'I Wish I Applied Myself More For Super Bowl XVII': Joe Thiesmann On NFL Career & Washington Football Team
(CBS Local)-- Joe Thiesmann had one of the more interesting NFL careers of any quarterback in the league over the past 50 years. The College Football Hall of Famer had a standout career at Notre Dame and went on to win a Super Bowl title and league MVP as the quarterback of the Washington Football Team. The former NFL quarterback played his entire NFL career in Washington after he spent the first few years of his football career as the signal caller for the Toronto Argonauts in the CFL.
Thiesmann is one of the many current and former athletes participating in this week's American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament in Lake Tahoe, California. CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith recently caught up with Thiesmann to discuss his NFL career, how he went from the CFL to winning a Super Bowl and the gruesome injury that ended his career on Monday Night Football against the New York Giants.
"The division that the Washington Football Team is in is going to be a better division," said Thiesmann. "Of course, anything was better than last year with winning the division at 7-9. It doesn't speak volumes, but we made it to the playoffs."
"For me, it was the right kind of coaches. I had a coaching staff that believed in me and gave me a chance to play in 1978. I just wanted to contribute. It was fun for me. I had so much success as a world champion and an MVP of the league. I was the fourth highest paid player in the league at one point at a million dollars a year."
While Thiesmann is known for many great moments in his career, the one that largely defines him is when Lawrence Taylor hit him so hard during a Monday Night Football game between Washington and the New York Giants that Thiesmann suffered a compound fracture of his fibula and tibia in 1985. The quarterback never played another down in the league and today he calls the injury a blessing.
"It really happened at a time in my life when I was becoming really full of myself," said Thiesmann. "I just felt like I was the cat's meow and it was all about me. I long since learned that we are put on this earth to serve and not be served. Through my injury, it opened my eyes to a lot of things. I have very few regrets in my life and I'm not a rearview mirror guy. I can't change what happens yesterday, but I can affect what happens today. I wish I had applied myself more for Super Bowl XVIII."
"I had won a championship and thought I was pretty good. I sat on my laurels, but I was an MVP of the league in 1983. The week leading up to playing the Raiders just didn't got well for me. Practices were going well and I felt really good up until Friday and then I played a bad football game. It was a lack of preparation that contributed to us not being able to do the things we were capable of doing."
