Leon Lett

Leon Lett
Position (s): Defensive tackle	Jersey number (s): 78
born October 12, 1968 in Mobile , Alabama
Career information
Active : 1991 - 2001
NFL Draft : 1991 / Round: 7 / Pick: 173
College : Emporia State University
Teams
Dallas Cowboys (1991-2000) Denver Broncos (2001)
Career statistics
Sacks	22nd
Games	121
Fumbles secured	7th
Stats at NFL.com
Stats at pro-football-reference.com
Career highlights and awards
3 × Super Bowl winners ( XXVII , XXVIII , XXX ) 2 × Pro Bowl (1994, 1998)

Leon Lett junior (born October 12, 1968 in Mobile , Alabama ), nickname : "The Big Cat" is a former American American football player on the position of defensive tackles . He played ten of his eleven years in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys , with whom he won the Super Bowl three times ( XXVII , XXVIII , XXX ).

college

Lett played as a defensive tackle at Emporia State University in Emporia , Kansas . This college and its team, the Emporia State Hornets, do not play a major role in American college football (only 14 players have so far made it into a professional league). At first, Lett could not count on a professional career.

Profile career

In the NFL Draft 1991 Lett was committed late. The Dallas Cowboys selected him in the seventh round as 173rd player. The head coach of the Cowboys, Jimmy Johnson , also demonstrated his good nose for promising young players with this commitment. Lett developed into a fixture in the defense of the Cowboys and ran for the team from Dallas as a defensive tackle and defensive end . His team, peppered with numerous later superstars such as Emmitt Smith , Troy Aikman , Michael Irvin , Jay Novacek and Darren Woodson , developed into the dominant football team of the 1990s.

In 1992 the Cowboys were able to win the Super Bowl XXVII with 52:17 against the Buffalo Bills under coach Marv Levy and quarterback Jim Kelly with 52:17, a year later the Super Bowl XXVIII was won against the same team with 30:13. The following year they failed only in the NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers with 38:28, who later won the Super Bowl . In 1995, the Cowboys and their coach Barry Switzer were able to move into Super Bowl XXX with a 38:27 win over the Green Bay Packers and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers to quarterback Neil O'Donnell and head coach Bill Cowher with 27:17.

2001 Lett moved to the Denver Broncos and ended there after this season after a total of eleven seasons in the NFL his career.

Lett also achieved notoriety in the NFL due to two mishaps. In Super Bowl XXVII he had captured a fumble and was about to run with the ball into the opposing end zone . Ten yards from the finish, he began his “victory ceremony”, slowing down his speed and was overtaken by the Bills' fast wide receiver , Don Beebe . This hit the ball out of Lett's hand, which rolled through the end zone over the sideline and resulted in a touchback for the Bills. The Cowboys were already 52:17 at this point, so the fumble was no longer important for the outcome of the game. However, the Cowboys missed the record for the most points scored in a Super Bowl (San Francisco 49ers 55:10 against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV ).

In 1993 the Cowboys led in a regular season game against the Miami Dolphins with 14:13. A few seconds before the end, the Dolphins missed a field goal and would have lost the game when Lett tried to pick up the missed ball and carry it towards the opposing end zone. He slipped on the smooth playing surface, lost the ball and the Dolphins were able to secure it and win with a field goal 16:14.

In the second Super Bowl against the Bills, Lett was able to set a highlight of his career. The Cowboys were back 13: 7 when he was able to knock the ball out of the hands of the opposing running back , Thurman Thomas . His teammate James Washington captured the ball and scored a touchdown for the Cowboys.

Leon Lett was also known within the NFL for his intense abuse of banned substances. In 1995 he was therefore banned from the league for four games, in 1996 there was a three-game ban and in 1997 he was not allowed to play in 13 games. In 1998 there was another ban of eight games.

Honors

Lett played twice in the Pro Bowl , the season finale game of the best players of the season.

Web links

• Biography of Leon Lett ( Memento from May 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

source

• Jens Plassmann: NFL - American Football. The game, the stars, the stories (= Rororo 9445 rororo Sport ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-19445-7 .