What did Kenny “The Snake” Stabler look like at 38 years young? (3 Viewers)

[dennisrwood]

I grew up in New Hampshire. Started following the Saints as well when Stabler signed with them. I read about it in Sports Illustrated.

I watched that last Monday Night Game Stabler played against the Cowboys.

 

[football]

I remember his wife was a weather anchor on channel 6 way back then. She was attractive. He may look old but he has good taste.

 

[Super]

Yep, I hate looking in mirrors, but everytime this is posted it makes me feel a little better about how I look when I do Even with the extra 20 yrs.

 

[Cage1]

It's not the years, it's the mileage. And died too young at 69. RIP, Kenny.

That's impressive considering that would be like 117 for most of us.

 

[sfidc3]

Knew some folks in the restaurant business that knew him (I worked at a Metairie restaurant with a bartender whose girlfriend was the sister of an NFL player), the prevailing rumor was that he swung both ways.....

 

[muddbug2]

At 62

 

[HattiesburgWhoDat]

People from back then look lot older than their age. Nowadays people look younger for their age.

My wife and I say that all the time. My grandmother looked "old" in her 50's and 60's back in the 1970's and 80's. My folks are now in their 70's and look like my grandparents did in their 50's. Maybe hair color? Or could be they just worked so much more outside. My grandad never bought a Tractor and farmed about 80 acres with a draft horse. That was in the 1960's-80's. My mom and her siblings had to pick cotton by hand with my grandparents back then. So I guess maybe the harder work aged people more. Or I guess it could me hitting 50 this year and me thinking everybody (including myself...lol) is looking younger these days. Lol

 

[football]

My wife and I say that all the time. My grandmother looked "old" in her 50's and 60's back in the 1970's and 80's. My folks are now in their 70's and look like my grandparents did in their 50's. Maybe hair color? Or could be they just worked so much more outside. My grandad never bought a Tractor and farmed about 80 acres with a draft horse. That was in the 1960's-80's. My mom and her siblings had to pick cotton by hand with my grandparents back then. So I guess maybe the harder work aged people more. Or I guess it could me hitting 50 this year and me thinking everybody (including myself...lol) is looking younger these days. Lol

It could be a factor. But could be the life style back then too.

 

[max]

It was the smoking.

It wasn’t just if you smoked or not, everywhere you went indoors you were inhaling cigarette smoke and just existing in a cloud of smoke … usually from the moment you got home from the hospital as a baby.

Add in the greater awareness of the effects of the sun along with the normalized use of sunscreen and most people aren’t prematurely aging their skin/hair.

In addition to smoking, I think they were more likely to drink hard liquor on a daily basis. I think that also ages a person.

 

[max]

I remember watching him drop back to pass for the Saints and he just fell down. I think he hung up his cleats not long after that.

Tip of the cap to him. He could hide Bo and Luke from Roscoe one day, belt out a duet with Miss Dolly Parton the next, and still have enough energy to lead Bum’s Saints on Sunday.

 

[Clintonrebel]

People from back then look lot older than their age. Nowadays people look younger for their age.

People who played for the Raiders definitely aged early. Read any of Maddens early books. Wow.

 

[Saintman2884]

While true, back then a lot of Saints players were with him doing the same thing. It's just how the team rolled in those days.

Actually Bill, considering how we had some on-and-off the field chemistry problems, a lack of discipline and more then a few players in the mid-late 70's/early 80's who developed alcohol and drug addictions like Chuck Muncie (who developed a cocaine addiction in college and it metastasized or got worse here by 1980), FB Mike Schleren (?), Don Reese (another player who had disciplinary issues in college as well as drug problems and became worse in Miami and later on here after IIRC, he was arrested for a drug bust in Miami and Shula released him, viewing him correctly, as a potential team nuisance; he later wrote an infamous SI expose about how prevalent drug issues were in the NFL and American sports in general in 1982), then you have Derland Moore, a huge, bulking enormous DT from Oklahoma who was known to roam the Quarter bars like Pat O'Brien's, bars owned by celebrities like Pete Fountain and Al Hirt (a minority Saints owner) during the year and occasionally stay at Pat O'Brien's after game-days until 2-3 in the morning, that wasnt always the best environment in the world for people who couldn't handle it.

