He’s a treasure-hunter, a contemporary of the sepia-toned and dirt-stained scavengers, except his sacks of gold are, well, sacks.
The National Football League has statistics for every quarterback sack beginning in 1982, so John Turney’s quest was to account for every sack from 1981 and before. With the voraciousness of the men he’s trying to honor, Turney spent decades scouring the country, locating play-by-play sheets from old games, watching grainy footage, filling in holes, finding more holes and filling them in, too. He’s an Indiana Jones for Deacon Jones. His artifacts were facts.
With the help of a fellow named Nick Webster and others, they have identified and credited 99% of sacks from 1970-81, 95% from 1966-69 and 80% from 1961-65.