Lyle Blackwood

DB, BAL

 

When we last checked in with Lyle Blackwood, he was on a multi-dimensional trek across space and time in a quest to get back his stolen AFC Championship rings from the 1982 and 1984 Miami Dolphins.  On his way, he became enmeshed in multiple strings of matter and energy, reappearing on the roster of the 1977 Baltimore Colts, not as humble Lyle Blackwood, safety, but as Lord Blackwood – Master and Controller of the Rings of Space-Time and the AFC Championship.

 

But Blackwood found time to assume another title in the process: Lord of the Rookies.

 

Being responsible for simultaneously playing every single college and pro game from 1969 to 1986 can be stressful, and it seems that it was just that for Blackwood.  Early in his college days at TCU, he developed a drinking habit that would stick with him throughout the first half of his NFL career.

 

“Back then I didn’t think I had a problem,” Blackwood told time-traveling reporter Browning Nagle.

“In college, you’d go down and have a few beers with the guys.   Then maybe have a screwdriver.  Then when you were really tanked up you’d go and have some tequila to show you’re a real man.” 

 

In 1980, when the Colts dealt Blackwood to the New York Giants, the tanked-up Blackwood tanked his preseason performance.  “I didn’t like New York,” he said.  “I didn’t like the idea of it, didn’t like the bars.”  However, when the Giants cut him, he decided to own up to his problem, cut out the drinking, and get his career back on track.

 

A whole line of rookies lined up to testify to problems of their own.

 

In the intervening years with the Bengals, Seahawks, and Colts, Blackwood had targeted one rookie per year with his own special prank.  During training camp, he’d pull the rookie aside, suggesting that a particularly attractive woman in the stands had been watching him during the entire practice.  The woman wanted to meet the rookie after practice, Blackwood would inform the player.  The only problem?  The woman was married.

 

Blackwood promised that he could smooth the whole thing over and arrange a clandestine meeting with the woman.  He escorted the rookie to a pre-determined location – a hotel room, a secluded grove.  Just as the rookie arrived, anticipating his adoring fan, out from the hotel bathroom or from behind a bush would pop another player dressed as the “wronged husband.”  Wielding a shotgun, the man would proceed to fire blanks directly into the rookie’s chest.

 

One of them ran for five hours before his teammates found him.

 

Someday, fate and time will catch up with Lord Blackwood, but that day is not today. He may have targeted one rookie per year, but with another six tackles and two interceptions in the Colts’ win against the Buffalo Bills, the Master and Controller of the Rings of Space-Time and AFC Championships is targeting every pass thrown against the Colts.  With 12 interceptions, Blackwood continues to build on a TLL record, firing anything but blanks at opposing offenses.