Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The thread about Iron Men made me think of Bill Dudley. Johnny Blood once told me that the ideal backfield would be four Bill Dudleys, and here's why:

Dudley rushed for 18 TDs and caught 18 TD passes; he threw 6 TD passes; he returned 3 punts, 1 kickoff, and 2 interceptions for TDs; he kicked 33 field goals and 121 extra punts. He also punted for a 37.8 average. Evidently he never scored a safety, but he scored in every other possible way. Can anyone else in NFL history make that claim?

Sammy Baugh?

EDIT: Nope. Not even close. Baugh returned punts but none for a TD.

If anyone is comparable... it has to be from the same era.

I was about to say Cookie Gilchrist.
But I see he never returned a punt... and never scored on a kickoff return for that matter.

Dudley was certainly versatile, but on the debit side, although he did throw a few touchdown passes he was a terrible passer. Whizzer White, a similarly versatile star, shared the same flaw. I don't know which one was worse at throwing the ball, but it would be an ugly contest.

rhickok1109 wrote:The thread about Iron Men made me think of Bill Dudley. Johnny Blood once told me that the ideal backfield would be four Bill Dudleys, and here's why:

Dudley rushed for 18 TDs and caught 18 TD passes; he threw 6 TD passes; he returned 3 punts, 1 kickoff, and 2 interceptions for TDs; he kicked 33 field goals and 121 extra punts. He also punted for a 37.8 average. Evidently he never scored a safety, but he scored in every other possible way. Can anyone else in NFL history make that claim?

Although he wasn't credited with a safety while with Detroit on 11/14/48 he was tackled in the end zone by John Koniszewski
giving the Redskins a safety and the game 46-21. The following year he had a punt blocked by Mario Giannelli of the Eagles
for another safety in a 22-14 loss for the Lions on 10/3/49.

rhickok1109 wrote:The thread about Iron Men made me think of Bill Dudley. Johnny Blood once told me that the ideal backfield would be four Bill Dudleys, and here's why:

Dudley rushed for 18 TDs and caught 18 TD passes; he threw 6 TD passes; he returned 3 punts, 1 kickoff, and 2 interceptions for TDs; he kicked 33 field goals and 121 extra punts. He also punted for a 37.8 average. Evidently he never scored a safety, but he scored in every other possible way. Can anyone else in NFL history make that claim?

Deion is the only one who equals Dudley in number of ways they scored TD's, though obviously he lacks the other qualifiers (kicking/punting/passing) ...

I would guess Jim Thorpe (maybe Bob knows?) if you counted pre-NFL, at least would come close.

Also, I had forgot how much I enjoyed watching Spec Sanders play until recently when I popped in a couple games, he could do everything. Minus the kicking he's close, if you count the All-America Conference.

"In NFL history" the other player you mentioned, Johnny Blood, is probably closest.

I thought of Sanders too, but as Matt said, he loses out because he wasn't a kicker. But on the plus side, he was a much better passer than Dudley.

As far as I can tell, Jim Thorpe never scored on a kickoff or interception return, so that lets him out.

One thing that occurs to me, though, is that there's one other way to score a TD, which is a fumble recovery (I'd just call that a single category, regardless of which team fumbled the ball). Did Dudley, or the other contenders, ever do that?

In the last half century Louis Lipps returned a kickoff, Punt, Ran and Caught a TD in the same season. Not sure if he could throw though. Boy he was a good yu oungster, thought he'd be great but he never had a real QB throwing the ball to him and he finally lost the step he could never afford to lose.

Reaser wrote:

rhickok1109 wrote:The thread about Iron Men made me think of Bill Dudley. Johnny Blood once told me that the ideal backfield would be four Bill Dudleys, and here's why:

Dudley rushed for 18 TDs and caught 18 TD passes; he threw 6 TD passes; he returned 3 punts, 1 kickoff, and 2 interceptions for TDs; he kicked 33 field goals and 121 extra punts. He also punted for a 37.8 average. Evidently he never scored a safety, but he scored in every other possible way. Can anyone else in NFL history make that claim?

Deion is the only one who equals Dudley in number of ways they scored TD's, though obviously he lacks the other qualifiers (kicking/punting/passing) ...

I would guess Jim Thorpe (maybe Bob knows?) if you counted pre-NFL, at least would come close.

Also, I had forgot how much I enjoyed watching Spec Sanders play until recently when I popped in a couple games, he could do everything. Minus the kicking he's close, if you count the All-America Conference.

"In NFL history" the other player you mentioned, Johnny Blood, is probably closest.

Blood never kicked a field goal (or, if he did, it wasn't recorded).

As a rookie Gale Sayers threw one TD, ran for 14, caught 6, ran one kickoff back for a TD, ran one punt back for a TD. He's also credited with four fumble recoveries, probably a few of his own fumbles. The Bears only made 11 of 26 FGs that year, so Sayers probably could have done about as well kicking!