Marvin Harrison has quietly become not only one of the best wide receivers in the National Football League, but simply one of the best wide receivers ever. Here are a few facts about this great football player that you may not know:

-Football wasn’t the only sport that Marvin Harrison excelled at while in high school. He was also a star on the basketball and soccer teams, as well as at tennis.

-Marvin Harrison graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in retailing.

-From 1999 through 2006, Marvin Harrison recorded eight straight seasons with double digit touchdowns.

Recently longtime Oakland Raiders great, and later NFL Players Association leader, Gene Upshaw passed away at the age of 67. Upshaw played for fifteen seasons with the Raiders and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.

Here are three things you may not know about Gene Upshaw:

Gene Upshaw is the only player to play in three Super Bowls with the same team during three different decades (following the 1967, 1976, and 1980 seasons).

Gene Upshaw’s younger brother Marvin played on the defensive line with the Browns, Chiefs, and Cardinals.

Every year since 2004 there has been an award for the Division II Lineman of the Year as voted on by the NCAA Division II sports information directors, the award is named the Gene Upshaw Award.

Monday Night Football is a staple in American household, especially among football fans of course. Not simply one of the most successful sports shows of all time, much more than that, MNF is one of the most successful shows period in the history of television. That being said, here are ten things that you may not have known about the incomparable Monday Night Football.

1. Surprisingly, the record for the most shutouts in Monday Night Football history is held by the Seattle Seahawks who have shutout their opponents five times.

2. The broadcaster who broadcasted the longest for Monday Night Football was Frank Gifford, who served on the broadcast team from 1971 through 1998, a total of 28 seasons.

3. The New York Jets lost both the first and last game in Monday Night Football’s ABC television history, both times by the same score, 31-21.

4. The ESPN Deportes Spanish language broadcast of Monday Night Football was broadcast from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut during the 2007 season. None of the announcers were present at the actual site of the game.

5. Monday Night Football was the 2nd longest running prime time show on network TV. The only show that lasted for more consecutive seasons was the news program 60 Minutes.

6. The first female broadcaster to join the Monday Night Football broadcast team was Lesley Visser who became a sideline reporter in 1998.

7. The lowest scoring game in the history of Monday Night Football occurred during the 2007 season when the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Miami Dolphins by a score of 3-0.

8. The last touchdown pass thrown on Monday Night Football during its time on ABC was thrown by Vinny Testaverde.

9. There are two matchups that are tied for the most times having their games being aired on Monday Night Football. Oakland vs. Denver and Dallas vs. Washington have each been televised a 14 times.

10. There has only been one game end in a tie score in the history of Monday Night Football. That game happened during the 1984 season and featured the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Giants.

Whether in its previous incarnation as part of the ABC network, or its current status as one of the top rated shows on ESPN and all of cable television, Monday Night Football will continue to be one of the most memorable sports broadcasts of all time. The competition combined with the prestige that has come with appearing on and winning Monday Night Football have made it part of Americana. Predicting what will happen this coming season on Monday Night Football is fruitless, sitting back and enjoying it is what it was made for.

In getting ready for the NFL Draft arriving soon on this coming weekend, all week long IQFB will bring you their famous Little Known Facts about different aspects of the NFL Draft. Today, we start with Little Known Facts About The NFL Draft itself:

• The NFL Draft has been held in New York City since 1965, but was first broadcast on TV in 1980 by ESPN.
• Tickets to the NFL Draft are free and given out one-per-person the morning of the event.
• Teams pick in reverse order to how they finished the previous season, with the worst team picking first. To break ties, strength of schedule is used, in the event that there is a tie in strength of schedule, a coin is flipped to determine who picks next.
• There are 32 compensatory picks that are awarded to teams that have lost more qualifying free agents than they gained in the previous year. Compensatory picks are selected at the ends of rounds three through seven, depending on the value of the free agent players lost. In the event that all 32 compensatory picks are not used, they are put into a makeshift eighth round and distributed first to the teams with the worse records from the previous seasons.
• The NFL Draft is not where it ends, for players who did not declare their eligibility before the draft but then lose or give up their college eligibility before the NFL season starts there is a Supplemental Draft in the summer. Teams can choose to participate in the Supplemental Draft or not. If a team uses a pick in the Supplemental Draft, they then forfeit that pick in the following year’s NFL Draft.

