Baltimore Football's Greatest- Counting down the best to wear the numbers.

Good effort, #2 just doesn't get my interest past knowing it's relevance to the opening day kick off.

With only ONE day left to go before the Ravens officially begin their march to SBL, let's take a look at the final player in our countdown.

NUMBER 1

Aside from Baltimore Stars champion kicker David Trout, there is only one man to wear the number 1 in a professional football game in Baltimore: quarterback Randall Cunningham.

The 38-year-old spent his final NFL season here, and not without kicking up some controversy along the way. Signed as a veteran backup to Elvis Grbac for a 2001 Ravens team pulling out all stops to win consecutive championships, Cunningham was pressed into service as Grbac was injured for a few weeks in the middle of the season. He played well enough that by the end of the season, when questions arose about Grbac’s heart and relationship with his teammates, many thought he would be the better choice to lead the team in the postseason.

Coach Brian Billick stuck with Grbac, who grabbed a victory down in Miami, but flamed out in the final game of his career, throwing three picks in a playoff loss to Pittsburgh. Cunningham, for his part, stayed above the fray and did his job. You could make the argument that he is the greatest backup quarterback in Ravens history. And it is even more easy to make the argument that Randall Cunningham is Baltimore football’s all-time number 1.

EPILOGUE

We do have one more number to give out: Nigerian kicker Donald Igwebuike won a championship for the CFL Baltimore Stallions. And he did it wearing the number 00.

I’m not exactly sure how it was that I ended up doing this, but I have to say, it has been incredibly educational. The biggest lesson learned: we are some lucky, lucky, lucky football fans in this city. It’s hard to find a player who spent any length of time here that didn’t end up on a championship team at some point. Even when we went without football for 13 years, we got to celebrate two championships. This list is peppered with not only great football players, but some incredibly classy individuals. We have nine Hall of Famers on the list; we will have two more when Ray and Ed get there. And then Yanda, Flacco, Suggs, and even Tucker all have outside shots at getting there one day. That is a lot of quality for a city that didn’t have a team for the first 35 years of the league, and then went another 13 without one.

Without trying, we had a highly symmetrical breakdown: 50 Colts and 47 Ravens. We also had one Baltimore Star and one CFL Stallion. Then there is OJ Brigance, whom you can count as a Stallion or a Raven.

Here’s how the list looks positionally. Again, the outlier is OJ Brigance, whom you can count as a linebacker for the Stallions, or a special teamer for the Ravens. Or if you’re like me, you just count him as a human being.

Attachment 3041

I want to give a big thank you to Rxdoxx for keeping the memories of the Stallions and Stars alive. Those teams were water in our football desert, and they were also champions. They deserve to never be forgotten. Also a thanks to BigFish and some others whose beards are grayer than mine; internet research only gets you so far, and it is great to hear about some of these guys from people who actually saw them play.

Finally, to ActualSpamBot, who started this thread and was doing a much better job at it than me: please be okay somewhere. All of your friends at RSR are praying for you.

humongous thanks to all concerned. great thread.
enjoyed the Stallion / Stars references. I wish they had Grey Cup games on dvd like the Super Bowls.

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Originally Posted by HotInHere

NUMBER 2

His greatest kick beat the Dolphins in the fog in sudden death in 1975, sending the Colts to the first of their three straight division titles.

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as I recall our local sports announcer (Chris Thomas, I think, went to WBAL) said that if that game went into overtime the Colts didn't have a chance because Garo Ypremian (Dolphin's kicker) was way better than Linhart. Which he probably was, but as I recall Ypremian never got the chance. Toni the Toe!

great freaking thread. great job everyone. this should be stickied for a while :)

Great job by everyone. A truly enjoyable thread. Thanks to all.

This was really fun. Thanks to all who made it happen.
As an old guy, (57), I appreciate the Colt references. I could never really get behind the Stars or the Stallions....just wasn't the same and the scar was still too raw.

Now, LET'S GET TO IT!!!!!!

Thanks all for the work and contributions

HotInHere great work and very fair thoughtful reasonings
I didn't even think of checking the zeros, nice catch

Remembered to stop back in here when I left a note for you elsewhere
http://forum.russellstreetreport.com...215#post977215

Great thread! Was a pleasure to read and very informative. Good job everyone!

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Originally Posted by Dade

Great thread! Was a pleasure to read and very informative. Good job everyone!

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Yes! It was fun to follow and it was a rare treat to learn so much about all these guys who put it all out there for us. Not just the superstars, of which there are many more than you'd think, the blue collar guys whose memories faded too quickly.


Sent from my iPhone usingo Tapatalkplp

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HotInHere

EPILOGUE


I’m not exactly sure how it was that I ended up doing this, but I have to say, it has been incredibly educational. The biggest lesson learned: we are some lucky, lucky, lucky football fans in this city. .

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HEAR! HEAR!

I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you and all those involved with this thread. It has been a real joy reading it.

BALTIMORE IS BEST!!!

- rfd