Bears Throwbacks

conace21
Posts: 927
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:08 am

Re: Bears Throwbacks

Post by conace21 »

Rupert Patrick wrote:
Shipley wrote:I agree there's probably not much the Bears can do about it, and that it's lame to go back on your word and unretire a number. The Redskins have a good system. Their only retired number is Sammy Baugh (33), but they work very hard to avoid giving out the numbers of iconic players like Darrell Green (28), Sonny Jurgensen (9), Charley Taylor (42), John Riggins (44), etc. Joe Theismann granted their rookie QB Dwayne Haskins permission to wear #7, his college number, and Haskins handled it nicely by meeting with him personally to ask if he could.
The Steelers are the same way. Although they've never retired officially Bradshaw's number 12, I doubt we'll see another Steeler QB wearing that number anytime soon. They've never given out 32 since Franco Harris, either. I think both uniform numbers are unofficially retired, as has been Jack Lambert's 58, which nobody has worn since he retired in 1984. However, Antwan Randle-El wore John Stallworth's number 82, and somebody (Heyward-Bey?) wore Lynn Swann's 88. The Steelers have only officially retired Ernie Stautner and Joe Greene's numbers, but have unofficially retired others.

I would think a list of the unofficially retired uniform numbers would be at least as interesting as the list of retired uniform numbers.
WR numbers were traditionally tougher to retire because there were only 10 numbers available for current players. In 1995, before any receiver wore 10-19, Andre Hastings wore #88 and Yancey Thigpen #82 for Pittsburgh.

I always thought it was unlikely that Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne would get their numbers retired because the Colts have already retired #82 and #89 for Berry and Marchetti.

Buffalo had unofficially retired #32 for OJ Simpson until this year. Senorise Perry wore the number in training camp. He was cut before the season opener, but has been resigned and has been active on special teams. Buffalo has only officially retired #12, 34, and 78, for Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, and Bruce Smith. Those numbers were not worn by another player in the period between the retirement of the player and official retirement of the number.
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