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The Beginning: "I think when I was 5 years old, I got my first Bart Starr uniform," Krieg said. Continue reading
The Seahawk Years: Dave Krieg trotted from the bench, threw touchdown passes to Steve Largent and Paul Johns and engineered a third.
Retirement: Fitting that after so many years, Dave Krieg chose to return to the place where he began his NFL career to announce his retirement.
What Others Say About Dave: Jerry Wunsch -- "When I was growing up, Seattle was my favorite team because of a guy name Dave Krieg. ...
Dave on Dave: "Sometimes you just wonder how I've been able to last 17 years coming from Milton College," Krieg said.
What You Say about Dave: Dave is my favorite football player of all time for one reason. He played at the highest possible level that his talent would allow and then he squeezed out even more by working hard.
Dave Krieg for Ring of Honor! He's made it! Thanks to all of you who sent letters to petition the Seahawks for Dave's rightful place in the Ring of Honor!
Dave's World Tour: Dave's been ... uh ... he's been ... well ... I'm not sure where all he's been but some of our super secret Seahawks fans have spotted him in some interesting places and we've got the film to prove it!!
Dave's Stats: He ranks seventh in the NFL all-time in attempts (5,309), completions (3,105) and passing touchdowns (261). His 38,147 passing yards rank eighth.
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Interview with Dave Krieg
In January 2005, I had the opportunity to visit with Dave Krieg by phone to ask him a few questions about his football career and to see how things are going in his post-NFL endeavors. As always, Dave was personable, professional, and charming! They don't come any better than Dave Krieg! I hope you'll enjoy the interview as much as I did!
The Dave Krieg Story is very well known at one level: unknown undrafted free agent; unknown college; Seattle takes a chance; wonderful things follow despite small hands and lots of fumbles. It gets repeated in books and articles, most Seahawk fans of the 80s could repeat it by heart, and it just rolls along as if you were nothing more than the luckiest man in football.
But that story has always been a very short summary, picking out a few unusual things about you and keeping them simple for the readers. In fact, even if you did get some lucky breaks, nobody gets a 20 year pro football career out of being lucky. You had to be a smart, competitive and skilled player to make the luck happen. So if there’s one thing you’d like the football world to know about you that gets left out of the “official” Dave Krieg Story, what would it be? “Pretty insurmountable odds,” said Dave Krieg. Dave remembers his dad driving him down to Milton College. Dave had played high school at D.C. Everest where there was a power-I offense, which meant there were three running backs in the backfield, leaving room for only one wide receiver. He didn’t have an opportunity to throw much in high school. At Milton, he was the 7th string quarterback in a school of 300 students. “How bad can it get if there are only 50 guys on the team and you’re the 7th best quarterback?” recalls Dave. In the fourth game of the season his freshman year, Dave got his chance to start, partly due to attrition. “There weren’t that many guys on the team. Coach put some of those quarterbacks at different positions. Ironically enough, they had a JV (Junior Varsity) game earlier; I just came off a shoulder separation. I was holding for an extra point, rolled out, threw the ball, landed on my shoulder, slight shoulder separation. I waited two weeks, got a chance to start, we won the Illini-Badger Conference Championship, and I got to start 4 more years.” Dave threw 4 passes in his first game, three of which went for touchdowns. “I didn’t go to some big college, but I got to play for 4 years at the college level.” When Dave went to Seattle for the first time, he had never flown on a plane. His father took him to Central Wisconsin airport and said, “Well, I’ll see you back in a little bit.” Dave went with his Milton College helmet and his old Milton College Ridell shoes. He said the players at the try-outs were talented, fast and big. “I didn’t know what the heck I was doing." Dave went back to Wisconsin after try-outs and was invited back out to training camp in Cheney. “I was the 7th string quarterback, and I thought ‘well, this is familiar.’ Four rookies, three veterans.” Dave stayed around, Steve Myer became injured, and Dave got to play in preseason. He called home and said, “Hey Dad, guess what? I got great seats and they gave me a uniform!”
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