1976 was Tampa Bay’s first season in the NFL, and Ryczek’s card got me looking at the rest of the 1976 Topps Buccaneers cards. I noticed a few interesting things:

• Eight of the ten Buccaneer player cards are rookie cards, though all of the players had been with other teams in years prior. The players all appear in their old teams’ jerseys, so I presume Topps had the photos on file.
• Four players–Ira Gordon, Harold Hart, Durwood Keeton, and Larry Ely–never played in a regular season game for Tampa Bay. John Ward played in just four games before going to the Bears. (See the career stats for Gordon, Hart, Keeton, Ely, and Ward at pro-football-reference.com.)
• The back of the Buccaneers team checklist has a list of the players they chose in the expansion draft, a nice feature.

For an entertaining read, check out the Wikipedia article on the 1976 Buccaneers–especially coach John McKay’s quotes.

So, who are our sleepy players, and what cards do they appear on? From the top, we have:

• 1950 Bowman Bob Kelly, of the original Baltimore Colts (also see Baltimore Colts in Green?)
• 1951 Bowman Al Derogatis
• 1967 Topps Babe Parilli
• 1969 Topps Don Maynard (Maynard is also sleepy on his 1967 Topps and 1968 Topps cards)
• 1970 Topps Mike Tilleman
• 1971 Topps Gerry Philbin

I am undoubtedly missing some. If you know ‘em, post ‘em!

I believe that this is Cooke’s only card, though he played in the NFL and AFL for ten seasons. He got around, spending time on six different teams. His longest stint was with the New York Titans/Jets, where he spent four seasons. There is a slightly less scary photo of Cooke at fanbase.com.

So, what’s your favorite scary football card?

Beckett says there are 37 photos in the 1955 Rams set, but there are actually 38. The 38th is Bob Kelley, a sports announcer at the time for the Rams and baseball’s Los Angeles Angels. The back of his photo says he moved with the Rams from Cleveland to Los Angeles in 1946.

Besides the Kelley photo, there are 36 player photos and one photo of the coaching staff. The only players on the 1955 Rams roster who are not included in the set are Jack Dwyer and Bob Long. I am nearly sure that this is because the photos were produced during the season, and Dwyer and Long had already left the team by the third game.

Since the whole team is included in the set, many of the photos–eleven, if I counted correctly–picture players who never appeared on cards of their own. I think these guys were excited to get their chance, because they gave us the best action poses in the set. Pictured here are my two favorites, Art Hauser and Ed Hughes.

I realize now that when I picked up my first sets of team issue photos, I bit off more than I expected. I definitely like them, but there are a lot of them! To make room for more, I created a separate team issue photo page in the Gallery.

Maybe he was pretending to run back an interception or a fumble? Unfortunately, he never got a chance in a game: surprisingly, he had no interceptions in his 11-year career, and just two fumble recoveries, neither of which he returned.

Davidson did a lot of acting after his football career, too, appearing in Conan the Barbarian, Necessary Roughness, and a host of primetime TV shows. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a film clip, just a photo of Ben playing Rexor in Conan.

The photos are sharp black-and-whites, and each includes a facsimile of the player’s signature. On the back of each photo is a glowing biography of the player on the front. (Hardy Brown‘s bio calls him “the most feared linebacker in the game because of his fantastic ‘shoulder tackle’ which uncoils like a pile driver and causes many fumbles”!) Most of the images of the well-known players are familiar, since they also appear in color on 1950s Bowman and Topps cards. Being a team issue, though, the set also includes numerous players who never appeared on cards. In the 50s and 60s, the major card companies printed cards of only 10-12 players from each team, and most linemen and defensive players were left out. I love team sets for this reason: I get to see players I’ve never seen before.

There are 38 photos in the set, and it includes photos of the 49ers’ coaches and their TV and radio announcers. I imagine that in the 50′s, the announcers for each team were as familiar to fans as the players, so it was natural to include them in a team set.

The set includes six Pro Football Hall of Fame players, including the four members of the 49ers’ “Million Dollar Backfield”: Y.A. Tittle, Hugh McElhenny, Joe Perry, and John Henry Johnson.

I tried to think of other players who resemble the logos on their cards, but I didn’t come up with any. There must be players who look like mean bears or lions. Can anyone think of more?

• Search for Norm Willey cards on: Nearmint’s Cards, eBay

• Search Nearmint’s Football Cards for: Lou Groza, 1953 Bowman
• Search eBay for: Lou Groza, 1953 Bowman

• Search Nearmint’s Football Cards for: George Shaw, Lamar McHan, King Hill
• Search eBay for: George Shaw, Lamar McHan, King Hill

First we have Bart Starr’s 1961 Fleer card. A stadium light in the background makes Bart appear to have a knob on his head, and there’s a little man with a machine gun shooting Bart in the neck. Fleer also got the Packers’ logo backward, as they did on all of the Packers cards in 1961.

Next up is a 1965 Philadelphia Bob DeMarco card, in which Bob appears to have a few extra appendages. Bob doesn’t seemed bothered by it.

Finally, we have a 1960 Topps Leo Nomellini card, with a couple of Leo’s Lilliputian teammates praising him. Leo, focused on the camera and accustomed to adulation, is ignoring them.