Quads from COMC Part 1 of 3

So Christmas is over, but I still have a week left before I have to go back to work teaching.  YESSS!  In that meantime, I will continue to snack on cookies, booze it up, and post about cards.

Today's installment is the first of 3 posts finishing off my COMC series of late.  I grabbed three cards for my Quads set, and figured I would go through them all one by one.  Here is #43, a random WR quad of guys from four different teams:

Rob Moore was a 1st round supplemental draft pick by the New York Jets in 1990.  Moore's is a weird Supplemental case...he actually graduated college a year early, but didn't get his NFL paperwork in in time and therefore wasn't eligible for the regular 1990 draft.  So he had to wait for the Supplemental Draft, where thee Jets wasted no time calling his name.  In his five years in NY, Moore caught 306 passes for 4,258 yards and 22 touchdowns.  Nothing too bad at all, especially his last year where he made the Pro Bowl in his first 1,000 season.

The Jets then traded Moore to the Cardinals, in exchange for a first round pick and 1993 1,000 yard rusher Ron Moore, making it quite the blockbuster at the time.  The Jets used the first rounder on Hugh Douglas, who had a great career, but mostly not in New York.  Ron Moore was awful in New York, and left the Jets within two years.  So the Cardinals definitely won this trade, as Moore went fir 322 receptions for 5110 yards and 27 touchdowns, as well as another Pro Bowl nod, over five seasons.  Moore would have done more, but a wicked knee injury forced surgery and knocked him out of play for 2000 and 2001.  The Broncos took a flier on Moore in 2002, but he never returned to the playing field, and is currently a WR coach for the Buffalo Bills.

Quentin McCord would have loved Rob Moore's career.  McCord was a 7th round pick in 2001 by the Falcons, and spent the next three seasons in and out of the lineup with 23 catches for 427 yards and one touchdown in two starts.  After that McCord was with the Raiders during the 2004 offseason before moving on to occasional gigs in the CFL and AFL, though nothing really stuck.

The back:

Avion Black is my favorite player on this card because he was part of the 2002 Texans Expansion Draft.  He began his career with the Bills as a 4th round pick, and over two seasons he caught a few passes and returned a few kicks.  It didn't impress Buffalo much though, so they left him uncovered for the 2002 Expansion Draft, which I will explain in further detail here.

So the Texans were brand spanking new, and a team of draftees and free agents would obviously blow, so the NFL created an Expansion Draft where teams exposed five players from their roster to the draft for the Texans.  This isn't a lot better than just picking up free agents, as the teams typically listed their crappiest five players, but there were free agent restrictions and age restrictions and stuff so it didn't get ridiculous.  The Texans had to pick 30 players or spend $27.2 million dollars, and they chose, smartly, the latter.  And I learned a ton about the whole process thanks to Madden 2002 for the Game Cube, where they actually let you do the Expansion Draft - though as expected, your team was always pretty awful.

Anyways, the Texans took Tony Boselli first, and Jamie Sharper may have been their best pick, but way down at pick 16 of 19 they took Avion Black from the Bills.  He was their 2nd WR taken in the draft after Jermaine Lewis (third if you count hybrid kick returner guy Charles Rogers), so he had a chance to make an impact (Interestingly, Rob Moore was available to the Texans, but a $4.5 million cap hit, balky knees, and no play for the past two seasons turned the Texans away).  Instead, free agent signees Corey Bradford and JaJuan Dawson as well as draftee Jabar Gaffney all outshone Black, and he finished the season with 6 catches for just 8.7 yards per reception.  He was cut when the year ended and never played in the NFL again.

Last but not least, we have Patrick Johnson.  He is technically the highest guy drafted on this card, a 1998 2nd rounder by the Ravens.  Johnson was in Baltimore for four years, and though he never passed 526 yards or 3 touchdowns in a season, he did win a Super Bowl with the team in 2000.  He then spent a year in Jacksonville, a year in Washington, a brief camp part of the year in Cincy (he got injured and was waived so he could rehab his injury at home) and then a final season with Baltimore in 2005.  All told, 84 catches for 1,286 yards and 10 touchdowns over 7 years.  Basically one good season for Ron Moore.

Who wins the card?  Statistically, Rob Moore.  Nostalgically, Avion Black, for being a part of the Expansion Draft I hold so near and dear.