Tag: Jack Youngblood

Fred Taylor named Semifinalist for Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025

Former Gators running back Fred Taylor named a semifinalist in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025.

Former Florida Gators standout and NFL star running back Fred Taylor was announced as a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2025, a well-deserved recognition for one of the most electrifying players of his era.

Taylor, who played for Florida football from 1994-1997, was a key piece of the Gators’ national championship team in 1996 under legendary head coach Steve Spurrier.

Taylor was selected by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft and he didn’t waste any time making an impact.

Taylor was placed on the PFWA All-Rookie team after racking up over 1,200 rushing yards and 17 total touchdowns. Over the course of his career, Taylor rushed for 11,695 yards, placing him 17th on the NFL’s all-time rushing list at the time of his retirement in 2011.

Taylor coined the nickname “Fragile Fred” because of his durability concerns early in his career, but he later silenced those doubts with his consistent production.

What’s next?

Taylor is among 25 semifinalists for the 2025 Hall of Fame class. The list will be narrowed down to finalists in the beginning of 2025, with the official inductees announced shortly after.

If chosen, Taylor would join fellow Florida legends Emmitt Smith and Jack Youngblood in Canton, Ohio, proudly representing the Gators in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

For now, Taylor’s name remains in the conversation. But his contributions to the sport of football have earned him a rightful place in the Hall of Fame discussion.

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Legendary Florida DE vouches for Gators HC Billy Napier

Florida head coach Billy Napier has been heavily criticized since taking over the program, but legendary Gator Jack Youngblood has his back.

Plenty of Florida football legends have spoken highly of second-year head coach [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag], and the latest Gator great to praise him is NFL Hall of Fame defensive end [autotag]Jack Youngblood[/autotag].

After a recent 24-11 loss against Utah to start the season, a sect of Florida fans have called for Napier’s job, despite being just one game into Year 2 of a seven-season contract worth more than $50 million. More sensible fans responded with confusion, citing the financial complications that would come with pulling the trigger so hastily.

Youngblood isn’t focused on money, though. He likes Napier’s character and the culture that he’s built at Florida.

“Coach (Napier) has my 110% support!!” Youngblood wrote on Twitter.

Last year, Napier received endorsements from the likes of Emmitt Smith and Danny Wuerffel. Linebacker Brandon Spikes also spoke highly of Napier after joining the coaching staff this season.

Florida fans are impatient, though, and a vouch from a legend will only quiet things down for so long. The Gators have finished each of the last two seasons with a 6-7 record following embarrassing bowl losses. A three-peat could have devastating consequences.

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Pro football’s top sack artists from 1960 through 1981

The quarterback sack became an official statistic in 1982. Now, we know the names of the great players who had the most sacks before then.

One of the most unfortunate statistical issues in pro football is that there are no official sack numbers before 1982. This obviously leaves a lot of the game’s greatest players out of the loop when it comes to determining their historical importance. Pre-1982 unofficial sack totals have been floating around for years, but Pro Football Reference has taken the giant step of putting those totals from 1960 through 1981 on their website. John Turney of Pro Football Journal has been renowned for his work in this regard (Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman pointed out Turney’s work a long time ago), and it’s Turney’s work, along with that of Nick Webster, both members of the Professional Football Researchers Association, that has cleared the gap.

This new information presents quite the alternate history of pro football. All-time greats like Deacon Jones, Jack Youngblood, Alan Page, and Jim Marshall finally get their due, and lesser-known names like Al “Bubba” Baker (who now holds the single-season sack record with 23.0 in 1978), Coy Bacon, and Elvin Bethea find their profiles where they always should have been — right up there with the all-timers.

How much does this mean to the players who have been overlooked? Al “Bubba” Baker, who is finally revealed at the NFL’s single-season sack leader with 23 in the 1978 season (his rookie season, to boot) said on the Around the NFL Podcast that it was quite an emotional experience.

