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Greatest Pros who played HS Football in New Jersey

Kbee3 said:
You should really check out Ringo's career with the Packers.
Click to expand...

NFL football in the 50s/60s doesn't impress me too much
The league was smaller and the money was thin - closer to semi-pro than later NFL.
Players back then often had real jobs off-season.
Defensive players in particular were seen as inferior to offensive stars.
Watch old clips and see that guys were often slow clodhoppers.
Linemen were bouncers and construction etc workers off-season.
Even Jim Brown had a job
Jim Brown ran through those old, slow defenses like poop through a goose.
Franco would have run over them as well
They weren't that big either - Franco was same weight as Ringo and an inch taller.
I consider OL the most important unit for a team to have but cant see a olde tyme center as greater than Franco (and Mike Webster is placed ahead of Ringo in center rankings)


www.cleveland.com

Remember when ... off-season was work time for the Cleveland Browns (and all pro athletes)?

Long before NFL players were multi-million-dollar men, off-season meant working a "real" job.
www.cleveland.com www.cleveland.com
 
ashokan said:
Franco #1 - #2 isn't close (especially an OL from 1950).
Franco has great stats but he was a "playmaker" who made things happen.
The Immaculate Reception was Franco's rookie year (eventually NFL ROY) and it set the Steelers (originally an NFC team) on their epic ride.

www.cbssports.com

Franco Harris by the numbers: Steelers legend changed culture of winningest franchise in NFL since his arrival

Harris is still the all-time leader for rushing yards in Super Bowls
www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com
Click to expand...
Immaculate reception was just another way the NFL stuck it to Al Davis. It was illegal then and eventually, the NFL even made it legal for a tipped ball from one to another offensive player.
 
GoodOl'Rutgers said:
Immaculate reception was just another way the NFL stuck it to Al Davis. It was illegal then and eventually, the NFL even made it legal for a tipped ball from one to another offensive player.
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Some Steelers and Raiders commemorated the play.
See Harris in vid at bottom of link.
Franco pulling the wings off flies lol

Raymond Chester, Raiders tight end: "Frenchy Fuqua came into the locker room after the game, sat down beside me and said, 'Man, I hit that. It hit me, man.' I told him, 'Man, you better get out of here.' Him telling me that the ball hit him didn't make it any better."

www.raiders.com

Fifty Years Later: A Raiders Oral History of the Immaculate Reception

Raiders.com went through the Silver and Black’s extensive library of sound and story to bring to life the Raiders’ perspective of the Immaculate Reception, through the eyes of those who lived it.
www.raiders.com www.raiders.com
 
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ashokan said:
NFL football in the 50s/60s doesn't impress me too much
The league was smaller and the money was thin - closer to semi-pro than later NFL.
Players back then often had real jobs off-season.
Defensive players in particular were seen as inferior to offensive stars.
Watch old clips and see that guys were often slow clodhoppers.
Linemen were bouncers and construction etc workers off-season.
Even Jim Brown had a job
Jim Brown ran through those old, slow defenses like poop through a goose.
Franco would have run over them as well
They weren't that big either - Franco was same weight as Ringo and an inch taller.
I consider OL the most important unit for a team to have but cant see a olde tyme center as greater than Franco (and Mike Webster is placed ahead of Ringo in center rankings)


www.cleveland.com

Remember when ... off-season was work time for the Cleveland Browns (and all pro athletes)?

Long before NFL players were multi-million-dollar men, off-season meant working a "real" job.
www.cleveland.com www.cleveland.com
Click to expand...
Wow, how sad that you weren't impressed.
 
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tomatocan said:
Wow, how sad that you weren't impressed.
Click to expand...

