Former Oiler Moon elected to NFL Hall of Fame | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
"To be the first African-American quarterback into the Hall of Fame, all African-American QBs who played before me should share in this," Moon said. "I don't want to make this a racial thing, but I think it is significant. It shows that we have arrived at the pinnacle of our sport."
Moon's transient career took him from the CFL, where he won five straight Grey Cups, to Houston as a free agent in 1984. He also played for Minnesota, Seattle and Kansas City and completed his career with 51,061 yards of total offense and 313 touchdowns.
Only two memories I can really point to with regard to Warren Moon other than the long run of playoff success enjoyed via television:
Watching the CFL Gray Cup games with him QBing the Edmonton Eskimos and wondering why on earth he wasn't considered good enough to play in the NFL. It may strike the younger set as a bit odd, but it wasn't all that long ago when black quarterbacks weren't given the opportunities they deserved based on their college success. When it was reported that Moon was headed to Houston, I might have been the happiest camper back in those pre-Jim Everett days with 8 wins over the first two Moon seasons in Houston. The payoff, of course, came later as the Oilers hit the playoffs every year from 1987 to 1993.
Moon's last game as an Oiler ... we all knew it would be in the midst of "the Buddy Ryan season." I managed to splurge for some SRO tickets for my dad's birthday and ended up going with my brother. All we had to show for it was just another Joe Montana come-from-behind win. To this day, I swear we would have killed the Bills as revenge for "the Frank Reich game." That would have set up the ultimate Super Bowl ... Dallas vs Houston. Alas, it just wasn't meant to be.
Anyways, congrats to Warren Moon. It was fun to watch the guy over the years.