The Top 25 Most Polarizing People In NFL History
Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Michael Vick are three names that instantly evoke debate among sports fans.
Brady and Manning get the greatest-ever debates that Vick should've been in the thick of if it weren't for his dog-fighting charges, and that brings on a whole other debate.
But these three are just the tip of the iceberg. The list of people in the NFL who have stirred debate is long and distinguished.
So here's a list of the top 25 most polarizing figures in NFL history.
25. Paul Hornung
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Paul Hornung is considered one of the best running backs in the history of the game, but he was suspended for the 1963 season after it was discovered he was gambling on football and associating with "undesirable persons."
Hornung owned up to his mistakes and he was allowed to re-enter the league, but this made Hornung a big topic of conversation in his day as to how his gambling affected his game.
24. Marlin Briscoe
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Marlin Briscoe played for the AFL's Denver Broncos and he became the first African-American starting quarterback in the history of the game.
Briscoe acheived this feat in 1968 after starter Steve Tensi broke his collarbone and the backup wasn't performing well.
Briscoe's start, occuring as it did in the late 1960s, stirred up a lot of racial debate. Of course, very little of that debate actually focused on his talents, which were considerable.
23. Duane Thomas
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Duane Thomas was a running back for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s and he would be considered the Randy Moss of his day.
Thomas fought with the coaches and wouldn't talk to the media, but was excellent on the field. The Cowboys tried to trade him to the New England Patriots during a contract dispute, but Thomas immediately got into a fight with head coach John Mazur and was shipped back to the Cowboys.
Thomas eventually was traded to the Chargers and retired after the 1974 season.
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22. Philip Rivers
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Philip Rivers quickly has ascended this list because his numbers versus his win-loss record are eye-popping.
Rivers routinely puts up great fantasy numbers, but has virtually nothing to show for it when it comes to championships. There certainly are no Super Bowl rings there.
His defenders blame other aspects of the team while his detractors point to the reality that is his lack of titles.
21. Jim McMahon
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Jim McMahon was the Chicago Bears star quarterback in 1985 and lived the life of a star quarterback in the NFL.
While McMahon had some good years, his career quickly got derailed by injuries and he was considered to be a real jerk off the field.
McMahon even took a helicopter to a game once, but Bears fans still love him to this day.
20. Lyle Alzado
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Lyle Alzado was a beast of a player and Broncos, Browns and Raiders fans loved to watch him play.
But Alzado turned into one of the most famous and tragic steroid users in the history of the NFL.
Alzado was known for his rough, violent play and he later admitted to beginning steroid use in 1969 and using it all throughout his career. He claims he once beat a man up for side-swiping his car in a fit of roid rage.
He died of a brain tumor in 1992 that Alzado blamed on the steroid use.
19. Mark Gastineau
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Mark Gastineau became one of the first players to get known for a dance after sacking the quarterback. On the field, Gastineau was one of the best at his position and made the Pro Bowl five times, but he had a flare for the dramatic and liked to taunt his opponents.
Off the field, he was considered kind of a scumbag and has been in trouble with the law over drugs and domestic violence, even doing some prison time after his career ended.
18. Joe Namath
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Joe Namath famously guaranteed a victory for the Jets in Super Bowl III, did an advertisement for pantyhose and was arguably one of the greatest players of his era.
Namath opened a bar called Bachelors III, but the NFL made him sell his shares in the venture due to the amount of "undesirables" that frequented the place. Namath briefly retired during the affair but returned to the Jets.
Namath finished his career with the Rams, retiring due to knee injuries and the ravages of his playboy lifestyle that he played up during his career.
17. Thomas Henderson
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Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson was drafted in 1975 and became known for his outstanding play and flamboyant lifestyle.
Despite his accomplishments on the field, though, he developed a nasty drug habit and was known to do cocaine during games.
After he was caught mugging for the camera while the Cowboys were getting blown out on national television, head coach Tom Landry de-activated him for the rest of the season.
He played brief stints with the Oilers and 49ers before heavy drug use and injury ended his career.
Henderson eventually ended up in prison, cleaned his life up and then won the Texas Lottery in 2000, winning $28 million.
16. John Matuszak
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Like Hollywood Henderson, Matuszak was a guy who could do it all on the field, but his constant drug use derailed his career as he fought with coaches and front offices.
He was successful with the Raiders, helping them win two Super Bowls, but he died at the age of 38 from a drug overdose.
15. Roger Goodell
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Roger Goodell has become the most hands-on commissioner in league history. He has had an impact on the game only comparable to Pete Rozelle.
