John Madden: I love to see a fat guy score.
Pat Summerall: Why?
John Madden: Because first you get a fat guy spike, then you get the fat guy dance.
That line from The Replacements has always held true. There are few things more extemporaneously joyful than when a huge dude in a football uniform scores a touchdown and gets, for a moment, the adulation usually reserved for the smaller skill-position guys. When the Bills scored a touchdown on a Josh Allen pass to 6-foot-5, 320-pound offensive tackle with one second left in the first half of Buffalo’s Week 16 tussle with the Patriots, it set a mark that hasn’t been set in a long time.
At 320 pounds, @BuffaloBills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins became the 5th player weighing 300+ pounds to catch a receiving touchdown this season.
That is the most in a single-season since at least 1995.#BUFvsNE
— NFL Research (@NFLResearch) December 21, 2019
Because we know what you need at Touchdown Wire, we’re presenting all five Fat Guy Touchdowns right here.
Week 1: Ravens FB/DL Patrick Ricard
With 7:54 left in their 59-10 thrashing of the Dolphins, the Ravens dialed up this one-yard pass from Lamar Jackson to the 6-foot-3, 311-pound Patrick Ricard. It was Jackson’s fifth passing touchdown on the day.
“It was my idea,” Harbaugh said. “My brother had his guy in San Francisco… I just thought that was a weapon, a dominant type guy, and he looked like a really good athlete. Then I asked him, he said he played it in high school, and the rest is history.”
Jim Harbaugh’s guy in San Francisco from 2011-2014 was Bruce Miller, a linebacker and defensive lineman at Central Florida who Harbaugh converted to a fullback after the 49ers took him in the seventh round of the 2011 draft. Ricard is no stranger to the end zone — the former Maine defensive lineman caught two touchdown passes in his rookie campaign of 2017, and he has eight receptions on 11 targets for 47 yards and that touchdown. Ricard has lined up all over the place for the Ravens in 2019 — 152 snaps in the backfield, 69 snaps inline, 47 in the slot, 20 as a wideout, and 134 on the defensive line.
So, if you see this play when the Ravens get their postseason going, don’t be surprised.