Stew Barber also is unique. He played on
Rip Engle's :rst two bowl teams in 1959
and 1960, starting as a senior. The Dallas
Cowboys dra>ed him in the third round,
making him the 30th overall player taken,
but he chose to play for the Buer being selected in the
fourth round. Barber was an All-AFL le>
tackle twice before the merger with the
NFL in 1966. From 1966 until his retire-
ment a>er the '69 season, he was a two-
time :rst-team All-Pro and played in four
Pro Bowls. He joined Buer o tackles
Brown and Donovan Smith. Brown was an
All-American on the 2005 team that :n-
ished No. 3 in the nation. He was the :>h
player taken in 2007 when he was dra>ed
by Arizona, and he went on to start 79 of
82 games before retiring in 2013. Smith
was also unique as a member of the tran-
sitional teams bridging the Joe Paterno,
Bill O'Brien and James Franklin coaching
eras. He was a second-round dra> choice
of Tampa Bay in 2015, the 34th overall se-
lection, and he had started all 79 of his
Buccaneers games through 2019.
Dorney became a :rst-team All-Amer-
ican in his junior season when he was se-
lected by the Football Writers Association
of America, and the next year he was a
consensus All-American. Yet, in his
sophomore year he was switched to guard
because of the two tackles ahead of him,
Brad Benson and John Reihner. Benson,
Dorney's roommate during that 1976 sea-
son, is also on this o tackle
despite the Giants' brass trying to move
him to guard over the years.
Penn State :les designate Benson o=-
cially as a le> tackle, but in a recent inter-
view he said he played both sides of the
line depending on the formation. "It was
di." Not until the
1983 season were players o=cially re-
ferred to as "short" and "long" tackles,
with the long side of the line being the
side on which the tight end lined up.
NFL longevity
Dorney and Benson entered the NFL
under vastly dier the NFL's opening week, Ben-
son received a call from Jim Trimble, the
Giants' director of player personnel and
the older brother of one of Benson's grade
school buddies. Trimble arranged a tryout
Friday before the Giants traveled to Dal-
las. The tryout went well, but there was
no room on the roster. On Monday, Trim-
ble called a>er an o tackle, and he played there the rest of
his career except for the 1984 season in
which he moved to right guard.
"They always wanted to play me at
guard," Benson said. "I was nearly 6-7 and
had tremendously long arms for my size
and I had wrestled in high school, and that
gave me really good balance, good feet.
The problem back then was that they did-
n't regard you as having good feet unless
you played basketball. Twice, they dra>ed
two guys in the :rst round to replace me."
In 1978, the Giants dra>ed Gordon King
of Stanford but he couldn't beat out Ben-
son in 1979. They moved King to right
tackle and he played there until retiring in
1988. In 1984, William Roberts of Ohio
State was competing with Benson, but an
injury forced Roberts to the sideline for
two years.
Dorney recently explained in his own
inimitable way the intricacies of playing
o and right tackles:
"First, playing tackle is more di=cult
than playing guard. I played right tackle
and right guard in Detroit. Playing guard
is easy in the professional ranks compared
to tackles. You don't have any freaks lined
up over you who specialize in rushing the
passer. At guard, you usually have some
big fat guy, and I like playing against big
fat guys. A tackle :rst needs a great neu-
tral stance. If a defensive lineman has an
inkling whether you're coming o< the ball
to run block him or set back in a pass [for-
mation], that gives him a great advantage.
You also have to be explosive. You have to
be able to knock big, athletic people o<
the ball both running toward the sideline
or inside. You also have to be somewhat
of an athlete to ward o< those great pass
rush moves that defensive ends have de-
veloped over the years. You need quite a
few skills. I was physically blessed with
long arms, and that helped me a lot. Le>
