Throwback Thursday: 6 Degrees of Steve DeBerg

I was looking through some of my posts from 2011. That was the first year of the Flea Flicker. In doing this little look back I came across this oldie. 6 Degrees of Steve DeBerg. In true Throwback Thursday fashion here's that post again.

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Most people are familiar with the party and road trip sensation "6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon". If you are not familiar with it, the object of the game is to connect any actor/actress to Kevin Bacon in six moves or less. It is based on the premise that Bacon has been in enough movies with enough people to be closely connected to everybody in the field. Who can forget his terrific performance in "Animal House"? 6 Degrees is a crowd pleaser. I have always wanted to play this game using football players and coaches, sadly no one will play with me.

In the football version, former QB Steve DeBerg would be a fine place to start. Like Bacon, his work spans decades, he has played on a lot of teams and has had a bunch of teammates and coaches. Besides, the words degree and DeBerg are strikingly similar. Not many QBs can say that they lost their job to Joe Montana twice, on different teams in different decades.

For the truly adventurous, I would recommend connecting players from the early days of the NFL to today. Let's give it a try:
Chicago Bears RB Red Grange from the '20s and '30s to the Minnesota Vikings awesome RB Adrian Peterson

Grange played for George Halas
Halas coached Mike Ditka
Ditka coached Leslie Frazier
Frazier coached Peterson

If you can connect a player or coach to Halas, your work is mostly done. That guy had connections to everyone and was around the league for nearly 70 years.
Good times. Give it a try.

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Here's one that actually uses the game's namesake, Steve DeBerg. DeBerg threw the football a lot in his long career. How about we connect him to one of the NFL's first prolific passers, Benny Friedman?

Friedman was a teammate of Mule Wilson on the New York Giants
Wilson was a teammate of Dutch Clark on the Portsmouth Spartans
Clark coached Red Hickey on the Cleveland Rams
Hickey coached Jimmy Johnson on the San Francisco 49ers
Johnson was a teammate of DeBerg on the 49ers

Football is fun.