Know Your Dallas Cowboys

Most Obscure Player of 1981: Angelo King

Filed under Most Obscure Player Award by Matt Cordon on May 24, 2013 at 10:34 am {no comments}

The Dallas Cowboys were still a talent-laden team in 1981 and featured plenty of household names. We had a few candidates for the Most Obscure Player Award, but the name we are going with made the cover of the prestigious Dallas Cowboys Weekly on December 26, 1981.

Most Obscure Player of 1981: linebacker and special-teams ace Angelo King.

The player: linebacker and special-team ace Angelo King. Congratulations to him for the MOP Award, but I frankly know little about him.

Of course, if I spent 99 cents on Ebay, I could buy the December 26, 1981 issue of the Dallas Cowboys Weekly and would know much more about the obscure subject of this post.

But I didn’t.

His Wikipedia page in its entirety: “Angelo King was a professional American football player who played linebacker for seven seasons for the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions.”

He joined the Cowboys as a rookie free agent in 1981 and played in 15 games. He recorded two fumble recoveries and apparently made many special-teams tackles.

King lasted three years in Dallas before the team traded him to Detroit in 1984 for a sixth-round pick in 1986. King played two full seasons in 1984 and 1985 and played in 11 games in 1986.

He returned in 1987 to play in one game as a replacement player during the first of the infamous scab games. With the Lions (led the great QB Todd Hons) leading 10-0 over the visiting Buccaneers (led by the equally great QB Mike Hold), King had his career moment. He recovered a fumble and returned it nine yards for a touchdown. It was his first fumble recovery since his rookie season in 1981 and gave the Lions a 17-0 lead in the first quarter.

The Lions fell apart after that, though, and lost the game 31-27. Even worse was that King never played another game again.

Incidentally, the Cowboys used the sixth-round pick in 1986 to take quarterback Stan Gelbaugh, who did not end up playing a down in the NFL until 1989.

* * *

I’m not sure what King is doing these days, but he showed up on the list of celebrities at a golf tournament benefiting citizens of Haiti. Other former Cowboys on the list included Drew Pearson, Too Tall Jones, Everson Walls, Rocket Ismail, and Doug Donley.

Most Obscure Player of 1980: Aaron Mitchell

Filed under Most Obscure Player Award by Matt Cordon on May 14, 2013 at 2:43 pm {2 comments}

The starting cornerbacks for the 1979 Dallas Cowboys were Bennie Barnes and Aaron Kyle.

The starting cornerbacks for the 1981 Dallas Cowboys were Everson Walls and Dennis Thurman.

The starting cornerbacks for the 1980 Dallas Cowboys? Think hard (and don’t look at the title of this post).

One was Steve Wilson, who became a part-time starter for the Denver Broncos and even started at right cornerback in Super Bowl XXII. He was one of the guys who Doug Williams burned in the Redskins’ 35-point second quarter.

Most Obscure Player for 1980: Aaron Mitchell.

The other was our Most Obscure Player for 1980: Aaron Mitchell.

The Cowboys took him in the second round of the 1979 draft, thanks largely to a good time in the 40-yard dash. He played his college football at UNLV and a football factory known as…

College of the Canyons in California. This was the same community college that produced Jason Pierre-Paul of the New York Giants. Here is a piece about Mitchell posted on the college’s website.

Mitchell started 15 games with the Cowboys in 1980 and recorded three interceptions. The Cowboys traded Mitchell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the 1981 season, though. Mitchell played one year in Tampa Bay. He later played for the Arizona Wranglers and Los Angeles Express of the USFL.

The Cowboys’ personnel problems had already begun by the early 1980s. Dallas used Tampa’s 11th-round pick to take a wide receiver named George Thompson, who never played a down of football in the NFL.

Even worse, the Cowboys got nothing for Wilson, waiving him after the 1981 season.