Impressed?
Dude's last game was 56 years ago.
I heard Valentino was great.
I know people who love Doo-Wop, Lead Belly and Lawrence Welk.
Those were all before my time and dead to me.
I have zero interest in old sports I didn't live through aside from stuff like Jesse Owens.
Ringo was a good player in his day but he was still a center.
Franco and Steelers I saw - and both are considered iconic in the modern football era - people still know them.
Ringo's championship Packers lost to college All Stars so not exactly epic team
Vast majority of people dont remember OL from the 50s and that's normal
 
Kbee3 said:
Ray Nitschke and Sam Huff would have had something to say about that.
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Huff I kind of like because he wasn't a meathead like so many other defenders.
It took me (as a fan) awhile to realize just how much the NFL relies on over-inflating its players.
A receiver makes a 20" jump to catch a pass and the announcers gush like he just completed a triple somersault without a net on the trapeze. I get weary of hearing the word "athleticism" over and over in games.

Now back on the 50s-60s they loved to rave about defenders as "junk yard dogs."
Ok they were mean and violent but necessarily great athletes.
Over and over you hear how mean and tough players were.
I translate that to "plodding clodhoppers in a bad mood"
Nitschke was like that - slow and awkward and a terrible tackler.
He loved to wrap his arms around a runner's upper body and then try to wrestle him to the ground.
For me its painful to watch and Huff was better on style and tech.

Huff and Butkus were kind of the the turning point between the construction worker meathead and the more athletic LB. Then the you find your Willie Lanier, and Lambert types (and Lambert was still a junkyard type compared to Lanier but he got around quick and was a polished hitter (not a bar bouncer mauling people).

I dont meant to take anything away from the elder players but to me they look like 1950s cars. Kinda nice but kinda antique. Guys hardly even lifted weights back then. I was in a Jets weight room in 60s and it looked like a HS kids garage with cement weights on the floor all mismatched lol

Nitschke running (like a pub bouncer)

GIYVYX2.gif
 
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News flash.
Not far removed from your banter about the 60s is the The Steel Curtain with Joe Green, LC Greenwood , Earnie Holmes, Dwight White, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Donny Shell, who would knock your block off.
That defense TODAY would dominate just as it did then.
The Chiefs Defense in the 60s with Buck Buchanan, Aaron Brown, Cutly Culp, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier. Jim Lynch and
Wynton Marsalis would also dominate today.
As a true middle linebacker.

Nitschki taking on blockers, using superior leverage, shuttle speed rather than 40 speed and general orneryness
would be an all pro if playing today also
 
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zappaa said:
News flash.
Not far removed from your banter about the 60s is the The Steel Curtain with Joe Green, LC Greenwood , Earnie Holmes, Dwight White, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Donny Shell, who would knock your block off.
That defense TODAY would dominate just as it did then.
The Chiefs Defense in the 60s with Buck Buchanan, Aaron Brown, Cutly Culp, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier. Jim Lynch and
Wynton Marsalis would also dominate today
Click to expand...

Namath tells a great story about Buchanan. Around the league he got a lot of credit for boosting salaries with his contract with the Jets. But not long into the career his knees were already in very bad shape. Late in a Jets-Chiefs game with KC in a comfortable lead he went back to pass, just as he got it off BOOM! he get clobbered high. As he's on the ground, and as he said "shaking his head and checking his fillings" he sees Buchanan on the ground a few feet away. Buck looked over at him and said "Don't you worry Broadway Joe, Big Buck won't hit those knees."
 
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zappaa said:
News flash.
Not far removed from your banter about the 60s is the The Steel Curtain with Joe Green, LC Greenwood , Earnie Holmes, Dwight White, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Donny Shell, who would knock your block off.
That defense TODAY would dominate just as it did then.
The Chiefs Defense in the 60s with Buck Buchanan, Aaron Brown, Cutly Culp, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier. Jim Lynch and
Wynton Marsalis would also dominate today.
As a true middle linebacker.

Nitschki taking on blockers, using superior leverage, shuttle speed rather than 40 speed and general orneryness
would be an all pro if playing today also
Click to expand...

