The NFL’s One Hit Wonders: Single Season & Super Bowl Outliers…With Songs To Match

Christian Okoye

[Editor's note: This was originally posted back in January, but it got lost in the Super Bowl shuffle. Keith did a great job on it though, so we're cycling it back to the front of the site for those of you who missed it.]

You know how sometimes when you hear a one-hit wonder song on the radio or on the jukebox at a bar, it makes you think of a certain time in your life and all of the memories of that time come flooding back?

For some reason, those songs resonate.  They are the songs that everyone knows the words to, even if they are embarrassed to admit it.  The best one-hit wonders activate that mental and emotional time machine in a person.

Sports do the same thing for me.  I tie events in my life to notable sports players and seasons.

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Chicago Bears ‘Ultimate Franchise Player’ Selection

walter-payton

This is the latest post in Kurt’s continuing series to identify the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player of All-Time. For an explanation of his methodology for choosing each franchise’s ultimate franchise player, and then how you and he will choose the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player from that list, click here.

To see all the category page for this series, of which there will be one for every franchise, click here.

Previous selections: ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR

The first five installments of Ultimate Franchise Player have been compelling, with each franchise having its own unique history – but now things are about to get serious.

Out of the NFL Network’s list of the Top 100 players of all-time, eight of the top 60 are Chicago Bears.

My first five UFPs came from franchises that will only produce one, or at the very most two representatives in the eventual 64-player UFP field. The Bears and their 90+ year history will be a little different.

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How Many Hall of Fame QBs Have Led The League In Interceptions?

Broadway Joe, one of many Hall of Fame quarterbacks to have led the league in interceptions.

Eric Mangini, in a discussion on this morning’s First Take about whether Eli Manning would be a Hall of Famer if his career ended today, mentioned that Eli led the league in interceptions in 2010 and asked, “How many Hall of Famers have led the league in interceptions?” (Neither Mangini nor Skip Bayless thought that Eli had done enough yet to deserve Hall of Fame induction.)

Naturally, I stopped what I was doing and went to databaseFootball.com to answer Mangini’s question.

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Carolina Panthers ‘Ultimate Franchise Player’ Selection

inside-mills

This is the fifth post in Kurt’s continuing series to identify the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player of All-Time. For an explanation of his methodology for choosing each franchise’s ultimate franchise player, and then how you and he will choose the NFL’s Ultimate Franchise Player from that list, click here.

To see all the category page for this series, of which there will be one for every franchise, click here.

Previous selections: ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF

Larry Fitzgerald, Deion Sanders, Ray Lewis, and Bruce Smith.

And that’s just the First Four; a diverse mix of a wide receiver, a cornerback, a linebacker, and a defensive end. Two players still active, two already enshrined in Canton.

There are still 28 automatic bids to be awarded for MSF’s Ultimate Franchise Player tourney, which will precede our own Selection Sunday, where the 32 at-large bids are awarded and we learn the seeds of 64 of the best pro football players ever out of the tens of thousands who have played the game over the past 90+ seasons.

Carolina Panthers History and Honorable Mention

Today we turn our attention to the Carolina Panthers, who have not necessarily had a bad record during the franchise’s 17 years of existence.

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The NFL’s ‘Tuck Rule’ Has Been Amended

tuck

Quite famously, it was an officials technically correct application of NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2 – the “tuck rule” – that launched the New England Patriots’ dynasty back in 2002.

But a decade later, based on the events of the last two Super Bowls, perhaps it is time for the “tuck rule” to be amended.

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Twelve Men On The Field? No Problem (For The Defense)

12-men-on-the-field-super-bowl

The game of football has a lot of rules that we love to argue about incessantly.  One of the most fun conversations is figuring out whether the penalty matches the crime.

Pass interference is always talked about.  It’s a spot foul against the defense, but only ten yards for the offense.  Is that fair?  Should we reward Joe Flacco for throwing the ball up for grabs six times a game and coming away with two 40-yard penalties?  Is that football?

