Rest In Peace Lee Roy Jordan! (Cowboys Linebacker)

 Today's blog post is sad as one of the greatest linebackers in NFL history has tragically passed away. His name was Lee Roy Jordan and he was 84.

Obviously, Jordan was a head of my time growing up watching the great game of football. But thanks to many of the older generation and history books as well as NFL films, I got to learn about him and what he had accomplished as a player.

If there is one word that can best describe Jordan, it would be champion. Everywhere Jordan played, he was a winner. He was a part of the 1961 Alabama Crimson Tide squad that were not only SEC champions, but also National champions under legendary Head Coach Bear Bryant.

In fact, coach Bryant had given him high praise throughout his time there at Alabama. Even going as far as saying that he was one of the finest players that he had ever coached and coming from someone like Bear Bryant, goes a long way in football. He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.

Lee Roy was then drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1963 NFL draft. WOW! That is the same year that my parents were born 😆.

But all kidding aside, Jordan made an immediate impact on the Cowboys as he was the first rookie linebacker to start during the season opener in franchise history.

Jordan was then later joined by Chuck Howley and Dave Edwards (RIP) and the trio became one of the greatest linebacker groups in football history.

Some career highlights for Jordan when he recorded 21 tackles against the Philadelphia Eagles in 1971. He then had three interceptions within a span of five minutes against Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson in 1973.

Jordan was the key to the success of the Flex defense that help carry the Cowboys to the success that they had under coach Tom Landry and honestly, I am not so sure that the Flex would be as good without him. But this is just my humble opinion.

He finished his 14 year career with the Cowboys with 743 solo tackles, 493 assisted tackles, for a combined total of 1,236 tackles. Jordan was also very reliable and was constantly on the field, in fact he went 154 consecutive games.

Not to mention that he also had 32 interceptions returned for 472 yards and three touchdowns. Jordan was also known for getting after the loose ball and had 18 fumble recoveries.

Jordan was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983, but for some reason or another, he was never inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Which honestly is still confusing to me, but I don't get to vote. Maybe someday.

Rest in peace Mr. Jordan and my thoughts and prayers to all of those who knew you and played with and against you.

Until Next Time!

God Bless and Be Safe Everybody! 🙏🙏🙏






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2009 Lewistown Panthers Baseball

Image
 Well, with me trying to become more positive about myself, I have been looking back into the past and find ways to let go of some of the negative emotions attached to it. One such issue was going back to my time at Lewistown Area High School which as mentioned before was a huge struggle for me.  But again, trying to be more positive, I wanted to look back at that time and remember some of the good moments during that period. One of which was playing for the Lewistown Panthers baseball team. Heading into my senior year of high school, I wasn't in the best state of mind. Honestly, I really did not want to be there anymore, I was just so sick of life, never thought I was going to be anything. All I ever was going to be was a huge disappointment. I can only give credit to God for being able to get through that year. But then baseball tryouts came along and I decided to go for it again. The previous years I've tried only to fail, which in fairness, wasn't much of a surprise bec...
Read more

The Wacky Adventures Of Joshua and Chad: McVeytown Eagles Championship Parade!

Image
Well tonight was a pretty special night down here in McVeytown as Chad and I along with many other people who live here in McVeytown all came together to celebrate a special accomplishment. And that was how all three of the McVeytown Eagles teams made it to the CKYFL championship games. Winning in both the Peewee and Midget divisions and placing second in the Mighty Mights. Stuff like this doesn't happen often in such a small town where I live so to see these kids have the time of their lives during the parade was certainly a sight to see. One of the things I love about covering sports is when I see kids learn, work hard and turn it into success. And these kids were learning a lot throughout the season and watching them grow and not only become better football players, but better people as well.  Which is why I have really enjoyed covering the CKYFL these last few years for Hometown Sports. People like Travis McCullough who is the President of the league along with Adam Weaver, Rob...
Read more

The 2005 Lewistown Panthers Football Team!

Image
 I recently completed reading my story for Hometown Sports Magazine about the 2005 Lewistown Panthers football team who finally ended a thirty years of losing seasons. In this blog, I wanted to talk about why I wanted to write about this team and how I feel the lessons that were learned about them throughout the year can still be used today.  One of the biggest reasons as to why I wanted to write about this team was because of how much of team these guys were both on and off the field. These guys have played the game of football together for a number of years and it clearly showed. Plus being a youngster, I really didn't know the history of Lewistown Panthers football. I only remember going to games because I remember my cousins playing on the team. But talking about the football team in general, to put it nicely, there wasn't a lot of success. In fact when I started this journey of writing this story, I discovered that Lewistown didn't have a winning season for thirty year...
Read more