Alabama and LSU didn't let black players on the team until 1971.
Most of the known black players like Blount and Greenwood and Lanier (1st black MLB) went to HBCUs.
Lanier was 1st starting black MLBs in 1967.
Modern NFL football didn't really start until 70s when talent and size began to spike.

Now 250lb LBs and DLs run sub 4.4s and lift massive weight - OLs are 340 and 6'6" Along with that college players practice year round before they even get to NFL camps. I think guys like Blount and Lanier and Hendricks could play today (like Jim Brown and OJ ) but a lot of the old clodhoppers from 50s/60s would get dusted.

There's so much hype about the old NFL and most of it revolves around "toughness/meanness" which are not things I care about. Rudy was tough and people like Jim Brown called Franco "soft" for running out of bounds but I'll take Franco over Rudy.

One NFL story I'm tired of is how mean/nasty (same ole thing) Chuck Bednarik knocked Gifford out.
I watch the play and I think "that wasn't a big hit."
Sure enough, Gifford told the real story which was that the hit didn't hurt him and he wasn't unconscious - his head was fine. It was his neck that was hurt after head bounced off the frozen turf.
Doctors didn't know what to do about his neck so they told him not to play for awhile.

Playing college or pro football is a tough game so I don't dismiss the real old players but I can see the older skills were not on same level as 70s on. I certainly dont see Nitschki as an All-Pro. The old gap-protect football with man to man blocking and FBs is gone. Everybody has to run well now.


1a5zV9J.jpg
 
I think you always have to judge players based on their era- and the eyeball tells the difference.

But also - old days vs now- the only groups to actually play full games are OL/QB/CB
DL/LB- are in/out all the time- would LT be playing 3 downs today? DL- they are so specialized.

This is why I do give these old guys so much credit- they were in every single play and working jobs during the off season- maybe they would not be dominate today- who knows if they would still be better than everyone else if they no longer had jobs and only had to be specialist?

That is why you just cant compare.

Now- if you told me that you are going to take the tope players from 60/70's and play them against the top players now- both, with their size, specialties, off seasons, etc the same as when they played-
The guys now- would just overwhelm them.
 
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yesrutgers01 said:
I think you always have to judge players based on their era- and the eyeball tells the difference.

But also - old days vs now- the only groups to actually play full games are OL/QB/CB
DL/LB- are in/out all the time- would LT be playing 3 downs today? DL- they are so specialized.

This is why I do give these old guys so much credit- they were in every single play and working jobs during the off season- maybe they would not be dominate today- who knows if they would still be better than everyone else if they no longer had jobs and only had to be specialist?

That is why you just cant compare.

Now- if you told me that you are going to take the tope players from 60/70's and play them against the top players now- both, with their size, specialties, off seasons, etc the same as when they played-
The guys now- would just overwhelm them.
Click to expand...
I’ll take both the defenses I just named under the exact conditions they played under back then and they’d still dominate right now
Exactly like there’s not a man who ever lived or will live that could throw his fastball bye my dad
 
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ashokan said:
Alabama and LSU didn't let black players on the team until 1971.
Most of the known black players like Blount and Greenwood and Lanier (1st black MLB) went to HBCUs.
Lanier was 1st starting black MLBs in 1967.
Modern NFL football didn't really start until 70s when talent and size began to spike.

Now 250lb LBs and DLs run sub 4.4s and lift massive weight - OLs are 340 and 6'6" Along with that college players practice year round before they even get to NFL camps. I think guys like Blount and Lanier and Hendricks could play today (like Jim Brown and OJ ) but a lot of the old clodhoppers from 50s/60s would get dusted.

There's so much hype about the old NFL and most of it revolves around "toughness/meanness" which are not things I care about. Rudy was tough and people like Jim Brown called Franco "soft" for running out of bounds but I'll take Franco over Rudy.

