Last night’s game between Villanova and NC State (which seemed to be a thriller) featured a player with no name on the back of his jersey for Villanova. He did have a cut above his eye, so maybe he had bloodied his primary jersey and had to wear a replacement. Not sure.

I believe the player in question was was Dante Cunningham, and he usually wears #33. However, when I saw the game, he was sporting #31 with no name.

I can’t seem to find a picture. Anyone else see that?

Yes, I mentioned this in yesterday’s comments, and I was told that because he got blood on his #33 jersey, the trainers gave him the #31 jersey with no name on the back, as a replacement. (PS – The game was Sunday night, not last night)

josh’s twin said:

Aaron Levine notes that in this fight between Stan Jonathan and Paul Stewart, Stewart has NNOB and really big uni numbers, while the rest of the Nords have NOBs.

Not quite. There are at least two other NNOBs on the Nords (#28, and one other that i couldn’t make out the number.) in this clip, which is even weirder than if it was just Stewart. Was half the lineup callups that night, or what?

I’ve heard this sentiment expressed a few times. The fact that some NFL teams retire jerseys or honor players instead of retiring their number, so it could not be used again. To me, it’s fairly obvious why it’s not common to see numbers retired in the NFL. I don’t know of any except for Pat Tillman’s #40.

There are 54 players on an NFL team. Which means you need 54 available numbers. Plus I’m pretty sure everyone on here knows about the number restrictions placed on positions. Quarterbacks can wear 1-19, Wide Receivers and tight ends can wear 11-19 and 80-89, running backs 20-49, etc. What happens if a team starts retiring numbers. Like, say the Patriots retired Stanley Morgan (86) and Ben Coates (87). This would leave 11-19, 80-85, 88 and 89 for receivers and tight ends, thats 16 available numbers. The Patriots have 9 players eligible for those numbers, probably 10 when Troy Brown is activated. But, Tom Brady wears number 12 and Matt Cassel wears 16 so that’s 14 available numbers now. Say 3 of those players are injured and placed on IR for the season and the patriots are forced to pick up 3 players in their place. That means that of those 16 available numbers to their wide receivers, tight ends and quarterbacks, they have 13 now wearing those numbers.

And this is for the Patriots who don’t have a great history of receivers or players in general who deserve their numbers retired.

What happens when a team sets a precedent for retiring numbers and then a few more players come along and far surpass that precedent. Are you (1) not retiring those numbers because then there wouldn’t be enough available or (2) un-retiring the old numbers to free up some space.

I say, in the NFL, the only numbers that get retired are for people like Tillman who have clearly done something beyond the realm of just being a great player. He’s the only one I can think of right now, though.

the ny giants retired #32 for a tackle that died in WWII

bighokie09 said:

R.I.P. Sean Taylor

:(

Ugh, what the hell are we doing to ourselves… senseless. Again R.I.P. Sean Taylor

R.I.P. Sean Taylor

:(

R.I.P. Sean Taylor

:(

dgc said:

LI Phil said:

what about teams that retire a number of a player who never even PLAYED for that team?

im thinking #42 & #99

Teams didn’t have a choice on those two numbers.

My problem are unofficial retired, not even honored, numbers. What exactly are the Redskins waiting for? They must have a dozen or so (only Sammy Baugh’s 33 is retired) numbers that they won’t reuse.

That’s kind of like what the Steelers do. No one gets #12, #32, #58, #59 or #75 but the only offically retired numbers is Ernie Stautner’s #70. I wonder what the story is that they retired his and then felt the need the change up policy and not offically retire anything. The odd thing is that to my knowledge there is nowhere at Heinz Field where the #70 is honored but they have realy nice banners for the numbers Pitt has retired (granted they’re only up for Pitt games)

Forgot to mention, didn’t the Colts do something where they unretired numbers when they moved to Indy because they felt the numbers were only retired in Baltimore?

LI Phil said:

what about teams that retire a number of a player who never even PLAYED for that team?

im thinking #42 & #99

Teams didn’t have a choice on those two numbers.

My problem are unofficial retired, not even honored, numbers. What exactly are the Redskins waiting for? They must have a dozen or so (only Sammy Baugh’s 33 is retired) numbers that they won’t reuse.

That’s kind of like what the Steelers do. No one gets #12, #32, #58, #59 or #75 but the only offically retired numbers is Ernie Stautner’s #70. I wonder what the story is that they retired his and then felt the need the change up policy and not offically retire anything. The odd thing is that to my knowledge there is nowhere at Heinz Field where the #70 is honored but they have realy nice banners for the numbers Pitt has retired (granted they’re only up for Pitt games)