NFL Consecutive Starts Leaders

With the sad passing of Minnesota Vikings great center Mick Tingelhoff over the weekend I’ve been thinking about his time with the team. It was a great time. It was during this time that I found and fell for the Vikings. Those teams were remarkable. They were remarkable for their success on the field, as long as it wasn’t a Super Bowl, and they were remarkable because the players always played. They didn’t miss games. That reliability is reflected in the NFL’s leaderboard for consecutive starts. 

Rank	Player	Position	Years	Teams	Starts
1	Brett Favre	QB	1992-2010	Packers/Jets/Vikings	297
2	Jim Marshall	DE	1961-1979	Vikings	270
3	Mick Tingelhoff	C	1962-1978	Vikings	240
3	Philip Rivers	QB	2006-2021	Chargers/Colts	240
5	Bruce Matthews	OL	1987-2002	Oilers/Titans	229
6	Will Shields	OG	1993-2006	Chiefs	223
7	Alan Page	DT	1967-1981	Vikings/bears	215
7	Ronde Barber	CB	1999-2012	Buccaneers	215
7	London Fletcher	LB	2000-2013	Rams/Bills/Wash	215
10	Jim Otto	C	1960-1974	Raiders	210
10	Eli Manning	QB	2004-2017	Giants	210

All of the players above the three Vikings had the benefit of playing a 16-game schedule for the entirety of their careers. If Jim Marshall, Mick Tingelhoff, and Alan Page had the same consecutive game boost, the above leaderboard would look a little different. There’d be a new leader.

Jim Marshall: 304

Mick Tingelhoff: 272

Alan Page: 237

The league’s decision-makers see only money when they boost the schedule. In my lifetime, two games were added in 1978, a game added this season, another will be added in a few years. The additional games impact the record books as much as the respective players chasing the records. That’s probably best seen in the 2000-yard rushing club. It’s currently an eight-member club. It’d be a one-member club if the league still played a 14-game schedule. 

This isn’t about the schedule expansion. It’s about the reliability, durability of Mick Tingelhoff, Jim Marshall, and Alan Page. It wasn’t just those three. It was Fran Tarkenton, Ron Yary, Ed White, Carl Eller, Wally Hilgenberg, Paul Krause, Bobby Bryant, Dave Osborn, Bill Brown, Chuck Foreman, Jeff Siemon, Matt Blair, Stu Voigt, Roy Winston. The 1970s were a reliable time for the Minnesota Vikings. It felt like every player on the team had a lengthy consecutive starts streak going. Tingelhoff and Marshall set the standard. They were durability rock stars. The rest of the team followed. Unlike the pampered quarterbacks of today (Brett Favre), Tingelhoff and Marshall were in the middle of the action. They were hitting and getting hit on every single play. They were also undersized for the positions that they played. They were somewhat undersized in the 1960s. They were severely undersized in the 1970s. Throw in the the sometimes frigid conditions in which they played, Tingelhoff, Marshall, and the rest of those Vikings players were easy to follow for a little kid in warm, snuggly California. It was as if they played in some other-worldly place. They were tough. They were very good at football, as long as it wasn’t a Super Bowl. They were ready for a game whenever and wherever one was scheduled. Availability is a sometimes underrated ability of football players. The Vikings of the 1970s were always available.