Artifacts located in the Chiefs Hall of Honor or stored in the team's offices inside the caves of SubTropolis represent powerful tools that bring the team's and the American Football League's history to life. They forge an emotional connection that crosses time and space, bringing fans closer to the past in a way that words alone often cannot do. Over the coming year, look as we identify a team artifact and tell you its story.
When we began to put together our plan for the Chiefs Hall of Honor, we sought artifacts that represented founder Lamar Hunt's entire American Football League. To that end, we were fortunate to work with collectors of sports memorabilia who graciously loaned us many artifacts to exhibit in the Hall.
Among them was the last helmet to be worn without a face-mask by a lineman in a professional football game. To some surprise, it was worn by – of all players – a defensive lineman: the Patriots' Jess Richardson, who had played for the Philadelphia Eagles and later with the Boston Patriots, where he appeared in the 1963 AFL championship game against the Chargers. He finally closed his career after the 1964 season.
Richardson was a throwback to an earlier football era and insisted on wearing the smallest sized shoulder pads and no face-mask, according to Eagles "By the Numbers."
Surprisingly, he never lost a tooth but had his nose broken so many times that he took to resetting it himself. Richardson believed a face-mask interfered with his peripheral vision because of his "deep set, narrow eyes."
Whatever, he was grandfathered by the league and was never required to wear a mask.
There were others who did not wear a face-mask, but most were part-time positional players or full-time kickers and punters, according to Pro Football Journal. It is believed kicker Toni Fritsch, the first Austrian to play in the NFL, in 1971 was the last player to not wear a face-mask.
After exhibiting the Patriots helmet for over a year, we returned it to its owner and had Helmet Hut, maker of historically accurate football helmets, construct a likeness that we now display from time to time in the Chiefs Hall of Honor.
