5 yards a carry. gaining 705 yards total. Paul Hornung barely played, getting just 200 yards total, averaging 2.6 yards a run. Elijah Pitts average 3.4 yards a carry.
Get the picture? That was a pretty anemic rushing offense! The Power Sweep got the credit, but the truth is, the Pack went as far as Bart Starr could take them. Bart Starr wasn’t a “game manager” who was along for the ride. He was the best quarterback in the NFL.