No. 75 | |||||||||
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Position: | Defensive end | ||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||
Date of birth: | February 16, 1953 | ||||||||
Place of birth: | Greenville, South Carolina | ||||||||
Career information | |||||||||
College: | Oregon | ||||||||
NFL Draft: | 1975 / Round: 11 / Pick: 262 | ||||||||
Career history | |||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
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Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Player stats at PFR |
Sacks: | 46.0 |
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Interceptions: | 3 |
Touchdowns: | 3 |
Player stats at NFL.com |
George Dwight Martin (born February 16, 1953) is a former American football defensive end who played his entire career in the National Football League for the New York Giants (1975–1988).
Martin missed only six games in his 14-year playing career (not counting games not played in because of strikes). He played college football at the University of Oregon in the then-Pacific-8 Conference and was drafted by the Giants in the 11th round of the 1975 NFL Draft (262nd pick overall). He was a part of the 1986 Giants team that won a franchise record 14 games. In January 1987, Martin was one of the team captains for the Super Bowl XXI champions; late in the second quarter, Martin sacked Denver QB John Elway in the end zone for a safety, cutting the Broncos' lead to 10-9 where it held until halftime. They were the first two of twenty-six consecutive points scored by the Giants in the game
In November 1988, Martin became the NFL's all-time leader in touchdowns scored by a defensive lineman (DL), with 5, when he returned an interception for 56 yards against the St. Louis Cardinals. (He had previously been tied at 4 with former Dallas Cowboy defensive tackle Bob Lilly.) In the following championship season, Martin became the league's career leader in TDs scored by a DL as a DL (at 6) when he returned an interception for 78 yards and 6 points in an early season home game against the same Broncos team they defeated in the Super Bowl, a feat which Giant head coach Bill Parcells has called the "greatest football play I've ever seen."