Today In Patriots History
His Parents Named Him What?!
Happy 79th birthday to **** Shiner
Born July 18, 1942 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Patriot QB, 1973-1974; uniform #11
Claimed off waivers from Atlanta on October 18, 1973
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Richard Earl '****' Shiner was a legend for one game while at the University of Maryland. The quarterback led the Terrapins to an upset over Joe Paterno and Penn State, in what would be the one and only Maryland victory over the Nittany Lions during a one-sided series between the two schools that ran from 1960 through 1993.
As a pro football player Shiner was mostly a career backup, on the bench behind Sonny Jurgensen, Frank Ryan, Fran Tarkenton and Jim Plunkett. His only time as a starter included Chuck Noll's first season in 1969 as head coach for the Steelers. Pittsburgh went 1-13 that year, with Shiner 3-16-1 over two seasons as the starting QB - though to be fair, that record was primarily due to a porous defense.
In 1973 the NFL implemented the Passer Rating statistic, which is still utilized today. Shiner had the honor being the first quarterback to record a perfect passer rating when he went 13 for 15 with three touchdowns in week one of that season for Atlanta, against the Saints. Ironically he also become the first player to have an imperfect 0.0 passer rating the very next week, going 2-9 for 17 yards, with no touchdowns and one interception.
**** Shiner's final NFL game is also noteworthy. Jim Plunkett had thrown three touchdowns, and the Pats were beating the Baltimore Colts 35-3 while the game was still only in the third quarter. Shiner took over, and led the Patriots on an 80-yard drive. He then surprised everyone by taking himself out of the game. Shiner later explained:
"I wanted [third-string QB] Neil Graff to get experience. Neil was a good kid, and I knew my time in the NFL was coming to an end."
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In his post-football career Shiner worked for a beer distributor, and then retired after having spent twenty years in the copier business. He later passed time as an assistant high school football coach.
When one steps through the door to the offices of Steve Smear, two things are certain. For one, it is clearly possible to purchase insurance policies there a...
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But in 1959 along came one Lee Corso, an assistant coach for Tom Nugent at Maryland and a man on the young end of a career that would lead to collegiate head coaching jobs and his present work as a college football analyst on national television.
"Coach Corso had come up to Pennsylvania to look at some great running back on a team we were playing," Shiner said. "I come from a town (Lebanon, Pa.) that in the late 1950s numbered, maybe, 12,000 people, and 10,000 of them would show up on Friday night for the high school football game.
"And coach Corso was in the crowd and when he got there, he maybe didn't know who I was. But I threw four touchdown passes that night.
"He came to my school a few days later to talk to me. Coaches didn't do that as much as they do now, and that impressed me. That's how I wound up at Maryland."
Catching up with ... former Terp QB **** Shiner | Baltimore Sun
Against Air Force, a national power in 1963, Shiner led a comeback that rocked College Park. Trailing 14-0 at halftime, Maryland won the game on a 36-yard pass from Shiner to Darryl Hill as time expired.
The crowd of 31,000 went nuts.
"See, we were 0-4 and Air Force had just beaten Nebraska," which would win the
Orange Bowl that year, Shiner said. "So when I hit Darryl with a bullet on a deep cross, and he hit the end zone, the whole place exploded. They had to clear all of the fans off the field for us to kick the extra point."
To celebrate, he said, "we all went to Howard Johnson's, on Route 1, where they served hot dogs on toasted buns. They were great."
Maryland's **** Shiner: A legend in his first start is a legend once again | CSTV
He starred as a throwing quarterback in an era when many head coaches still subscribed to the old theory that two of three things that can happen to a forward pass are bad. "We were throwing the ball 20, 22 times a game, sometimes a few more," Shiner said. "You'd look in the paper on Sunday morning and you'd read that some other ACC team was 4-for-7 passing. We were conservative compared to today's offenses, but we threw the ball a lot for the time."
Like all those people who show up at Steve Smear's office, Shiner still treasures the victory over Penn State in his first collegiate start. But the memories of a handful of other games remain precious to the man who went on to spend 11 seasons in the National Football League. Among them is a victory over one of Syracuse's legendary teams.
"It was a great Syracuse team," Shiner said. "The great Ernie Davis was on that team along with a lot of other great players, players like John Mackey, Art Baker at fullback, Roger Brown.
"Through the first two games, against a really good SMU team and Clemson, I'd been running with the second team and Coach Nugent would put us in for a quarter or two. Then the Syracuse game came up and they were one of the national powerhouses. They were ranked in the Top 10 (seventh).
"Coach Nugent called those of us on the second team the `Go' team and against Syracuse he sent the `Go' team in in the third quarter. I ran 29 yards, which is an awfully long way for me, and we scored a touchdown and beat that great Syracuse team (22-21)."
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To Maryland football fans he was “The Rifleman,” a blond quarterback with a slingshot arm who broke school passing records and led the Terps to signature wins in the 1960s. How hard did…
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