What Goodell's ultimate legacy will be has yet to be determined, but he is gaining a reputation for protecting certain players and handing out uneven punishments for the same crime.
Goodell's personal conduct policy has created endless debates over its application, and the recent focus on enforcing helmet-to-helmet hits has caused many players, most notably the Pittsburgh Steelers, to cry foul.
14. George Preston Marshall
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George Preston Marshall was the owner of the Washington Redskins from 1932 until his death in 1969.
Marshall was considered a hands-on owner. He brought a lot of innovations to the game, such as forcing rule changes so that forward passes could be thrown from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage rather than at least five yards.
Marshall would bring his fans to away games to pack the stadium and he was instrumental in standardizing the schedule.
However, Marshall was a racist and refused to allow African-American players on his team. He finally relented in 1962, drafting Ernie Davis. However, Davis refused to play for Marshall and was traded to the Cleveland Browns for Bobby Mitchell.
One of Marshall's most famous quotes was: "We'll start signing Negroes when the Harlem Globetrotters start signing whites."
13. Bill Romanowski
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Bill Romanowski played in five Super Bowls—winning four of them—243 consecutive games and was selected to the Pro Bowl twice.
Romanowski has Hall of Fame numbers, but his legacy is that of a violent player who ended the career of his own teammate during practice.
Romanowski spat in the face of receiver J.J. Stokes during Monday Night Football, received heavy fines from the NFL for violent helmet-to-helmet hits before there was an emphasis on enforcing the rule and has been linked to the BALCO scandal.
Romanowski's on-field accomplishments speak for themselves, but so do his antics.
12. Jeff George
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The Colts traded up to draft George in the 1990 NFL Draft first overall, and there was no denying his talent. But George was a headcase who fought with the coaches, angered the fans and generally was a pain to deal with.
George was traded to Atlanta after four seasons, but his nationally televised sideline dispute with head coach June Jones resulted in a suspension and a trade to the Oakland Raiders.
George then proceeded to ignore coaches in Oakland, but he was successful much of the time, so it was overlooked. But that came to an end and George ended up playing for Minnesota and Washington and being successful in both places.
But his combative attitude always resulted in teams moving on and George, while not retiring officially, no longer could find a team who wanted to put up with his antics. He last appeared on the Oakland Raiders roster as the third-string quarterback in 2006.
11. Jerry Jones
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Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989 and promptly fired Tom Landry. Jones eventually put together the dynasty that won three Super Bowls in the 1990s, but he was caught disparaging Jimmy Johnson after the 1993 Super Bowl and recently was caught on tape making poor remarks about Bill Parcells and Tim Tebow.
Jones is as hands-on of an owner as you will find and fans give him the blame and the credit for just about everything that happens on that team.
10. Ricky Williams
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Ricky Williams, who Mike Ditka traded his entire 1999 draft for, quickly became one of the NFL's biggest disappointments, eventually quitting to go on a spiritual journey while admitting to heavy marijuana use in 2004.
Williams would be suspended again in 2006, but he since has been a very productive member on the Dolphins roster.
Whatever controversy Williams' off-field pursuits would raise, he always has been a very reliable running back.
9. Ray Lewis
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On the field, Ray Lewis is one of the best linebackers in the history of the game and good luck finding anyone to argue that point.
But one incident on Jan. 31, 2000, would forever change how people viewed Lewis. Lewis was charged with murder for the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and his entourage got into a fight with another group of people after leaving a Super Bowl party.
However, in exchange for dropping the murder charge, Lewis testified against two of the other people indicted for the crime. Lewis pleaded guilty to an obstruction of justice charge and was fined $250,000.
Lewis also settled with the families of the murder victims out of court.
8. Ben Roethlisberger
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Ben Roethlisberger still is loved by Pittsburgh Steelers fans, but just about everyone else hates the guy.
Roethlisberger gained a reputation very early in his career for being entitled and some of his teammates even would whisper that Roethlisberger carried himself as if he was better than everyone around him.
Roethlisberger already has won two Super Bowls, but he also has had two sexual assault allegations surface, one of which still is being litigated in civil court.
He famously survived a motorcycle accident while not wearing a helmet and even the Pittsburgh media briefly turned on him earlier this year at the height of the Milledgeville scandal, accusing him of being abusive to night club employees and being a poor tipper.
Roethlisberger has pledged to turn his life around after serving a four-game suspension, but it's still too early in the process to accurately judge if he's on the road to better conduct off the field.