One NFL story I'm tired of is how mean/nasty (same ole thing) Chuck Bednarik knocked Gifford out.
I watch the play and I think "that wasn't a big hit."
Sure enough, Gifford told the real story which was that the hit didn't hurt him and he wasn't unconscious - his head was fine. It was his neck that was hurt after head bounced off the frozen turf.
Doctors didn't know what to do about his neck so they told him not to play for awhile.

Playing college or pro football is a tough game so I don't dismiss the real old players but I can see the older skills were not on same level as 70s on. I certainly dont see Nitschki as an All-Pro. The old gap-protect football with man to man blocking and FBs is gone. Everybody has to run well now.


1a5zV9J.jpg
Click to expand...
Who cares where the black players went to college
This thread has nothing to do with racism or intolerance.
The black colleges of the 60s were tremendous talent producers
 
zappaa said:
I’ll take both the defenses I just named under the exact conditions they played under back then and they’d still dominate right now
Click to expand...
I think those guys would have been the type that if they played now- they would be so dedicated to their game that they would have evolved into today's players- if you did a time warp- the problem is- they would just be overwhelmed.
Sort of the example you gave in baseball- facing Seaver/Gibson for just 6-7 innings and then have Diaz/Hader etc or a deGrom at all times. All throwing 100 with breaking pitches moving 8 inches at 95
 
yesrutgers01 said:
I think those guys would have been the type that if they played now- they would be so dedicated to their game that they would have evolved into today's players- if you did a time warp- the problem is- they would just be overwhelmed.
Sort of the example you gave in baseball- facing Seaver/Gibson for just 6-7 innings and then have Diaz/Hader etc or a deGrom at all times. All throwing 100 with breaking pitches moving 8 inches at 95
Click to expand...
Guidry told me Goose’s fastball would be 102 using today’s gun back then.
And Gator’s slider would be 95
Believe me, Don Newcomb’s fastball would be 100 on todays gun
 
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yesrutgers01 said:
I think those guys would have been the type that if they played now- they would be so dedicated to their game that they would have evolved into today's players- if you did a time warp- the problem is- they would just be overwhelmed.
Sort of the example you gave in baseball- facing Seaver/Gibson for just 6-7 innings and then have Diaz/Hader etc or a deGrom at all times. All throwing 100 with breaking pitches moving 8 inches at 95
Click to expand...
Don’t agree they’d be overwhelmed
 
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How do you think Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe, Dave DeBusscher and Bill Bradley would fare as a 5 man unit in today’s NBA?
Time Warped with no modern training?
Just as they were?
 
zappaa said:
Who cares where the black players went to college
This thread has nothing to do with racism or intolerance.
The black colleges of the 60s were tremendous talent producers
Click to expand...

Now you're just being silly.
Not many people would say black players from gigantic SEC football programs didn't make a difference.
Heck just the trainers were a huge difference/
No Nike camps and videos of players online.
Jim Brown arrived at SU without a football scholarship
Even with the HBCUs players, Lanier was first black MLB in 67.
Willie Lanier would run rings around Nitschke nevermind modern guys like Patrick Willis, Khalil Mack, Luke Kuechly etc. Nitschke was a clodhopper - famous 60s plays like sweeps don't work anymore (3-4 defenses ended all that 60s glory)
 
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zappaa said:
Don’t agree they’d be overwhelmed
Click to expand...
Zap- get it but in todays- game- you are facing nothing but specialist except on the OL- but those are 320lb guys running sub 5
I do think some of these guys- if born in the 90's would have still made great and maybe HOF pro's- football. but man- te size difference is crazy-
Baseball- I agree and can't believe that back in the 80's a top fastball was considered 94- 95...some of those guys were throwing stuff that current hitters would not handle.
Even more recent- Doc at his prime- what hitter today could face his stuff?
 
