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Samuel Adrian Baugh (March 17, 1914 – December 17, 2008) was an American football player and coach. During his college and professional careers, he most notably played quarterback , but also played as a safety and punter .
- 31
- TCU (1934–1936)
- 21,886
Extremely versatile, he led the NFL in passing, pass interceptions, and punting in 1943. One of his best single performances came on “Sammy Baugh Day” in 1947 when he passed for 355 yards and 6 touchdowns against the Chicago Cardinals, that season’s eventual champions.
- Early Life
- Dutch Meyer
- Baugh and Meyer Develop The Early Spread Offense
- Baugh Becomes An All-American
- Baugh Tries to Play Pro Baseball
- Baugh Wins A Championship with Washington
- Baugh Takes The NFL by Storm
- 1943
- Another Championship Run Falls Short
- The Lean Years
Samuel Adrian Baugh was born on March 17, 1914 in Temple, Texas. He was raised on a farm outside of Temple and found ways to distract himself by the time he was in third grade. Life was great until the arrival of the Great Depression. Baugh’s father was able to find work with the railroad then lost his job during a round of cutbacks. Eventually, Ba...
Washington State College (now Washington State University) had interest in Baugh as a baseball player and offered him a scholarship. Nearly a month before he left for Washington, Baugh was playing in an informal baseball game and hurt his knee sliding into second base. When word got back to Washington State, the school pulled his scholarship. Once ...
As Baugh entered TCU, football at the collegiate and pro levels were mostly the same. Teams primarily ran the ball and only used the forward pass on rare occasions. When the ball was run, the ball carrier frequently ran between the tackles. Offensive and defensive formations were bunched together and utilized the middle part of the field. When Meye...
In 1934, the Horned Frogs went 8-4 and then 12-1 in 1935. By then, Baugh was running the Meyer Spread like he’d been playing in the offense his entire life. He ran, passed, and punted the ball while leading TCU to victories over programs such as Texas, Texas A&M, and Arkansas during the ‘35 season. The Horned Frogs lost to SMU near the end of the y...
While he was setting records for TCU on the football field, Baugh continued to play baseball, his first love. As a third baseman, Baugh took to slinging the baseball with speed and accuracy. A local sportswriter saw him throw the ball during a game and gave Baugh the nickname “Slingin’” Sammy Baugh. After graduating from TCU, Baugh signed a contrac...
With the sixth overall selection in the first round of the 1937 NFL Draft, Baugh was picked by the Washington Redskins. The organization moved from Boston to Washington that same year and made a splash by signing Baugh to a record one-year, $8,000 contract. The deal made Baugh the highest-paid player on the team. Baugh would come to regret his cont...
For the next several years, Baugh used the Redskins’ single wing to perfection. He played all over the field on his way to four straight Pro Bowls between 1938 and 1941. Baugh also led the league in nearly every statistical category during that period. In 1940, Washington returned to the NFL title game after a 9-2 season but were crushed by the Chi...
A year after Washington won their second championship in six seasons, the team went 6-3-1 but still finished first in the Eastern Division. Baugh was the difference maker, almost single-handedly winning games by himself. In a remarkable feat of athleticism and stamina, Baugh led the NFL in pass completions (55.6), punting (45.9-yard average), and i...
In 1944, Washington went 6-3-1 again but this time finished third in the Eastern Division, meaning they did not qualify for the playoffs. As the team prepared for the 1945 season, the Redskins coaching staff decided to switch to the T formation. The emphasis on the quarterback passing instead of running the ball was music to Baugh’s ears. The new f...
Instead of continuing to build their franchise into a contender, the Redskins organization fell off the face of a proverbial cliff. After their near championship miss in 1945, Washington wouldn’t make the playoffs again until 1971. Not even Slingin’ Sammy could save the team during the lean years. However, he did produce some memorable seasons desp...
Checkout the latest stats for Sammy Baugh. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, college, draft, and more on Pro-football-reference.com.
- March 17, 1914
May 4, 2024 · Sammy Baugh (born March 17, 1914, Temple, Texas, U.S.—died Dec. 17, 2008, Rotan, Texas) was the first outstanding quarterback in the history of American professional gridiron football. He played a major role in the emergence of the forward pass as a primary offensive tactic in the 1930s and ’40s.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dec 18, 2008 · Dec. 17, 2008. Sammy Baugh, the Washington Redskins quarterback who was one of football’s greatest passers and a pivotal figure in transforming the National Football League from a plodding affair...
"Slingin'" Sammy Baugh was the first of the great glamour players to give tremendous impetus to the modern passing game. Aided by the slimmer football developed in 1934, Baugh threw 587 passes in his three varsity seasons for 39 touchdowns and nearly two miles in yardage.
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