Gridiron.

Roughnecks · week 5 · 1996

Mercy Odom has 171 and a story

Chip Nutbeam, hot take

Mercy Odom QB
Roughnecks

Mercy Odom had 171 yards. He was a late bloomer who did not start a game until he was a college senior. Two of them found the end zone, in game 5 of his season. It counts the same as anybody else's.

6,519 yards over eleven seasons. Ninety-five touchdowns. 127 games. None of the others were this good. He has done it in three buildings.

Thirty-four, and Newark, New Jersey before that. Ask anybody: he is the first man in the building most mornings.

Roughnecks, 4-1, and five weeks gone. Isaiah Ulmer is in year seven of it. The contract runs out in the spring.

Odom never takes his helmet off between series.

This feature ran in the paper in week 5 of 1996. The rest of the season is there too.

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