RIP - Roman Gabriel

Roman Gabriel, quarterback for the Rams and Eagles in the 1960s and 1970s, passed away today April 20, 2024 at age 83.

In 1962, he was the first overall pick in the AFL draft by the Raiders, and the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft by the Rams. 

 

From 1962 to 1965 he was a part-time starter, making 9 starts in 1963. 

 

Gabriel played every game from 1966-72, starting all of them except for 2 games in 1972. He made the Pro Bowl every season from 1967-69, and in 1969 was named first-team All-Pro. as well as the league's MVP. 

 

He was traded to the Eagles after the 1972 season for wide receiver Harold Jackson. Gabe played for the Eagles for 5 seasons, starting every game in 1973 and adding another Pro Bowl appearance, while leading the NFL with 3219 passing yards and 32 touchdown passes. 

 

Gabriel played in 11 games in each of  '74 and '75, starting most of them. In 1976 he lost the starting job to Mike Boryla, but played in 4 games (all starts). 

 

He backed up the newly-acquired Ron Jaworski in 1977, his final season.

 

CBS Sports obituary  

 

ESPN obituary 

  

And now, for the perfect attendance awards...

Recently, I looked up who had cards in the 9-year period from 1964 to 1972, and how many cards each player had in that time span. I chose those years because they are my primary years of interest (well, not the AFL from 1964-66, but I included them anyway to get the complete picture). 

 

This research was an extension of my finding out who had a 1969 card but no other cards from 1966-72, as they will be the topics for my new 1969 card blog.

 

I counted base cards only, and not anyone’s appearance on team cards, “play” cards, or the in-action, All-Pro, and league leader subsets found in the 1972 set. Also, there are two 2-player cards in the 1966 NFL set, so I counted them twice.

 

A total of 997 players were found.  (As a side note, there were 2 Gene Washingtons (already knew that), a John and Johnny Baker, and a John and Johnny Robinson.)

 

12 players had a card in all 9 years. Predictably, most of them (8) were quarterbacks. Although only 8 to 10 players per team were featured in the sets prior to 1973, a team’s starting quarterback was almost guaranteed to appear every season, unless he missed the previous year due to injury (no Bills' QB in '69), or the incumbent was either traded (no Steelers' QB in '68, nor Eagles in '71) or retired. 

 

Another 15 players had 8 cards in those 9 years, usually because they were not active at the start or end of the period, but sometimes because Topps or Philly Gum rotated them out of the set. 

 

What surprised me the most was the difference in total players per year. In ’64 and ’65, there were 334 and 341 players respectively. That dropped to 295 and 290 for the next 2 years. The 1968 set is REALLY small – only 217 players. Topps did a bad job on their first set having both the NFL and AFL players. (Not really surprising, given how shoddy their 1968 baseball set was.) 

 

An enterprising custom card creator out there could add 45 or so players to bring the 1968 total up into the 260’s (the number of players in the 1969 to 1972 sets). Looking at the chart below, I found that many stars were missing 1968 cards, but had cards for most years before and after. Here’s 30 to get you started: 

 

Gerry Philbin, Jim Otto, Merlin Olsen, Dave Parks, Deacon Jones, Earl Morrall, Mick Tingelhoff, Willie Wood, Bruce Gossett, Charley Johnson, Dave Costa, Dick LeBeau, Houston Antwine, Johnny Robinson, Otis Taylor, Steve DeLong, Ben Davidson, Billy Shaw, Bob Brown, Bob Vogel, Chuck Allen, Chuck Howley, Dave Wilcox, Dick Schafrath, Fred Arbanas, Jim Marshall, Mike Clark, Larry Grantham, Mike Pyle, Pat Fischer.

 

 

Here's everyone with 5 or more cards in those 9 years: