Dennis Ray Nelson (born February 9, 1946) is a former professional
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
player who played
tackle for seven seasons for the
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from its founding in 1953 to 1984. The team now plays in Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis Colts. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breed ...
and the
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...
.
Nelson was a four-year football letter winner at Illinois State University, a first-team Little All-American pick by the Associated Press on offense in 1968, a two-way all-conference tackle, and was drafted in the third round of the 1969 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Colts. He was a starting tackle in four of his six years with the Colts in the NFL, and was a member of the Colts'
Super Bowl V
Super Bowl V was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Baltimore Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Dallas Cowboys to determine the National Football League (NFL) champio ...
winning team. He came out of retirement for one season to play for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1976, and had his jersey retired by ISU on October 10, 1995.
References
1946 births
Living people
People from Kewanee, Illinois
Players of American football from Illinois
American football offensive tackles
Illinois State Redbirds football players
Baltimore Colts players
Philadelphia Eagles players
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