Gary Lee Plummer (born January 26, 1960) is a former

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 ...

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, p ...

who played in the

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 ...

(NFL) and the

United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

(USFL). He was signed by the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

as a free agent in 1986 after playing three years in the USFL. He played

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 ...

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Plummer won a

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

ring with the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

Super Bowl XXIX Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

College career

Plummer played his first two years of junior-college football at

Ohlone College Ohlone College (Ohlone or OC) is a public community college with its main campus in Fremont, California and a second campus in Newark. It is part of the California Community College System. The Ohlone Community College District serves the cit ...

, and then transferred to the

, where he played nose tackle.

Professional playing career

Oakland Invaders

After going undrafted in the

1983 NFL draft The 1983 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 26–27, 1983, at the New York She ...

, Plummer joined the Oakland Invaders of the USFL. He played three years for the team. He played in the 1985 USFL Championship game. He wore #51 with the Invaders.

San Diego Chargers

After the USFL folded in 1985, Plummer was signed by the

. He became a starter during his first season with the Chargers and started 106 of 119 games during the eight seasons he played there. He finished his career with the Chargers with 792 tackles, 3.5 sacks, and five

interceptions 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 b ...

. He scored two touchdowns in his time with the Chargers. His first was a 2 yard pass from Billy Joe Tolliver on October 7, 1990 vs. Pittsburgh. His second came on a 1 yard run vs. Denver on November 11, 1990. While with the Chargers he carried the ball 3 times for 9 yards.

San Francisco 49ers

Before the 1994 season, Plummer signed with the

. He played his final four seasons of his career with the 49ers and was a member of the 49ers

victory over the Chargers. After the 1997 season, Plummer retired with 1,029 tackles, 4.5 sacks, and six interceptions.

Broadcasting career

From 1998 until April 2011, Plummer was a

color analyst A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and the ...

for

KNBR KNBR may refer to: * KNBR (AM), a radio station (680 AM) licensed to serve San Francisco, California, United States * KNBR-FM KNBR-FM (104.5 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, serving the greater San ...

49ers game broadcasts. He was fired from this position due in large part to frequent criticism of the team during broadcasts. He also revealed that he suffered over 2500 concussions in the course of his career. Even when most of them were very mild Grade 1-type, he has been recovering from the cumulative effects.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plummer, Gary 1960 births Living people California Golden Bears football players Oakland Invaders players Ohlone Renegades football players San Diego Chargers players San Francisco 49ers announcers San Francisco 49ers players National Football League announcers People from Fremont, California Sportspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Players of American football from California