“For some reason, and I’m not kidding you, without any prompting, tears just started running down my eyes,” Baker said, via Lions Wire’s Jeff Risdon. “And my wife was inside, I opened up the patio doors. And my wife, first thing she said was, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I said, nothing’s wrong and I said come look at this. And, you know, we hugged and then I lost about an hour and a half, two hours. My daughter called. It was really emotional for my family. I guess at 6-foot-8, 290 pounds, that doesn’t sound really tough, but, we were all crying.

“You know somebody tells you you’re a sack leader and what do you do, you start crying. And I guess it’s because none of us really sat around like some players and, ‘We want this and we want that.’ We hadn’t thought about it for at least, for at least, I’m not kidding you, 20 years.”

Baker, who led the league in sacks in both 1978 and 1980 (with 17.5), and now has 131.0 sacks shown for his NFL career, is one of so many whose excellence is now more obvious to football fans of any stripe.

With that in mind, here are the top sack artists in professional football from 1960 through 1981 — presenting a far clearer picture of those players who contributed the most to quarterback disruption before the numbers became official. There were 13 players who had at least 100 sacks before the sack became an official statistic, and here they are.

New unofficial sack totals highlight dominance of Deacon Jones and Jack Youngblood

Deacon Jones had three seasons of 21.5-plus sacks and is unofficially 3rd all-time in career sacks.

Longtime Rams fans know just how good the team’s defensive line was in the 1960s and ‘70s thanks to the sheer dominance of Deacon Jones and Jack Youngblood. However, younger fans may not fully appreciate just how good those two Hall of Famers were in their primes.

Pro Football Reference is thankfully here to provide some context, though.

Thanks to nearly 30 years of research, Pro Football Reference has added sack totals for players who suited up before 1982, when sacks became an official NFL stat. Up to this point, there have been estimates of how many sacks some of the game’s best pass rushers had, but PFR did the work to find out their exact totals.

According to their decades of research and film work, Jones is now unofficially credited with 173.5 career sacks – third-most in NFL history. His teammate with the Rams, Youngblood, recorded 151.5 career sacks, which is good for sixth-most all-time.

As a result of this newfound data, three former Rams rank in the top six of career sacks, with Kevin Greene ranking fourth in league history (160.0 sacks). His total is official, since he played from 1985-1999.

Here’s a look at PFR’s new top-20 unofficial leaderboard for career sacks.

Unofficial Leaders Table
Rank Player Sk Years
1 Bruce Smith+ 200.0 1985-2003
2 Reggie White+ 198.0 1985-2000
3 Deacon Jones+ 173.5 1961-1974
4 Kevin Greene+ 160.0 1985-1999
5 Julius Peppers 159.5 2002-2018
6 Jack Youngblood+ 151.5 1971-1984
7 Chris Doleman+ 150.5 1985-1999
8 Alan Page+ 148.5 1967-1981
9 Lawrence Taylor+ 142.0 1981-1993
10 Michael Strahan+ 141.5 1993-2007
11 Jason Taylor+ 139.5 1997-2011
12 Terrell Suggs 139.0 2003-2019
13 DeMarcus Ware 138.5 2005-2016
14 Richard Dent+ 137.5 1983-1997
John Randle+ 137.5 1990-2003
16 Jared Allen 136.0 2004-2015
Rickey Jackson+ 136.0 1981-1995
18 John Abraham 133.5 2000-2014
Carl Eller+ 133.5 1964-1979
20 Leslie O’Neal 132.5 1986-1999

Between Jones, Greene, Youngblood and Aaron Donald, four of the game’s best pass rushers ever suited up for the Rams at one point or another. Donald has 85.5 career sacks in seven seasons, so he would need to keep up that exact pace for another seven years in order to crack the top four ahead of Greene.

That’ll be challenging to do since he’s 30 years old, but no one should ever doubt the three-time Defensive Player of the Year – and the guy who almost never takes a day off.