Personally, I actually lean toward the current structure.  After all, if it’s only a 15-yard penalty like it is in college, what is to stop defensive backs from purposefully tackling guys when they get beat?  I like the rule the way it is.

But something happened in the Super Bowl on Sunday that got me thinking.  Is there another rule that is potentially much more crippling to the game than pass interference?

Yes.

Twelve men on the field.

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Video: The Most Amazing 3 Seconds of Super Bowl 46 You Probably Missed

Seeing as how we are now some 15+ hours removed from the end of Super Bowl XLVI, and no one has really talked about anything else all morning, you might think you’ve seen and heard it all.

But you’d be wrong.

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Gisele’s Comments and Wilbur’s Words: The Dumbest Things That Happened After Super Bowl XLVI

gisele-super-bowl-comments-tom-brady

Last night’s Super Bowl was terrific. It featured everything that a big, epic sporting event should have, right down to a final play in the end zone deciding the winner and loser.

Unfortunately, last night’s Super Bowl also featured something that is all too common in the aftermath of big, epic sporting events: dumb things.

And here are the two dumbest, one from a writer and one from the supermodel wife of the game’s most visible star.

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Image: The Last Play of Super Bowl 46

Rob Gronkowski and Patriots come up just short on last play of Super Bowl 46.

Fitting that Patriots tight end extraordinaire Rob Gronkowski comes up just a few feet short of winning the Super Bowl on this last second, hail mary pass in Super Bowl 46.

Wes Welker and Deion Branch look on helplessly as the ball falls to the ground, ending the Patriots hopes of a Super Bowl win.

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Ahmad Bradshaw’s Game-Winning Super Bowl TD: Iconic Image and Video

Ahmad Bradshaw's game-winning TD in Super Bowl XLVI. (Photo credit: John W. McDonough/SI)

While Mario Manningham’s incredible 38-yard sideline catch was the best picture Super Bowl 46, this image of Ahmad Bradshaw’s 6-yard Super Bowl winning TD merits a close second place.

This should-I-score-or-should-I-squat pose at the 1-yard line is a Super Bowl classic.

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The 8 Best and 7 Worst Commercials From Super Bowl 46

ferris-buehler-commercial-super-bowl-xlvi

The Super Bowl was a great game tonight.

Exciting, big plays, and relatively well played.

If you aren’t a Patriots fan, chances are you were pleased with the quality of football.  Which is a good thing, because if you tuned in to see the Super Bowl commercials, they, overall, paled in comparison in quality to the game itself.

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The Best Super Bowl Commercial From Super Bowl XLVI

I reviewed a whole slew of Super Bowl commercials tonight, and one is sticking with me as the absolute best of the bunch.

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The Worst Part of a Great Super Bowl: $20 Popcorn

popcorn-20-bucks-super-bowl-xlvi

Super Bowl XLVI was awesome.

Everyone who was in Indy for the week lauded one of my favorite cities for how well it presented the Big Game. (This came as no surprise to anyone who knows Indy’s great history of putting on big events.)

And the game tonight matched it. New York won 21-17, but New England had a Hail Mary pass into the end zone on the final play of the game. Can you ask for much more than that?

But there was one part about Super Bowl 46 that wasn’t as great as it could have been.

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Best Picture of Super Bowl 46: Mario Manningham’s Sideline Catch

mario-manningham-catch-super-bowl-46-xlvi

There will be plenty of iconic images to come out of Super Bowl 46. There always are. But of all the pictures I’ve seen so far, still within the hour of the Super Bowl being completed, this is my favorite:

Mario Manningham’s sideline catch, which will go down in Super Bowl lore as one of the greatest catches in the history of the Big Game.

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Samsung Galaxy Note Super Bowl Commercial – ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ by The Darkness Video and Review

One of the best commercials of the night came from Samsung, who took a jab at Apple with their commercial for the Galaxy Note smartphone.

Here is the ad, my thought are below:

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