Watching the NFL Draft is a great tradition to start or continue with your family and friends. It is easily made into an all-day event and can be combined with a barbecue or other distractions as you wait for your favorite team to pick its next player. More little known facts about the NFL draft to come this week.

Here are some little known facts about the San Diego Chargers. Okay, some may be known or guessable, but we’ll try and give you something you may not have known before about the Chargers quarterbacks through history.

The quarterback who has led the Chargers in passing the most consecutive years is obvious… Dan Fouts. From 1978 through the 1987 season, a total of ten years, Dan Fouts was the passing leader for this team that was known to throw the ball more than just a little bit. But, if it were not for James Harris leading the team in passing in 1977, Fouts’ record would’ve been even more impressive as he was also the Chargers leading passer from 1973-1976.

In a close second to that team record is former quarterback John Hadl who led the Chargers in passing in each season from 1964 through 1972, for a total of nine consecutive seasons. But, who is in third place in that department? Not quite as legendary, but in third place falls former Chargers quarterback Stan Humphries who led the team in passing from 1992 through 1997 for a total of six seasons.

The Chargers have been around for just shy of forty seasons, so here is an interesting bit of info… how many different quarterbacks have led the Chargers team in passing for only one season. This is an interesting thought… it could be a backup who got a chance to start because of an injury, it could be a free agent that didn’t work out, it could be a highly touted rookie that didn’t pan out, or any number of other reasons. But, the answer is: 10. Ten times in the Chargers history has a quarterback led the team in passing over the course of a season and then never done it again.

Those ten quarterbacks and the years they did it:

1963 - Tobin Rote
1977 - James Harris
1988 - Mark Malone
1989 - Jim McMahon
1990 - Billy Joe Tolliver
1991 - John Friesz
1998 - Craig Whelihan
1999 - Jim Harbaugh
2000 - Ryan Leaf
2001 - Doug Flutie

With Phillip Rivers at the helm, it seems like the Chargers quarterbacking duties are sewn up for awhile… but, you never know.

Little Known Fact: Barry Sanders

In high school, Barry Sanders didn’t play his first game at running back until the fourth game during his senior year.

For more trivia and facts about Barry Sanders, the Detroit Lions, or any other team in the NFL check out the team trivia pages located via any of the links located right here.

Facts About NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

• Roger Goodell began his career with the NFL at the age of 23 as an administrative intern in former Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s office.
• At one time, Goodell served as an intern with the New York Jets.
• Following the retirement of Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, the league had to vote on his successor. Each NFL team had one vote and for a Commissioner to be chosen they had to be named on 22 of the 32 teams ballots. It took five rounds of voting before Roger Goodell was chosen as Commissioner. The Oakland Raiders abstained from voting in all five rounds.
• Goodell’s predecessor Paul Tagliabue was, like most league administrators and commissioners, a lawyer. Goodell himself graduated from Washington and Jefferson College with a degree in Economics.
• Goodell’s father Charles Goodell was a Republican United States Senator from the State of New York.
• Roger Goodell’s wife is Fox News Anchor Jane Skinner.

Much is known about Tom Brady. Multiple Super Bowl championships, tons of individual awards, and a great teammate. Here are some of the lesser known facts about this great quarterback:

• In 1995, Tom Brady was drafted in the 18th round of the Major League Baseball Draft by the Montreal Expos.
• When Tom Brady came to the University of Michigan he was originally listed as 7th on the quarterback depth chart.
• Before picking Brady with the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft, they had also been considering choosing quarterback Tim Rattay.
• When Brady came to the Patriots he was originally listed as fourth on the quarterback depth chart behind Drew Bledsoe, John Friesz, and Michael Bishop.
• The injury to Drew Bledsoe that put Tom Brady in the starting lineup was caused by a hit from New York Jets linebacker Mo Lewis.
• The famous “tuck rule” game against the Oakland Raiders was Tom Brady’s first playoff game ever.
• In 2007, Tom Brady set the record for most touchdown passes in a season with 50… his previous career high had been 28.