Just a small excerpt from the show airing tonight about one of my favorites. http://sports.yahoo.com/video/39-football-life-39-unforgettable-021739579.html
If Earl Campbell was in the NFL today, the opposing defensive players would get fined. League: You can't hit this man this hard. Defense: We're not hitting him, he's hitting us! He needs to be fined. That was the tyler rose.
Earl Campbell almost did in the N.F.L. what Olajuwon did in the N.B.A. . Single handedly lead a Houston team to a championship. Without Earl Campbell the Oilers would not have been relevant. They should have renamed the team the Houston Earlers. That is definitely my humble opinion and I am sorry if I offend anyone...except Chandler Parsons.
Just finished watching...and my first thought was: holy crap I wish the Texans were the Oilers..that name...those colors...that's Houston.
They actually had hats and t-shirts that said Houston Earlers. Pretty sure I had one. Earl is still my all-time favorite athlete. Hakeem is a close 2nd, but there was nothing like being a football-loving 8 year old living in Houston during Earl's heyday.
I watched the recording I had of it last night. Man it was so good. And the whole hall of fame speech with him and Bud made me a little teary eyed. I always loved he played for the City of Houston and not the team and the owner. Unlike Warren Moon. Glad he is doing better now he gave up his body for this city man
If the Texans changed their name and colors to Oilers and that old blue, I'd be pumped. It's never going to happen.
They had a couple of Hall of Famers on defense during Earl's time (Bethea and Culp). They also had arguably the greatest return man up to that point in the NFL (Johnson). They had a number of competent offensive and defensive players. While Earl was the driving force of that team, he was not a one man show. They did beat a heavily favored Chargers team without Campbell and Pastorini to advance to the AFC championship game in 1979/80.
Brown was before my time, but tough to argue when you see a run like this: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/F9y_KZwOq9g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I recall those runs from Big Earl!!! I had to be 9 or 10. That was the most exciting times in Houston era football ever, it'll never get that good again.