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College football season is well within reach!
With less than 100 days until kickoff, we here at Team Speed Kills are introducing a brand-new, quotidian countdown series to help you prepare for the first slate of college football action on August 26th.
In this series, we will post a daily SEC-related fact and/or story that corresponds to the number of the day in the countdown. Hopefully, you’ll find this series enlightening and entertaining. If you do, click that ‘share’ button we all know and love. If you do not, quit lying to yourself.
Long before Kellen Winslow Jr. was a star on the gridiron at the University of Miami in the early 2000s, his father—Kellen Winslow Sr.—was a legend at Missouri in the late 70s.
A first-round pick of the San Diego Chargers back in 1979, Winslow would play nine years in the NFL before being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1995 and also the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
One of the more iconic images in NFL history shows Winslow being helped off the field by teammates after a 1981 playoff game against the Miami Dolphins where Winslow would catch 13 passes for 166 yards and touchdown. In that same game, Winslow would block a field goal to send the game into overtime. It was one of the single greatest individual playoff performances in NFL history.
At Mizzou, Winslow played all four years catching 71 passes for 1,089 yards and 10 touchdowns. That was in an era much different than what we are in now. Quarterbacks rarely passed for 300 yards in a game and the tight end was not an integral part of the offense.
Winslow helped change that.
At 6’5”, 250 pounds, Winslow was built like a defensive end and ran like a wide receiver. While that is the norm now, it wasn’t in the early 80s. Winslow was Tony Gonzalez before Tony Gonzalez.
Winslow’s No. 83 jersey is retired at Missouri as he is arguably the greatest player in school history.
So, while most will remember Kellen Winslow Jr. and his somewhat disappointing professional career, it’s important to note he wasn’t even the best tight end in his own family. Hats off to Kellen Winslow Sr.