1965 Philadelphia Gale Sayers

1965 NFL Rookie of the Year

For the first and only time, both the NFL and AFL Rookies of the Year were future Hall of Famers. In the AFL was a brash young QB out of Alabama named Joe Namath. We've all seen his iconic rookie 1965 Tall-Boy, below. In the NFL was a a quiet running back out of Kansas, Gale Sayers. He wouldn't be seen on cardboard until the 1966 Philadelphia set in which he had 2 cards. He had a regular issue and was featured on an action card in that set.

1965 Topps Football Checklist - Cards That Never Were - 24th Series

I modified another "Tall Boy" for my 24th series of card that never were. This one is from the 1965 Topps Football Set. To see all the cards from this checklist in one place as well as those from the previous checklist click here.

1965 Ron Santo

In 1965 Topps adopted the "Tall-Boy" style for their football cards. This was nearly identical to the 1964-65 Topps hockey cards. The only real difference was that the team name was on the hockey card while the team city was on the football cards.

For their part Philadelphia added the NFL logo to their cards. I took the liberty of changing the league logo to a team logo.