ashokan said:
Now you're just being silly.
Not many people would say black players from gigantic SEC football programs didn't make a difference.
Heck just the trainers were a huge difference/
No Nike camps and videos of players online.
Even with the HBCUs players Lanier was first black MLB in 67.
Willie Lanier would run rings around Nitschke nevermind modern guys like Patrick Willis, Khalil Mack, Luke Kuechly etc. Nitschke was a clodhopper - famous 60s plays like sweeps don't work anymore (3-4 defenses ended all that 60s glory)
Click to expand...
Like I said, no one is running over the chiefs or the Steelers of that era today.
You disagree, don’t care.
Ray Nitchke would start on any NFL team right now.
You didn’t see Ray in his early 20s
 
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koleszar said:
I once saw Keith Sims #34 and Tony Siragusa #155 go at it at a tri wrestling scrimmage at Watchung Hills. My group was near them. Siragusa was fvcking around, a coach yelled at him and he got pissed. Him and Sims started wrestling pretty hard and going at one another. My group stops and starts watching as this is main event type sh*t. Siragusa slams Sims, the loud thud caused everyone in the gym to stop wrestling.
Click to expand...
You had to know Tony he had to be one of the funniest dudes ever. Total character in a good way. His coach never thought he'd last in the NFL said he wasnt serious enough that was coming straight from his mouth to me. I guess you can say he was wrong
 
zappaa said:
Like I said, no one is running over the chiefs or the Steelers of that era today.
You disagree, don’t care.
Ray Nitchke would start on any NFL team right now.
You didn’t see Ray in his early 20s
Click to expand...
Ray was one of those guys- that had the size and was just going to be good - any age...In many ways- most HOF- are the guys that would also do well- any time or place
 
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Another great athlete who isn’t on list due to limited (1 year in NFL, a couple in Canada) pro career in football is Milt Campbell from Plainfield.
 
zappaa said:
News flash.
Not far removed from your banter about the 60s is the The Steel Curtain with Joe Green, LC Greenwood , Earnie Holmes, Dwight White, Jack Lambert, Jack Ham, Mel Blount and Donny Shell, who would knock your block off.
That defense TODAY would dominate just as it did then.
The Chiefs Defense in the 60s with Buck Buchanan, Aaron Brown, Cutly Culp, Bobby Bell, Willie Lanier. Jim Lynch and
Wynton Marsalis would also dominate today.
As a true middle linebacker.

Nitschki taking on blockers, using superior leverage, shuttle speed rather than 40 speed and general orneryness
would be an all pro if playing today also
Click to expand...
Surprised I did not see Jack Tatum’s name on the list … the Silent Assassin from Passaic and Ohio State… 10 years Oakland Raiders …didn’t Montclair play Passaic yearly? Maybe I missed it going through the lists.
 
RUBOB72 said:
Surprised I did not see Jack Tatum’s name on the list … the Silent Assassin from Passaic and Ohio State… 10 years Oakland Raiders …didn’t Montclair play Passaic yearly? Maybe I missed it going through the lists.
Click to expand...

I think he was listed.
 
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I was going through some old local sport pics and came across a photo of NYJ LB Larry Grantham.
Grantham played in the 69 Super Bowl.
Its not uncommon to find articles about how he should be in the HOF

Jets used to have summer camps a few blocks away from my house.
My parents had connections and I used to hang-out at barbecues with players and their families.
I was only a kid but would have never suspected Grantham was an NFL player iisted at 6' 205 lbs.
He confessed he was never more than 193 lbs
Years later I would meet Willie Lanier at a football camp and he looked huge by comparison.

One thing I'll always remember about Grantham was a time I saw him at a swimming pool after a KC preseason game, and he had (on his hip) the biggest, bluest - almost black - bruise I ever saw.
I has asked him if KC was tough and he said "Nah they weren't tough."
After seeing that bruise I wondered what a tough team would do.

Look how slight Grantham was (pic was from my eventual HS field). He was tough but he couldn't play LB today


22aT1va.jpg
 
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