Quick, now: What Baltimore Colt player holds the team record for most tackles in a game? Gino Marchetti? Mike Curtis? Or an oft-forgotten linebacker named Tom MacLeod?
In just his second game as a Colt in 1974, MacLeod made 20 tackles — 11 unassisted — in a 20-13 loss to the Green Bay Packers. The NFL record is 25 tackles.
It was a stellar start for MacLeod and a plus for fans at odds with the deal that had brought him here that summer. Baltimore obtained MacLeod from the Packers for Ted Hendricks, their disgruntled Hall of Fame-bound linebacker who'd promised to jump to the World Football League to escape the woebegone (2-12) 1974 Colts.