He needs another 47 sacks to tie for 20th all-time, though other active players could also continue to rise up the list along with him. And while he may never reach the top 20, he’ll be regarded as arguably the best defensive tackle in NFL history.

WATCH: Florida football great Trace Armstrong selects his best Gator ever

Former University of Florida star Trace Armstrong discusses the greatest UF football players ever with Gators Wire.

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Editor’s note: Gators Wire recently interviewed former Florida and NFL great Trace Armstrong to discuss a variety of topics, ranging from his youth to the modern game of football. During our conversations, he provided a plethora of fascinating anecdotes that we will share with you in a multi-part series.

Be sure to check back each Wednesday in the coming months for future installments of “Talking with Trace.” The series is part of a partnership between our colleagues at Campus Lore and the NFLPA.

For the first article of our interview series with legendary Gators defensive end Trace Armstrong, we asked him who he considers as the greatest Florida football player of all time. Armstrong transferred from Arizona State to Florida for his senior season in 1988, after which he went on to a storied professional football career in the NFL.

Here is what he had to say about who the greatest Gator of all time is:

“That’s a great question. I had great admiration for (Pro Football Hall of Famer) Jack Youngblood, as a former player. He’s a D-lineman that I looked up to as a young player and the career he had in the league. So, Jack would definitely be up there.

Feb 5, 2012; Indianapolis, IN. NFL former player and Hall of Fame member Jack Youngblood before Super Bowl XLVI between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium. (Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)

“You know, it would be … I’d say outside of Jack, probably Tim Tebow. And not because of what Tim accomplished on the field. Tim, particularly as a young man, was one of those unique individuals where he had this outsized influence on others. So it was really neat to see him as a young player in a team setting and a team dynamic. And I’ll be honest, I had not seen or been around somebody like him at the college level ever before.

Florida quarterback Tim Tebow runs around Dolphin Stadium shaking hands with fans following the Gators’ 24-14 victory over Oklahoma at Dolphins Stadium to win the BCS Championship Game on Jan. 8, 2009. (USA TODAY Sports photo)

So those would be two. Jack for just his toughness and high level of play for so long and Tim for his ability to impact other people.”

Former Florida Gators former quarterback Tim Tebow is inducted into the Ring of Honor on Oct. 6, 2018, during a game against the LSU Tigers at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. (Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)
Los Angeles Rams defensive end Jack Youngblood prior to the wild-card playoff game at Washington on Jan. 1, 1984. (Manny Rubio-USA TODAY Sports)

Rams legend Jack Youngblood: Aaron Donald ‘fits in with the best of us’

Jack Youngblood had some high praise for Aaron Donald.

Jack Youngblood is up there as one of the greatest players in Rams history. His best days came when sacks weren’t yet an official stat, and when they did become a metric in 1982, Youngblood was 32 years old.

Yet in his final two seasons in the NFL, he had 10.5 sacks and 9.5 sacks at the age of 33 and 34, respectively. Considering he played 14 seasons, he likely would’ve pushed for more than 150 career sacks.

That’s a number Aaron Donald would love to reach, and he’s well on his way. With 81 sacks in just 6.5 seasons, he could easily eclipse 150, which would put him in the top five all-time. Youngblood has watched Donald throughout his career and he says No. 99 is up there with the best to ever suit up for the Rams, alongside himself, Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones.

“Yes he is (special). He can play on my team any time,” Youngblood told Morten Andersen on the Great Dane Nation podcast. “And he’s a good guy, at the same time. I hear that all the time. He carries himself well, and he does. He fits in with the best of us, that’s for sure.”

Donald is averaging 0.78 sacks per game in his career. If he averages that number for even another 80 games, which is the equivalent of five seasons, he’ll add 63 sacks to his total of 81.

He’s already established himself as one of the best defensive tackles ever, and if he continues on his current trajectory, Donald could become the greatest of all time to play the position.

With how many great defensive linemen have suited up for the Rams, Donald has already established himself as the latest to join that coveted group.

