Card Back Questions: Leonard Marshall Talks Pro Football Relatives, Sustained Greatness, Facing Joe Montana
In our latest Card Back Questions, we speak to New York Giants great Leonard Marshall about his famous football bloodline, being consistently great for a decade, getting his hands on Joe Montana and more.
TR-The back of your 1987 Topps card said “Leonard is related to two former pro football players; Ernie Ladd, and Warren Wells.” Can you just speak to the bloodline and having so many studs in the same family that performed at the highest level like that?
LM-Well, Ernie Ladd married my first cousin, so he's a cousin through marriage. He married my cousin Rosalyn and she's now his widow. She gave him either five or six children. He spent most of his life in Texas, but he spent most of his adult life in Louisiana. They both attended Grambling State University together. Ernie was an all-star football player for Coach Robinson at Grambling. And Ernie would come in the summertime and pick me up and I'd ride around with him and play checkers in his Winnebago and we'd eat tuna fish sandwiches and tell me stories about his career and talk to me about San Diego and Kansas City and Houston and just all the things he got done in his wrestling career. That meant a lot to me. So, to have a guy like that as a mentor and me the mentee, a guy who had been there and done what I wanted to accomplish was a great, great motivator for me. Warren Wells is a cousin through my father's side of the family, a distant cousin, a third cousin, but a guy whose career I admired as a Raider and all the great Raider teams that he ended up playing for and all those great players he played with Lester Hayes. I got a chance to meet George Atkinson during the tenure of my career and then afterwards played in a few golf tournaments with him. Every time I saw him, he would always call me chicken wing and I'd kept saying “Why every time I see you, you call me chicken wing? He said, because that was Warren Welles' nickname chicken wing. I thought that was funny. He always wanted chicken wings. He said, no matter where they went on the road to play whoever they played, he was always trying to find the best chicken wings. Players and their quirky ways.
TR-The back of your 1991 Pro set card said a bunch of things, but basically it encapsulated saying “One of the league's top pass rushers for the better part of a decade.” Can you speak to your level of consistency, of dominance and your thoughts looking back at your own career and the longevity and how well you played for so long?
LM-Well, I wanted my name to be synonymous with those two guys I mentioned before in Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor. And the only way I could do that is to become proficient in terms of what I did. I wanted to be the best defensive lineman to ever play for the New York Giants. I want you to remember my name the same way you remember Sam Huff's name when I retired. So, the only way to do that is to be consistent every season and show up and play to that level. So, I average eight and a half quarterback sacks for the Giants during my 10 years or eight sacks a season during my 10 years. I don't think too many defensive linemen could say that. That included my rookie year, which my rookie year was a very dismal year. I was just starting to learn how to play and how to play in the grand scheme of things as a Giant. But I think thereafter is where everything took off and I lit up. Two-time Defensive Lineman of the Year in 1985 and 1986, the only one in the whole history of the NFL. I mean, that speaks volumes to the work I put in.
TR-The back of your 1991 Upper Deck card isn't as much about what it says as what it shows. It's that classic image of you blasting Joe Montana. You secured a few big plays on the all-time great over the years. What are your memories playing against “Joe Cool” and getting the best of him pretty often?
LM- He was probably the best quarterback, pound for pound and dollar for dollar, that I've ever played against in my career. I mean, a real true field general. This guy knew on the pre-snap read looking at any defense you put in front of him, he knew just as much about your defensive scheme as you knew about his offense. And the one thing I can say about him, he would rarely throw an interception or throw a ball to the other people, but the most important thing he did, he made damn good decisions with the football. And I admired that because you got guys like me coming at you from every angle on the field and trying to torment and torture your behind. You have got to stay consistent. The one thing about him is that he stayed consistent and proficient in terms of what he was trying to accomplish and do in the grand scheme of things of their offense.
TR-Very interesting. If we could flip over your card and you could list any accomplishment, stat or fact, what's the one thing that you would want listed on a card?
LM-I think the one thing that I'd want listed on that card, is this guy was the most tenacious defensive lineman that ever put on a New York Giants football uniform as a defensive lineman. He was the equivalent, the equal, of Lawrence Taylor and any other player on their defense during the tenure of his career.
Tony Reid spent more than a decade covering combat sports at the highest level. He has written hundreds of articles and conducted hundreds of interviews about sports collectibles for such publications as Beckett, Sports Collectors Digest, and Sports Collectors Daily. Reid worked full time at a sports card shop in Central Pennsylvania for a number of years. A lifelong collector, Tony treasures his rookie card collection of star players in baseball, basketball, and football. If you want to discuss the greatness of Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson or Ken Griffey Jr., you can reach him at @tonyreidwrites on all social media platforms