June 22, 2021
By Noonefromtampa
This week’s retrospective column is going to look at some of the Washington Football Team records and the players who own them. Hopefully, we will test your knowledge about your favorite team and surprise you with some of the answers.
Easy Level – No hints
- Who is the team’s career leader in combined kickoff and punt returns for a touchdown?
Answer:
Brian Mitchell, who in my opinion should be a Hall-of-Fame candidate at least, returned nine KO/PR for touchdowns during his career with Washington. By comparison,
Devin Hester had 20 in his career and Hall-of-Famer Gayle Sayers has 14. How good was Mitchell? In his 14 seasons, he accumulated 23,316 combined yards, second only to
Jerry Rice’s 23,330 in league history.
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- Who is the team’s career leader in passing touchdowns thrown?
Answer: Slingin’
Sammy Baugh holds the Washington team career record for passing touchdowns with 187. Baugh is a Hall-of-Fame player who once the led the league in passing, interceptions and punting in the same season, a feat which will never be duplicated. His #33 and
Bobby Mitchell’s #49 are the only two officially retired numbers.
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- Who is the team’s career leader in rushing yards?
Answer:
John Riggins with 7,472 yards over nine seasons. He is also the team career leader in rushing touchdowns with 79.
Clinton Portis is second in both categories with 6,825 yards and 46 touchdowns.
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Moderate Level – With a Hint
- While Mark Moseley holds most of the team’s records for field goal kicking, this cracker of kicker holds the team record for longest field goal made?
Answer:
Graham Gano made a 59-yard field goal attempt against the 49ers on November 6, 2011 in a 19-11 loss. The game featured past/future WFT quarterbacks
John Beck (Redskins) and
Alex Smith (49ers).
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- Which running back holds the team record for most rushing yards in a single game set in a 42-37 loss to the Eagles on September 17, 1989? He is not affiliated with the infamous money laundering Washington bank of a similar name.
Answer:
Gerald Riggs who
Joe Gibbs traded with Atlanta to obtain, was a 3x time Pro Bowl player there. He fell short of the expectations set by the prior “big back”
John Riggins. Riggs did set an unusual mark with the Redskins in 1991 when he rushed for 11 touchdowns in fewer than 80 rushing attempts. The only player in NFL history to do that.
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- He never rode a horse on the Ponderosa, but he rode to a team record for most kick-off return yards in season with 1,541 yards in 2006.
Answer:
Rock Cartwright was 7
th round draft pick in the 2002 NFL Draft. His most memorable year was 2006 when he broke
Brian Mitchell’s 1994 record. Also, that year Cartwright had his only return touchdown against Dallas for 100 yards in a Sunday Night Football game on September 16, 2006 which the Redskins lost 27-10.
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Difficult Level – Multiple Hints
- Which quarterback hold the team record for most passing yards in a single regular season game?
Hint #1: It not the career leader in passing yards Joe Theismann (25,206 yards) or the season leader in passing yards Kirk Cousins (4,917 yards).
Hint #2: He was on the team for only two seasons but took the team the furthest in the playoffs since Dan Snyder has owned the team.
Hint #3: He was the Super Bowl winning quarterback for another team.
Answer:
Brad Johnson who threw for 471 yards against the San Francisco 49ers on December 26, 1999 in a Sunday Night Football game. The Redskins won in overtime on a 33 yard touchdown reception by
Larry Centers thrown by Johnson. Johnson passed for 4,005 yards that season, 5
th all-time on the team single season passing yards list. The Redskins lost in the divisional round game to Tampa Bay, the team Johnson won a Super Bowl with.
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- Which wide receiver holds the team record for most receiving yards in a game with 255 yards?
Hint #1: Wasn’t an official member of the Fun Bunch or the Smurfs.
Hint #2: Only played in three games during the season he set the record.
Hint #3: He could have played for the Sentinels.
Answer:
Anthony Allen set the record against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday, October 4, 1987 as a replacement player during the strike. He hauled in eight passes for 255 yards and three touchdowns. Allen spent two seasons with the Redskins and had a 5 year NFL career but never match those numbers in a game again. The games featured strike players of lore such as quarterback Ed Ruppert and running back
Lionel Vital and was the inspiration for the football movie
The Replacements.
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- Which kicker set the NFL record for most consecutive field goals to start a career?
Hint #1: Was not drafted by Washington or any NFL team.
Hint #2: Played for seven different teams in his career.
Hint #3: He never trained at John Kreese’s dojo.
Answer:
Kai Forbath, started his career with the Redskins in 2012 with 17 consecutive field goal conversions. He played in Washington for parts of four seasons and has also spent time with New Orleans, Minnesota, Jacksonville, Dallas, New England and Los Angeles Rams. 2012 was his best year accuracy-wise when he hit on 94.4% of his 18 attempts.
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- Which player holds the team record for most receptions in a game?
Hint #1: The player was not a wide receiver.
Hint #2: He never was part of a Las Vegas Tiger Act.
Hint #3: You never saw him removing the husk from a corncob on the football field
Answer:
Roy Helu, a running back from Nebraska, was a 4
th round pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. He set the record on November 6, 2011 with 14 receptions, in the same San Francisco game that Gano set his field goal record. The quarterback he caught his passes from was
John Beck.
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Bonus Question
- Which head coach has the highest win-percentage?
Answer:
Dudley DeGroot, went 14-5-1 (a 73.7% winning percentage) coaching team during the war years of 1944 and 1945. While primarily a college coach for most of his career (177-67-9, 63% winning percentage), he coached the Redskins to the 1945 championship game, losing by a point to the Cleveland Rams by a score of 15-14. He also coached two years (1946-1947) for the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference. The AAFL merged into the NFL in 1949 adding the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers to the league. DeGroot interestingly also had a doctorate in education and was one of the foremost zoologists and ornithologists in the United States. That’s the study bird eggs and birds for those more football focused readers.
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