The Athletics’ initiative to select the 100 greatest players in football history is known as the NFL 100.
We’ll reveal new members of the list every day until the season starts, starting with the No.
On Wednesday, September 1st, one player will be crowned.
8.”Get off my grass!” grumpy old men have been yelling since after WWII, when suburban lawns began to sprout across the American landscape.
In the late 1970s, a teen Ronnie Lott received the treatment in a posh Los Angeles neighborhood, and as tough as he was, it sent shivers down his spine.
That’s because the message wasn’t delivered by a doddery old man with a pair of pruning shears.
Lott had just begun off at USC,”I must have been 18 or 19,” he said. He and roommate Marcus Allen had heard about a massive party Brown was hosting in Beverly Hills and decided to see if they could get in.
Lott recalls queuing outside with a swarm of would-be partygoers expecting to bask in the radiance of Brown, who had been out of football for more than a decade and had lately appeared in films alongside Raquel Welch and Jacqueline Bisset.
Lott felt a strong tap on his shoulder at that point.
“Hey!” he said as he looked up and saw Brown.
Get out of my lawn!
During a phone conversation with The Athletic, Lott recalled two events.
Lott took in the man’s pure magnificence — the big hands, the boulder-like shoulders — and realized the amount of work he’d have to put in to become an NFL legend in his own right.
