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William Thomas (linebacker)
William Harrison Thomas (born August 13, 1968) is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the Philadelphia Eagles (1991–1999) and Oakland Raiders (2000–2001) franchises. Thomas attended Palo Duro High School and later played college football at Texas A&M University for the Aggies. After college, Philadelphia selected Thomas in the fourth round, 104th overall in the 1991 NFL Draft. He played for the Eagles in nine NFL seasons. His most notable seasons were in 1995 and 1996 which he was selected as a member of the NFC's Pro Bowl team. After his Eagles contract expired, Thomas signed with the Oakland Raiders which were coached by former Eagles assistant, Jon Gruden. Thomas ended his career with 37 sacks and 27 interceptions and is a member of the 20/20 Club. He was also known as an exceptional pass-coverage linebacker during his career. Thomas was a member of the coaching staff at La Salle University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, playing closer to the line of scrimmage than the defensive backs (secondary), but farther back than the defensive linemen. As such, linebackers play a hybrid role and are often the most versatile players on the defensive side of the ball; they can be asked to play roles similar to either a defensive lineman (such as stopping the runner on a running play) or a defensive back (such as dropping back into pass coverage). How a linebacker plays their position depends on the defensive alignment, the philosophy of the coaching staff, and the particular play the offense may call. Linebackers are divided into middle linebackers, sometimes called inside linebackers, and outside linebackers. The middle linebacker, often called "Mike", is frequently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed throughout the years. Between 1939 and 1942, the NFL experimented with all-star games pitting the league's champion against a team of all-stars. The first official Pro Bowl was played in January 1951, matching the top players in the American/Eastern Conference against those in the National/Western Conference. From the merger with the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1970 up through 2013 and also in 2017, it was officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference (AFC) against those in the National Football Conference (NFC). From 2014 through 2016, the NFL experimented with an unconferenced format, where the teams were selected by two honorary team captains (who are each in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Salle University
La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History La Salle College was founded in March 1863 as an all-male college by Brother Teliow and Archbishop James Wood of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It was first located at St. Michael's Parish on N. 2nd Street in the Olde Kensington section of Philadelphia. La Salle soon moved to the building vacated by St. Joseph's College at 1234 Filbert Street in Center City, Philadelphia. In 1886, due to the development of the Center City district, La Salle moved to a third location, the former mansion of Michael Bouvier, the great-great-grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, at 1240 North Broad Street. Due to space constraints, in 1930 La Salle moved to its current campus at the intersection of 20th Street and Olney Avenue in the Logan neighborh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
20/20 Club
The slash is the oblique slanting line punctuation mark . Also known as a stroke, a solidus or several other historical or technical names including oblique and virgule. Once used to mark periods and commas, the slash is now used to represent division and fractions, exclusive 'or' and inclusive 'or', and as a date separator. A slash in the reverse direction is known as a backslash. History Slashes may be found in early writing as a variant form of dashes, vertical strokes, etc. The present use of a slash distinguished from such other marks derives from the medieval European virgule ( la, virgula, which was used as a period, scratch comma, and caesura mark. (The first sense was eventually lost to the low dot and the other two developed separately into the comma and caesura mark ) Its use as a comma became especially widespread in France, where it was also used to mark the continuation of a word onto the next line of a page, a sense later taken on by the hyphen .. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interception
In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team but caught by a player of the team on defense, who thereby usually gains possession of the ball for their team. It is commonly seen in football, including American and Canadian football, as well as association football, rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football and Gaelic football, as well as any sport by which a loose object is passed between players toward a goal. In basketball, a pick is called a steal. American/Canadian football In American football and Canadian football, an interception occurs when a forward pass that has not yet touched the ground is caught by a player of the opposing defensive team. This leads to an immediate change of possession during the play, and the defender who caught the ball can immediately attem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jon Gruden
Jon David Gruden (born August 17, 1963) is a former American professional football coach who was a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons. He held his first head coaching position with the Raiders franchise during their Oakland tenure from 1998 to 2001, where he won two consecutive division titles and made an AFC Championship Game appearance. Gruden was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002, whom he led to their first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XXXVII the same season. At age 39, he was the then-youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl. He served as Tampa Bay's head coach through 2008, setting the franchise record for wins, but made only two further playoff runs. After his firing from the Buccaneers, Gruden was featured as an analyst for ESPN's ''Monday Night Football'' broadcasts from the 2009 to the 2017 seasons. In 2018, Gruden returned to the Raiders as their head coach. He led the team until his resignation during the 2021 season after i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each contain 16 teams organized into 4 divisions. Both conferences were created as part of the 1970 NFL merger with the rival American Football League (AFL), with all ten of the former AFL teams and three NFL teams forming the AFC while the remaining thirteen NFL clubs formed the NFC. A series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making the total of 16 clubs in each conference. The defending NFC champions are the Los Angeles Rams, who defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the 2021 NFC Championship Game for their fifth conference championship. Teams Since 2002, like the AFC, the NFC has 16 teams that organized into four divisions each with four teams: East, North, South, and West. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1991 NFL Draft
The 1991 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 21–22, 1991, at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, New York. No teams elected to claim any players in the supplemental draft that year. The first six selections of the draft were defensive players, the most in draft history. It began with the Dallas Cowboys using the first overall pick to select Russell Maryland. No previous draft had begun with more than three consecutive defensive picks. The day of the draft, wide receiver and projected number one pick Raghib Ismail signed with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was nevertheless selected by the Los Angeles Raiders in the fourth round (100th overall), and began playing with the Raiders in 1993 after two CFL seasons. Player selections ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, Texas A&M has the largest student body in the United States, and is the only university in Texas to hold simultaneous designations as a land, sea, and space grant institution. In 2001, it was inducted into the Association of American Universities. The university's students, alumni, and sports teams are known as Aggies, and its athletes compete in eighteen varsity sports as a member of the Southeastern Conference. The university was the first public higher-education institution in Texas; it opened for classes on October 4, 1876, as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (A.M.C.) under the provisions of the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act. In the following decades, the college grew in size and scope, expanding to its largest enrol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
College Football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most other sports in North America, no official minor league farm organizations exist in American or Canadian football. Therefore, college football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian football; one step ahead of high school competition, and one step below professional competition (the NFL). In some areas of the US, especially the South and the Midwest, college football is more popular than professional football, and for much of the 20th century college football was seen as more prestigious. A player's performance in college football directly impacts his chances of playing professional football. The best collegiate players will typically declare for the professional draft after three to four years of colleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week In sport, a bye is the preferential status of a player or team that is automatically advanced to the next round of a tournament, without having to play an opponent in an early round. In knockout (elimination) tournaments they can be granted eit .... Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference (four division winners and three wild card teams) advance to the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, playing closer to the line of scrimmage than the defensive backs (secondary), but farther back than the defensive linemen. As such, linebackers play a hybrid role and are often the most versatile players on the defensive side of the ball; they can be asked to play roles similar to either a defensive lineman (such as stopping the runner on a running play) or a defensive back (such as dropping back into pass coverage). How a linebacker plays their position depends on the defensive alignment, the philosophy of the coaching staff, and the particular play the offense may call. Linebackers are divided into middle linebackers, sometimes called inside linebackers, and outside linebackers. The middle linebacker, often called "Mike", is frequently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
