Some 1975 Topps Football Customs

 As I mentioned before, I'm organizing and trying to complete some Topps football sets that I've had since I was a kid.  I am making binder covers for them so that they look nice on my shelf.  And of course, I decided that all of the cards featured on these binders would be "Cards That Never Were".  I've made literally thousands of cards for this blog in the decade plus that I've been sporadically posting.  However, football cards have been few and far between.  So now I am making a few cards simply for the sake of my binders, and here is the completed binder cover:

Most of these have been published on this blog.  Bartkowski and Brazile were both Rookies of the Year in 1975. Click Here. The Divisional Playoff cards were just published yesterday. Click Here.  I took the Vikings-Cardinals card for my binder. And Joe Namath on his potential WFL Chicago Winds card was posted a few weeks back. Click Here.

I am a "homer" and I readily admit it.  So you knew I needed to have a bears card.  The Rookie Stars card was a Topps baseball standard of the 60s and 70s, but not football. So here's what a 1975 Bears Rookie Stars card would look like with the classic backfield tandem of Walter Payton and Roland Harper.

The final two include a "normal" card of George Blanda and a 1974 "Highlights" card of Emerson Boozer.  In 1974 the NFL added a sudden death overtime to the rules, and the first player to score a walk-off touchdown was Enerson Boozer.  It was a short path from Joe Namath.

 In 1975 Blanda had 2 "special" cards.  Both close ups of his profile and different layout than the standard card. I really didn't care for either, so I had to make a "regular" card for him. 

Here are his actual 1975 cards:

1975 NFL Rookies of the Year

 In 1975 there were still 5 different organizations who awarded Rookie of the Year titles to NFL players. AP, UPI, NEA, Pro Football Weekly and The Sporting News.  That year there were 11 different awards split among 3 recipients.

The player all five organizations agreed upon was Oilers linebacker Robert Brazile. Houston drafted him with the 6th pick of the first round, just two picks behind his Jackson State teammate, Walter Payton.  Like sweetness, he would be enshrined in Canton, OH.  He played all 10 of his NFL Seasons with the Oilers and was selected to 7 Pro Bowls.  He is also on the Titans/Oilers "Ring of Honor".

Mike Thomas was named NFC Rookie of the Year by UPI.  He was Offensive ROY according to AP and shared the Pro Football Weekly Offensive ROY award with Steve Bartkowski.  Thomas was the lowest draft selection among the three ROYs.  He was picked in the 5th round by Washington from UNLV.  He ran for 919 yards in his rookie campaign. In 1976 he rushed for 1101 and was selected for the Pro Bowl. In his 6 year NFL career he had 6207 total yards from scrimmage for the Redskins and the Chargers.

The first pick of the 1975 NFL draft was Steve Bartkowski from the University of California, Berkley.  He was All American for the Cal Bears and led the nation in 1974 with 2580 passing yards. In addition to sharing the PFW Offensive ROY award with Mike Thomas, he earned NFC ROY honors from the NEA and The Sporting News.  In all he played 11 seasons with the Falcons and one with the Rams. He was a Pro Bowl selection twice.

1968 NFL / AFL Rookies of the Year

With 4 presenters of the Rookie of the Year award in 1968, it can get confusing. I'll try to break it down.

The Associated Press (AP) picked Earl McCullouch on offense and Claude Humphrey on defense.  The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), who had just one award, also chose McCullouch. The Sporting News (TSN) chose McCullouch in the NFL and Paul Robinson in the AFL. United Press International echoed TSN's picks with McCullouch in the NFL and Robinson in the AFL.

On the trading card front, Topps was now the sole producer of football cards. They included both AFL and NFL cards in their set for the first time since 1961. Although there were 3 different Rookies of the Year in 1968, all of them would wait until 1970 before Topps included them in the set.

Earl McCullouch was a unanimous ROY winner. He received honors from AP, NEA, TSN and UPI. He was a two sport star and Olympic Hopeful at USC. Ultimately he chose the money of professional football over the glory of the Olympics in 1968. He played 7 seasons in Detroit from 1968-1973. He finished his career on the Saints in 1974.

Paul Robinson was chosen in the 3rd round of the combined 1968 AFL/NFL draft. In his rookie year he put up 1023 rushing yards and scored 9 TDs. In addition to winning the ROY in the AFL, he came in second to Joe Namath in MVP voting. He played for the Bengals from 1968 until the 4th game into the 1972 season when he was traded to the Oilers. He played sparingly in Houston in 1972 and 1973. In 1974 he played in the newly formed WFL for the Birmingham Americans. He ran for 599 yards and 2 TDs. The Americans won the championship in the WFL's only year in existence. 

 Claude Humphrey was chosen 3rd overall in the draft by the Atlanta Falcons. The defensive end from Tennessee played from 1968-1981 on the Falcons and Eagles. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

1966 Philadelphia Tommy Nobis

1966 NFL Rookie of the Year*

Tommy Nobis was a two-time All American playing both sides of the ball. He was an offensive guard and Linebacker for the Texas Longhorns. In 1963 the Longhorns won their first national championship. In 1965 he was the Outland Trophy Winner for best interior lineman and the Maxwell Award winner for the College Football Player of the Year. In 1981 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

In 1966 he was the 5 player picked in the AFL draft and the number 1 pick in the NFL draft. The expansion Atlanta Falcons made Nobis their first ever draft pick. In his rookie year he had 294 tackles which is an unofficial NFL record. The reason it is unofficial is that tackles were not an official statistic in 1966 and thus open to interpretation. But given that the Falcons' 1966 opponents had a combine 699 rushes and completed passes that means that if you were tackled there was a better than 40% chance Nobis was in on it.

Overall Tommy Nobis played 11 years with the Falcons, appeared in 5 Pro-Bowls, was selected to the NFL's All 1960's team, was enshrined in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and had his number 60 retired by Atlanta.  He was named 1966 Rookie of the Year by The Sporting News and by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.