Tommy O'Connell
O'Connell on a 1953 Bowman football card
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| Position: | Quarterback |
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| Personal information | |
| Date of birth: | September 26, 1930 |
| Place of birth: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Date of death: | March 20, 2014 (aged 83) |
| Place of death: | near Delray Beach, Florida, U.S. |
| Career information | |
| College: | Illinois |
| NFL Draft: | 1952 / Round: 18 / Pick: 212 |
| Career history | |
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| Player stats at PFR | |
Thomas B. O'Connell (September 26, 1930 – March 20, 2014) was an American collegiate and professional football quarterback who played in three NFL seasons, in 1952 for the Chicago Bears and in 1956 and 1957 for the Cleveland Browns and in two American Football League seasons, 1960 and 1961, for the Buffalo Bills. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Class of 1953, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity.
He started for the Cleveland Browns in the 1957 NFL Championship Game while coming off a severely sprained ankle and a hairline fracture of the fibula. He retired from football after the 1957 season to go into coaching, but was lured back to the playing field when the American Football League started play in 1960. He is the father of former professional ice hockey player and general manager Mike O'Connell. He died March 20, 2014, aged 83.
Tommy O’Connell emerged as the Browns quarterback in 1956 following the retirement of Hall of Fame QB Otto Graham. In 1957 he was selected to the Pro Bowl and won seven of the nine games he started, leading the Browns to the Eastern Conference title. His performance that year was stellar. When compared to all other passers that have attempted 100 passes in a single season, O'Connell has the highest Passing Yards per Attempt average ever, a staggering 11.17. This is a great achievement when considering that in the 90+ years of NFL football, only four other quarterbacks have managed to attain a Passing Yards per Attempt average of over 10.0 for a season. His passer rating that year was 93.3, the fourth best in the decade of the 1950s.
O’Connell was the 18th head football coach at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and he held that position for the 1959 season. His coaching record at Drake was 2 wins, 7 losses, and 0 ties. This ranks him 21st at Drake in terms of total wins and 23rd at Drake in terms of winning percentage. O'Connell died in 2014.
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