Teams falling off a cliff that were surprising

[JuggernautJ]

Leroy Kelly is my "guilty pleasure" of NFL players.
It may be because he was peaking while I was just starting to understand football but Kelly has always been one of my favorite running backs.

I know Leroy Kelly is not, statistically, the second best running back in NFL history but in my book he may rank at number two.
It's either him of Steve Van Buren...

[Saban1]

Leroy Kelly is my "guilty pleasure" of NFL players.
It may be because he was peaking while I was just starting to understand football but Kelly has always been one of my favorite running backs.

I know Leroy Kelly is not, statistically, the second best running back in NFL history but in my book he may rank at number two.
It's either him of Steve Van Buren...

Leroy Kelly was one of my favorites too. Kelly did it all. He blocked, caught passes, and was a good tackler on the special teams when Jim Brown was still with the Browns. And, of course, a great runner. He ran back punts and kickoffs for touchdowns before he broke into Cleveland's starting lineup (Brown's retirement).

One thing that I also noticed. When Cleveland quarterbacks threw interceptions, Kelly is the one who often seemed to make the tackle on the man who made the interception. No stats about that, I think.

[Saban1]

Leroy Kelly is my "guilty pleasure" of NFL players.
It may be because he was peaking while I was just starting to understand football but Kelly has always been one of my favorite running backs.

I know Leroy Kelly is not, statistically, the second best running back in NFL history but in my book he may rank at number two.
It's either him of Steve Van Buren...

Leroy Kelly was one of my favorites too. Kelly did it all. He blocked, caught passes, and was a good tackler on the special teams when Jim Brown was still with the Browns. And, of course, a great runner. He ran back punts and kickoffs for touchdowns before he broke into Cleveland's starting lineup (Brown's retirement).

One thing that I also noticed. When Cleveland quarterbacks threw interceptions, Kelly is the one who often seemed to make the tackle on the man who made the interception. No stats about that, I think.

Another thing I just remembered about Leroy Kelly. He also punted in games where Gary Collins did not play for whatever reason, and he wasn't bad at that either. He maybe could have taken over Gary Collins' punting chores in 1967, but the Browns probably figured that he had enough to do with his running, receiving, blocking, and sometimes running back punts.

[JuggernautJ]

Leroy Kelly is my "guilty pleasure" of NFL players.
It may be because he was peaking while I was just starting to understand football but Kelly has always been one of my favorite running backs.

I know Leroy Kelly is not, statistically, the second best running back in NFL history but in my book he may rank at number two.
It's either him or Steve Van Buren...

Leroy Kelly was one of my favorites too. Kelly did it all. He blocked, caught passes, and was a good tackler on the special teams when Jim Brown was still with the Browns. And, of course, a great runner. He ran back punts and kickoffs for touchdowns before he broke into Cleveland's starting lineup (Brown's retirement).

One thing that I also noticed. When Cleveland quarterbacks threw interceptions, Kelly is the one who often seemed to make the tackle on the man who made the interception. No stats about that, I think.

Another thing I just remembered about Leroy Kelly. He also punted in games where Gary Collins did not play for whatever reason, and he wasn't bad at that either. He maybe could have taken over Gary Collins' punting chores in 1967, but the Browns probably figured that he had enough to do with his running, receiving, blocking, and sometimes running back punts.

Well, we've talked about Kelly as a blocker, runner, receiver, returner, kicker and tackler...
Might as well mention his passing stats, too.

Although only 3 of 16, 12.5% of his passes were TDs (2) and Leroy had a 90.9 career passing rating.
Definitely a Hall of Fame player and career.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... llLe00.htm

[SixtiesFan]

My recollection is during 1967-68, Leroy Kelly was usually called the best running back in pro football and was rated ahead of Gale Sayers. Kelly declined from his peak from 1969 on, while Sayers had one last good year in 1969. From then on, and probably with the help of the Brian's Song movie, Gale Sayers had an aura about him while Leroy Kelly was forgotten.

During Kelly's peak years of 1966-68, you wouldn't have thought it would be 20 years (1994) after he left football before he made the HOF.

[BD Sullivan]

Kelly pulled his hamstring in the 1969 opener (which was his first official game on artificial turf BTW) and never seemed to get back on track the rest of the season. Ernie green had missed half the previous year and then retired prior to the 69 season, so perhaps it was a blocking issue. Kelly was the definition of a "mudder"--since his only 100-yard games cam in home slopfests against the Giants and Packers.

In 1973, he again pulled his hamstring midway through the year, which effectively ended his career, since he came back for the final seven games and gained just 105 yards on 44 carries. He was with Oakland and then closed out with Chicago in the WFL.

[Saban1]

Another thing about Leroy Kelly. He played mostly on special teams in 1964 and 1965 and the Browns wanted to keep their starting backfield the same as it was very successful with Jim Brown and Ernie Green. Green was an excellent blocker as BD alluded to and was a very good all around running back, and there was no way that anyone would replace Jim Brown. So, Kelly could have had a couple more years as starting running back and his peak years would have been a couple of years longer.

About the punting: Gary Collins punting fell off in 1967 and for the first time had punts blocked. He averaged about 36 yards per punt in 1967. Just a couple of years earlier, Collins averaged more than 10 yards more per punt and he was considered one of the best punters in football. He was also clever the way he avoided tacklers and having punts blocked in years prior to 1967. One of the blocked punts in 1967 led to a touchdown against the Giants in their 38 to 34 loss that year.

In 1967, Kelly punted 10 times and averaged over 40 yards per punt.

[Todd Pence]

1973 49ers had been in the playoffs the previous three years, including two NFC title game gigs. Wouldn't have a winning record for the rest of the decade. Of course, they did rebound in a big way in the 1980's.