David W. Mays III (born June 20, 1949 in

Pine Bluff, Arkansas Pine Bluff is the eleventh-largest city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combin ...

) 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 ...

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

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 ...

. He was signed by the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

as an

undrafted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

in 1976. 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 ...

Texas Southern Texas Southern University (Texas Southern or TSU) is a public historically black university in Houston, Texas. The university is one of the largest and most comprehensive historically black college or universities in the USA with nearly 10,000 ...

. Mays also played for the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

Professional career

Mays began his pro football career in 1974 with the

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...

's Houston Texans and

Shreveport Steamer The Shreveport Steamer were a professional American football team in the World Football League. The franchise began the 1974 season in Houston, Texas, as the Houston Texans (no connection to the current NFL team of the same name), playing their ...

before coming to the NFL. He is known for filling in for

Brian Sipe Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word meani ...

, who was knocked out of a game on October 10, 1976 against the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...

. Mays started the season as the third-string quarterback and had never played in the NFL regular season before. He led the Browns to an 18-16 victory. Mays was a Doctor of Dental Surgery, even during his playing days with the Browns. He practiced

dentistry Dentistry, also known as dental medicine and oral medicine, is the branch of medicine focused on the teeth, gums, and mouth. It consists of the study, diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases, disorders, and conditions o ...

for twenty years in

Greater Cleveland The Cleveland metropolitan area, or Greater Cleveland as it is more commonly known, is the metropolitan area surrounding the city of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio, United States. According to the 2020 United States Census results, the five-county ...

. He was accused of the 1990

attempted murder Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions. Canada Section 239 of the ''Criminal Code'' makes attempted murder punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. If a gun is used, the minimum sentence is four, five or seven ye ...

of the dentist to whom he had sold his practice, but was acquitted in a 1992 trial. In 1994, he was found guilty of

welfare fraud Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...

for operating a phony billing scheme.

References

1949 births Living people American football quarterbacks Texas Southern Tigers football players Cleveland Browns players Buffalo Bills players American dentists American people convicted of fraud African-American players of American football 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{quarterback-stub

Professional career

See also

References