Add to the long list of players like George Rogers who developed substance abuse issues in the early 80's and it became obvious we had players who liked to have a little too much fun until it became counterproductive and finally, toxic.

Stabler, interestingly enough, marketed his own soft drink while in Houston called "Venom" that according to Snake "tasted like it". He liked Bum Phillips as a person and got along with most of his teammates in Houston and in New Orleans, but he regularly criticized Bum's 1960's archaic run-based, conservative offense that worked because he had this battering ram for a RB in Earl Campbell but by the early 80's, NFL offenses were becoming more complex, nuanced, complicated and Blum's methodology seemed stuck somewhere in the mid-60's. He could draft and coach great players but he couldn't devise an effective, more thorough, creative game-plans that maximized their skill sets.

 

[Saintman2884]

It was the smoking.

It wasn’t just if you smoked or not, everywhere you went indoors you were inhaling cigarette smoke and just existing in a cloud of smoke … usually from the moment you got home from the hospital as a baby.

Add in the greater awareness of the effects of the sun along with the normalized use of sunscreen and most people aren’t prematurely aging their skin/hair.

In Stabler's case, it was more of a byproduct of years of drinking, smoking, and occasional drug use, which in his autobiography he sort of hints at like taking codiene but tends to not elaborate further. Stabler was also known as a bit of a hell-raiser and trouble maker in Gulf Shores Redneck Riviera as well as a womanizer and a bit of a philanderer. One time his wife caught him in bed with another woman when she arrived home earlier then expected and in a fit of rage, she locked him out of his house with barely any clothes on.

A player of Stabler's reputation as well as his own actions being exposed, ridiculed or plastered all over social media outlets like Tik Tok, Twitter, and Facebook wouldn't last very long today. He'd be fined, suspended, labeled a degenerate redneck, "trailer park trash" by the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy if he played today or he'd have to be super-discreet and someone like Stabler never struck me as being ultra-discreet when it came to how he lived his private life back then. I suspect Stabler probably also came to the realization in his last years that he wouldn't be inducted into Canton until after his death.

 

[Saintman2884]

People who played for the Raiders definitely aged early. Read any of Maddens early books. Wow.

Jim Plunkett didnt seem to age prematurely when he arrived in Oakland as a backup in 1979 and then proceeded to win two SB's in his early 30's and lead the Raiders to several successful seasons in-between but then again, Plunkett was a choir boy compared to Looney tunes like John Mutusak, Lyle Alzado, Ted Hendricks, Lester Hayes, and Todd Christiansen (probably one of the smartest, most articulate NFL players ever).

 

[jdf]

In Stabler's case, it was more of a byproduct of years of drinking, smoking, and occasional drug use, which in his autobiography he sort of hints at like taking codiene but tends to not elaborate further. Stabler was also known as a bit of a hell-raiser and trouble maker in Gulf Shores Redneck Riviera as well as a womanizer and a bit of a philanderer. One time his wife caught him in bed with another woman when she arrived home earlier then expected and in a fit of rage, she locked him out of his house with barely any clothes on.

A player of Stabler's reputation as well as his own actions being exposed, ridiculed or plastered all over social media outlets like Tik Tok, Twitter, and Facebook wouldn't last very long today. He'd be fined, suspended, labeled a degenerate redneck, "trailer park trash" by the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy if he played today or he'd have to be super-discreet and someone like Stabler never struck me as being ultra-discreet when it came to how he lived his private life back then. I suspect Stabler probably also came to the realization in his last years that he wouldn't be inducted into Canton until after his death.

His autobiography "Snake" is my favorite football book. I definitely recommend it.