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Florida Gators announces Ring of Honor merchandise collection

The collection is intended to highlight two players a year for the next three years and features branded apparel and non-apparel items.

Starting Friday, Gators fans will be able to purchase merchandise featuring Jack Youngblood and Emmitt Smith, two program legends that comprise the six-man Ring of Honor, an exclusive group of all-time UF players, as part of the new Ring of Honor merchandise collection.

The collection is intended to highlight two players a year for the next three years and features branded apparel and non-apparel items, such as a collectible jersey. The gear will be featured on Fanatics and other university-partnered retailers.

The selected players will also be honored by the school throughout the football season.

The first set of players in the collection are perhaps the two best professional football players to ever come out of the UF program in Youngblood and Smith. Youngblood, who played at Florida in the late 60s and early 70s, went on to have a lengthy NFL career, becoming the first Gator to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Smith, perhaps the most prolific UF athlete not named Tim Tebow, dominated at the next level after his tremendous college career, and he still holds the NFL career records in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns.

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Jack Youngblood doesn’t like Rams’ new uniforms, says ‘the horn is terrible’

Jack Youngblood really doesn’t like the Rams’ new uniforms, especially the redesigned horn.

The Rams finally pulled back the curtain on their completely redesigned uniforms in May after years of work by designers and those at Nike. The initial response wasn’t as strong as the team probably thought it’d be, but it seems there’s a pretty even split between fans who like them and those who don’t.

Rams legend Jack Youngblood is unequivocally among those who despise the new uniforms, ripping them in a recent interview with Pro Football Journal. The 70-year-old Hall of Famer prefers the more traditional look that he wore during his playing days, and he can’t get over the revamped two-piece horn.

Well, the color is good, I like the metallic blue,” Youngblood said about the helmet. “The horn is terrible. It looks like a ‘C.’ When I first saw it on the logo I honestly thought it was a Charger logo.

“Now when I see it on the helmet, it just isn’t a ram horn. There is no distinct curl like a mature ram horn. I don’t know how the Rams could get that wrong. That is your symbol and it has been for what? Seventy years or more? Longer than I have been alive? It’s just not us, it’s not the Rams.”

As for the uniforms themselves, Youngblood says the “blue and gold ones are OK, except for the horns on the helmet and shoulders.” He called the Bone uniforms “weird” and questions the yellow crescent shape on the shoulder – “we’re not the zodiacs, are we?”

The Rams tried to get creative with the Bone color, but a number of people pointed out that they just look like dirty laundry instead. Youngblood said they remind him of the uniforms worn by the guards in “The Longest Yard,” as well as his road uniforms in high school, which his team could never seem to get clean.

Youngblood didn’t take a flamethrower to the Rams’ uniforms like Eric Dickerson did, but he made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t care for the new look. He went into even more detail on the uniforms, too, which you can check out in the full interview.

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Playing through pain in the NFL: The most courageous performances

After Philadelphia quarterback Josh McCown played with a torn hamstring last week, Touchdown Wire looks at others who’ve played through pain

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Josh McCown was visibly limping throughout the second half of his team’s wild-card playoff loss to Seattle. Now, we know why.

According to multiple reports, McCown was playing with a torn hamstring. The injury reportedly happened in the second quarter. McCown is 40 and was coaxed out of retirement by the Eagles at the start of the season to serve as the backup to Carson Wentz.

McCown entered the game in the first quarter after Wentz suffered a concussion. Philadelphia did not have an active third quarterback, so McCown stayed in the game. He played fairly well, completing 18 of 24 passes for 174 yards, but was sacked six times.

McCown isn’t the first player to keep playing through a painful injury and he won’t be the last. Here’s a look at nine other players who continued playing through serious injuries:

Steve McNair

(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

In a Sept. 26, 2004 game against the Jaguars, the Tennessee Titans quarterback suffered a bruised sternum. McNair spent two nights in the hospital, but returned to play in five more games before finally agreeing to have surgery.

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