No One Believed These Rickey Bell Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
4,303 views
No One Believed These Rickey Bell Stories! Until They Watched This!
He was the first player chosen in the 1977 NFL Draft — picked ahead of Tony Dorsett, signed to the richest rookie contract in league history. Then his body turned on him.
Ricky Bell was the number one overall pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a punishing USC tailback who carried the ball 51 times in one college game and growled so loud when he ran that teammates called him the Bulldog. He joined an expansion franchise that had lost 26 straight games and, in 1979, rushed for 1,263 yards and set a playoff record with 38 carries in a single postseason game — dragging Tampa Bay to within one win of the Super Bowl.
Then his muscles began to vanish. His weight disappeared. Open sores appeared on his skin. Doctors diagnosed him with dermatomyositis, a rare disease that destroyed his heart and muscles from the inside. He'd been sick for years before anyone knew. The man who once weighed 220 pounds wasted to 110 — and died at 29.
This video tells his full story across ten moments: the seven brothers from South Central, the 347-yard masterpiece at the Kingdome, the controversial pick over Dorsett, the magical 1979 season, the diagnosis that explained everything too late, and the boy who told him "I love you" when no one else could find the words.
Should the Buccaneers put Ricky Bell's Number 42 in the Ring of Honor at Raymond James Stadium? Tell us in the comments.
Subscribe for more stories the highlight reels forgot.
#RickyBell #TampaBayBuccaneers #NFLHistory #TonyDorsett #USCFootball
CHAPTERS
0:00 The #1 Pick Who Vanished
1:02 Seven Brothers from South Central
2:34 From Linebacker to Legend at Troy
4:32 Fifty-One Carries and a Growl
6:23 The Pick That Split a Franchise
8:16 Twenty-Six Losses and a Growl in the Dark
10:03 The Year the Bulldog Made Tampa Believe
11:40 Thirty-Eight Carries and the Game Nobody Remembers
13:41 The Disease That Had No Name
15:45 A Hundred and Ten Pounds of Bone and Skin
18:11 The Bulldog's Last Growl
20:37 Closing
2 Comments
No One Believed These Rickey Bell Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
4,303 views
No One Believed These Rickey Bell Stories! Until They Watched This!
He was the first player chosen in the 1977 NFL Draft — picked ahead of Tony Dorsett, signed to the richest rookie contract in league history. Then his body turned on him.
Ricky Bell was the number one overall pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a punishing USC tailback who carried the ball 51 times in one college game and growled so loud when he ran that teammates called him the Bulldog. He joined an expansion franchise that had lost 26 straight games and, in 1979, rushed for 1,263 yards and set a playoff record with 38 carries in a single postseason game — dragging Tampa Bay to within one win of the Super Bowl.
Then his muscles began to vanish. His weight disappeared. Open sores appeared on his skin. Doctors diagnosed him with dermatomyositis, a rare disease that destroyed his heart and muscles from the inside. He'd been sick for years before anyone knew. The man who once weighed 220 pounds wasted to 110 — and died at 29.
This video tells his full story across ten moments: the seven brothers from South Central, the 347-yard masterpiece at the Kingdome, the controversial pick over Dorsett, the magical 1979 season, the diagnosis that explained everything too late, and the boy who told him "I love you" when no one else could find the words.
Should the Buccaneers put Ricky Bell's Number 42 in the Ring of Honor at Raymond James Stadium? Tell us in the comments.
Subscribe for more stories the highlight reels forgot.
#RickyBell #TampaBayBuccaneers #NFLHistory #TonyDorsett #USCFootball
CHAPTERS
0:00 The #1 Pick Who Vanished
1:02 Seven Brothers from South Central
2:34 From Linebacker to Legend at Troy
4:32 Fifty-One Carries and a Growl
6:23 The Pick That Split a Franchise
8:16 Twenty-Six Losses and a Growl in the Dark
10:03 The Year the Bulldog Made Tampa Believe
11:40 Thirty-Eight Carries and the Game Nobody Remembers
13:41 The Disease That Had No Name
15:45 A Hundred and Ten Pounds of Bone and Skin
18:11 The Bulldog's Last Growl
20:37 Closing