The least-appreciated NFL player ever

         He is the least appreciated player in pro football history and he isn’t even a down lineman. He has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He played for four different teams in two leagues and played on three championship teams. He was named to the NFL’s 1970s all-decade team but even there he is a second-teamer.

          His name is Paul Warfield. He was a wide receiver on the 1964 Cleveland Browns’ NFL championship team and played on two Miami Dolphin Super Bowl winners in the 1970s.

          Warfield was a Pro Bowler eight times and was voted all-league honors six times. In 13 NFL seasons, he caught 427 passes for 8,565 yards and scored 85 touchdowns. Great stats. He also played a season in the World Football League.

          Go back to the lead sentence and understand the point: When you think about the championship teams Warfield starred on, you think of other offensive players. Yet Warfield made those other players better. He might be among the top five receivers of all time in terms of the quality of his play, yet few recognize that fact.

          Warfield was a rookie wide out for the Browns when that team won the NFL championship in 1964. He caught 52 passes, nine for touchdowns, and gained 920 yards that year. He averaged 17.6 yards a reception over the course of the 14-game regular season.

          But Cleveland’s offensive threat that every team considered first in 1964 was running back Jim Brown. Brown was the best running back the pro game has ever seen and opposing defenses had no choice but to consider him first when game-planning for games against Cleveland. Brown led the league in rushing that year with 1,446 yards, averaging more than 100 yards per game. He terrorized defenses.

          Warfield gave Browns quarterback Frank Ryan a deep threat and that helped the running game. Warfield gave defensive coaches nightmares and that helped Brown and the other Cleveland rushers.

          Skip ahead to the Miami Dolphins of 1972 and 1973. Both teams were Super Bowl winners but, again, Warfield was not the best-known offensive player.

          Those Dolphins teams were dominated by the running of Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris. The trio each gained 1,000 yards during the same season, the first time three runners from the same team all rushed for 1,000 or more in a single season.

          Miami’s opponents wanted to concentrate on the Dolphins’ running game. They wanted to stack the defense against the run. They wanted to, but they couldn’t because Warfield was there. He represented such a threat that the opposing defensive coaches had to consider Miami’s passing attack, too.

          Look at this: Warfield caught only 29 passes during the 1973 season. But 11 of the 29 went for touchdowns. Put the stats together and it’s obvious that even if the Dolphins didn’t throw the ball too much, the defense on the other side of the ball had to play as if they might.

          When a player changes a game just by being on the field, which Warfield did throughout his career, he is a great player. A Hall of Famer.

          And yet, he is the not the first player you think of on the ’64 Browns or those great Miami teams. So he looks from here to be the least appreciated member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

 

          But you are appreciated. Thanks for reading.