1971 Custom Cards

Here are some custom cards made recently by John Hogan from the Cards That Never Were blog. They are mostly starting quarterbacks who were missing from the 1971 Topps set, including the top three picks from the 1971 draft.

After losing Super Bowl V following the 1970 season, the Cowboys switched from Craig Morton to Roger Staubach as their starting QB, and won Super Bowl VI. Staubach's rookie card is in the 1972 set.

Jim Plunkett was the #1 pick in the 1971 draft. Replacing veteran Joe Kapp (who was released following a contract dispute), Plunkett took every snap during his rookie season.

Archie Manning was the #2 pick in the 1971 draft. With 4-year starter Billy Kilmer traded to the Redskins after 1970, Manning started 10 of the 14 games in his rookie season.

Dan Pastorini was the #3 pick in the 1971 draft. He started 8 games as a rookie, while incumbent veteran Charley Johnson started 4 games. The Oilers 3rd-round pick in '71 was QB Lynn Dickey, who made 2 starts in 1971. Pastorini was also the team's punter for 5 of his first 6 seasons.

There was no Eagles' QB in the 1971 set, as previous starter Norm Snead was traded to the Vikings after the 1970 season, and Pete Liske was acquired from the Denver Broncos just prior to the start of training camp in 1971. Here we see him in the white helmet that the Eagles wore for a few seasons in the early 1970s.

Another Eagle (and a card that was already featured on John's blog) is a corrected Adrian Young card. Topps issued a card for Young in 1971, but it included the photo of another Eagles' player by mistake.


John has made several other custom football cards for me, all starting quarterbacks who were missing from the 1967, 1968, and 1969 sets. I will be featuring them on my other blogs in the coming months.

John, thank you very much for these cards!