The nice thing about the Raiders game is that I didn't go to it! Last year I made the drive to Cleveland with three friends to see the Raiders visit, and when this year's schedule came out we thought we might do the same. As much as I love the game-day atmosphere, I'm glad we didn't.
Since I really don't want to talk about yesterday's game I might as well change the topic.
One way that I can convince friends to go to Cleveland to see the Browns is to convince them they want to go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
One of my friends thinks that the first half of it should be renamed the Otto Graham Hall of Fame.
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| Vince Costello's Collectibles - Otto Graham |
Why not? In his 10 year playing career from 1946-1955, he played in 10 championship games, winning 7 of them. He was the UPI NFL MVP in 1951, 1953 and 1955.
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| Metal card sold by the Hall of Fame |
I'm sure that many card collectors will agree that cards help them learn about their team. As much as we may make fun of the mass produced Pro Set sets, one of them provided me with my first Otto Graham card:
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| 1991 Pro Set #SC4 |
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| I loved all the information on this card back
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That year I also picked up the ENOR Hall of Fame card, and the Domino's card.
This summer, visiting a card store in Binghamton, NY, I added one of the highlights of my collection:
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| 1950 Bowman #45 |
As you can see, it has a light crease through the middle, and the top right corner is pretty much a ding rather than a soft corner, but I was so happy to acquire this 65 year old piece of cardboard.
Almost as old are these oddballs that I bought off of eBay this summer:
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| 1952 Wheaties |
Thank you to whoever kept these for so long, and in such good shape. I'm always amazed when I see old cereal box cards.
According to what I have entered in to the Trading Card Database, I have 25 different Otto Graham cards out of the 233 that they list. I'm very happy with what I have so far, and look forward to getting many more. The biggest hole in the collection is an autographed card - I've seen them available but just haven't broken down to buy one yet. It is just a matter of time.
Otto Graham died on December 17,2003 in Sarasota, Florida at the age of 82.
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One good thing happened over the weekend, the Mets clinched the NL East! I look forward to watching playoff baseball and having my team in it to cheer for.
Let's go Mets!!!
Good stuff Angus. Added you to my blogroll.
ReplyDeleteThose cereal box cards are sweet man. Even if y'all still lost with Manziel makes no sense to start McCown a 37 year old career backup
ReplyDeleteJoe Posnanski -- an excellent writer, in my opinion -- echoes Jeff's comments...why would the Browns start a McCown instead of seeing what they have with Manziel?
ReplyDeleteI've seen too many young Browns QBs thrown into games in bad situations when it didn't give them their best chance to succeed. I don't know how his elbow is now, but missing two weeks of training camp with it really hurt him. He missed a lot of reps, and playing time when he should have been playing.
ReplyDeleteRight now, I think he can still learn a bit more by watching - as long as he wants to. Last year, it didn't appear that he really wanted to learn, and he had his eyes opened by the Bengals. I think he wants to this year, and he has seemed a lot more prepared. However, I still saw one big thing that concerns me.
I didn't watch that much of Manziel in college, but saw a lot of highlights. One thing that stood out a lot was him scrambling, and then it just seemed like he would heave the ball a distance to Mike Evans. Evans, monster that he is, would usually then haul it in. I'm still worried that this is his first instinct in the NFL too, and he doesn't have Evans to throw to. Benjamin has his speed, and Manziel may have hit him late in the Raiders game, but I want to see some changes - spreading the ball out to more receivers, using the RBs, developing a more effective short passing game. I think he'll learn how to do this, especially with him being able to hit Benjamin deep if defenses bring their safeties in.
I want Manziel to do well. I know that McCown is not the answer for the long run. He is a QB bridge, and I expect Manziel will be starting sooner rather than later. I just think that the team owes the veterans to play who they think their best chance to win, not just to develop the young gun. I trust the Browns to start Manziel when they think he is ready.