7. Peyton Manning
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Peyton Manning isn't on this list because of any dark stain on his character to offset his on-field accomplishments. He's on here because no one starts a barfight faster than asking someone who is better, Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.
Manning only has one Super Bowl, but Bill Belichick and Tom Brady pretty much have owned him in the playoffs.
Even Manning got into the joke on Saturday Night Live after his only Super Bowl win to date: "What's the difference between Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and a three-ring circus?"
The answer: "Tom Brady and the circus still have two more rings than you."
Manning recently went through a rough patch that didn't help the argument any and the Colts meltdown in the second half of the Super Bowl this past February also upped the ante on the argument.
You're either a fan or a Manning-hater, and the Manning-haters wear their badges with pride.
6. Randy Moss
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Randy Moss is the guy who admitted to the media he only plays when he wants to. That attitude got him kicked out of Minnesota and Oakland. He briefly found peace in New England, but a contract dispute sent him back to Minnesota.
And now he's completely irrelevant in Tennessee.
Moss fights with and then ignores the media, fought with a caterer in Minnesota, and generally has done things in his career that drew negative attention to himself. That includes leaving the field early during a loss in 2004, miming mooning the crowd, and the traffic incident when he was arrested for bumping an officer with his car and then found to have marijuana in the car once arrested.
At age 33, he doesn't have many productive years left.
5. Brett Favre
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No athlete commands headlines the last few years like Brett Favre, and in the last few years, a lot of the headlines haven't been favorable.
After being one of the most beloved athletes in the history of the game, Favre's retirement drama now has stretched out over almost half a decade, involved three teams and made his retirement an annual sportswriter's headache.
It also made his legacy in Green Bay forever tarnished as he went to the rival Minnesota Vikings just so he could rub it in the face of the Green Bay front office for the last few years.
Then the Jenn Sterger incident happened and what few supporters Favre had left are backing away. That issue still isn't resolved, but it forever will be attached to Favre's bio.
4. Bill Belichick
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"Cheater!"
Fans of the New York Jets and Indianapolis Colts are fond of using that term when referring to Bill Belichick.
There is no doubt Belichick is one of the greatest coaches the game has ever seen, has won three Super Bowls and been to four as a head coach.
He won a Super Bowl as a defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells with the New York Giants and no one evaluates talent and game plans like the hooded one.
But allegations of cheating routinely surfaced around Belichick throughout his career and he was caught having an employee illegally tape a game with the New York Jets and fined $250,000, plus the Patriots lost a draft pick.
Ironically, that same employee would be the one caught illegally taping a San Francisco 49ers walkthrough for the Denver Broncos earlier this season which ended up costing Josh McDaniels his job.
3. Michael Vick
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Michael Vick's on-field accomplishments, especially this season, have made him extremely popular with the fans of the teams he has played for.
But his conviction on running a dog-fighting ring that included the slaughtering of some of the animals forever has tainted his legacy, and animal lovers everywhere condemn him to this day.
2. Art Modell
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Art Modell's contributions to the game of football are long and distinguished. He is one of the most respected owners in the history of the league.
But he moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore and he did it in the most sneaky, underhanded manner just short of Bob Irsay's move of the Colts.
While Cleveland was negotiating a way to get the Browns a new stadium, Modell took $50 million from the city of Baltimore and announced the move during the 1995 season.
It was a fitting bookend to the owner who bought the Browns in the early 1960s and then fired head coach Paul Brown during a newspaper strike.
Modell once again failed to get enough votes to get into the Hall of Fame and between the Brown firing and moving the team to Baltimore, it's easy to understand why.
1. Al Davis
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Then there's Al Davis. Even Raiders fans are split on what to think of the guy.
Al Davis' impact on the NFL can be measured in several different ways, but one thing Davis never did was take any crap from anybody, including the league.
If the league had a problem with Al Davis, he'd tell the league where to go and what to do once it got there. He's sued the league for more than one issue and he's won more than his fair share of battles, including an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL.
But if you work for Davis, you do things his way and he doesn't tolerate dissenting opinions. His feuds with Lane Kiffin and Marcus Allen famously were played out in the press, and his refusal to step down from managing the team despite his advancing age has caused a lot of controversy, especially since the team hasn't performed well in recent years.
Davis, to date, is the only owner to ever trade his head coach, Jon Gruden, to another team, the Buccaneers.
Gruden won a Super Bowl with the Bucs.
While Davis has won three Super Bowls, he hasn't won one since 1983.
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