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10,000 Questions discussions and explanations

1. The NFL decided that the first of the late-afternoon games to conclude would be considered the 10,000^th. The Tennessee Oilers at Seattle Seahawks game, which ended at 4:05 pm Pacific (a few minutes before Chargers at Raiders, Jets at Colts, and Vikings at Cardinals finished) claimed the honor.
2. Steelers wide receiver Lynn Swann took a week out of his 1980 offseason to triangle off against Mork & Mindy actress Gina Hecht.

3. 10,000 Maniacs was founded in Jamestown, New York, a little over an hour away from the Buffalo Bills’ Rich Stadium. Recollections of the opening act’s performance on the official Grateful Dead fansite include: “I was a bit too kaliedescopically engaged to fully attend the Maniac’s set;” “Natalie Merchant stopped the show due to a girl right in front of me passing out / OD-ing;” and “[T]he singer for 10,000 idiots whin[ed] that all the heads were paying no attention to them and next time they played home they would do their own gig.”
4. The Patriots’ Bethel Johnson came up 74 yards short of returning the second half kickoff for a touchdown, leaving the Gold Club’s patrons unsatisfied.
5. The fresh-off-a-divorce Erich von Stroheim may just have  been looking for good publicity when he announced plans to deliver 10,000 American-made footballs to France; whether he succeeded is unknown.  Three months later the French government declared that it would be sending 10,000 soccer balls to the front; three months after that, the Maginot Line was outflanked.
6. In 1959, the Chicago Cardinals played two home games in Minneapolis, supposedly to gauge the area’s interest in an expansion team. The franchise moved to St. Louis the next year.
7. Paul Brown had written this about his old boss, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell:

“Modell came to me and said, ‘Put [the dying-of-leukemia Ernie Davis, the Browns’ 1962 first-round pick] in the game and let him play. We have a large investment in him and I’d like a chance to get some of it back. It doesn’t matter how long he plays. Just let him run back a kick. Let him do anything, so we can get a story in the paper saying he’s going to play and the fans will come to see him. If he has to go, why not let him have a little fun.’”

8. The few in attendance at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on Christmas Eve 1989 for Falcons-Lions got to see Barry Sanders run for 140 yards and 3 touchdowns. Fellow rookie future-first-ballot-Hall-of-Famer Deion Sanders missed the game with a shoulder injury.

Which of these two events happened first in NFL history?

9. The 10,000^th passing touchdown happened in 1971; the 10,000^th rushing touchdown wouldn’t take place until 1975.
10. The 10,000^th draft pick took place in 1969 (counting the AFL-only drafts from 1961-66 would move up a few years); the 10,000^th unique player wouldn’t appear in an NFL game until 1977.
11. The 10,000^th point by a player with the first name John was scored in 1999; the 10,000^th point by a player with the last name Johnson wasn’t scored until 2017. (“Jim” and “Mike” are the only other first names with 10,000 NFL points; while “Johnson” is currently the only last name with 10,000 points, the 10,000^th point by a player with the last name “Smith” should happen in the next couple of years.)
12. The 10,000^th point by a player born in Michigan was scored in 1997; in 2020, Donovan Peoples-Jones scored the 10,000^th point by a former Wolverine.
13. Thanks to the 70s boom in foreign-born kickers, the 10,000^th by a player born outside the 50 states was scored in 1978; the 10,000^th point by a player born in Florida wasn’t scored until 1987. (Players from Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, and California all scored their 10,000^th points before 1978.)
14. In the aftermath of the players’ strike, the losers in every game in the 1982 playoffs earned $10,000 apiece; the average regular-season salary wouldn’t exceed $10,000 per game until 1984.

What decade did these events take place?

• 1920s: A team plays 10,000 aggregate miles from home in a season. The 1926 Los Angeles Buccaneers, a collection of West Coast All-Stars, played all ten of their regular season games at least 1,500 miles from California, though they did return home for a postseason exhibition. They were also the first team to play an aggregate 20,000 miles from home.
• 1930s: A franchise sells for $10,000. The 1934 Cincinnati Reds, possibly the worst team in NFL history, sold their franchise rights and players to the St. Louis Gunners for $20,000 with three games left in the season. The Gunners then took over the Reds’ schedule.
• 1940s: A player throws for 10,000 career yards: On November 4, 1945, Sammy Baugh became the first NFL player to pass for 10,000. The year before, Baugh had become the first player to punt for 10,000.
• 1950s: The 10,000th touchdown: On November 16, 1958, sometime around 2:30 pm Eastern, someone scored the 10,000^th touchdown in NFL history. (It’s unclear who scored it; the day started with 9,992 and six different games were being played simultaneously.)
• 1960s: The 10,000th point in a franchise’s history: On October 21, 1962, Joe Marconi scored the Chicago Bears’ 10,000th point on a 1-yard touchdown run. (Six years later, the Chicago/St. Louis Cardinals would become the first NFL franchise to allow 10,000 points; the first stadium where 10,000 points were scored should be obvious.)
• 1970s: Teams make a 10,000-mile round trip to play a preseason game: In 1976, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Diego Chargers played an exhibition game in Tokyo.
• 1980s: The 10,000th field goal: In the late-afternoon games of September 7, 1980, someone kicked the 10,000th field goal in NFL history.  (The most likely scorer was the Baltimore Colts’ Steve Mike-Mayer; 9,998 field goals had been made going into the 4th quarters of those games, and Mike-Meyer’s came second in gameclock time.)
• 1990s: A player signs an annual contract for $10,000/day: On August 20, 1991, Dan Marino signed a contact with the Dolphins for $4.6 million/year, or about $12,600 a day.
• 2000s: A team makes a 10,000-mile round trip to play a regular-season game: In 2008, the San Diego Chargers made a 11,000-mile round trip to lose to the Saints in London.
• 2010s: A player throws for 10,000 yards on his career touchdown passes: On September 27, 2015, Peyton Manning threw his forepropreantepenultimate regular-season touchdown pass, a 45-yarder to Demaryius Thomas, which boosted his career passing touchdown yardage mark to 10,042. (Drew Brees and Tom Brady have each broken 10,000 yards since.)
• 2020s: The 10,000th unique player scores an NFL point: As of opening day, 2022, 9,460 different players had officially scored in NFL history. The 10,000^th should score within the next eight years.