Like #98 the jersey #97 isn’t filled with Hall of Famers. In fact there is no one who wore the #97 who is in the Hall of Fame yet. I project hockey player Jeremy Roenick will become a Hall of Famer in the near future so he is my pick as the greatest #97.

Other notables to wear #97 were all football players. Cornelius Bennett, Art Still, Simeon Rice, Bryant Young and Tim Harris were all defensive players. Bennett and Still have been mentioned in the Hall of Fame discussion before but have not come close to making it. All the above were fine players but I wouldn’t define any of them as great.

Jeremy Roenick played with 5 teams in his NHL career most notably with Chicago, Phoenix and Philadelphia. In 2007 he became the third American born player to score 500 goals in his career. J.R. ended up playing 18 NHL seasons and totaled 513 career goals, 703 assists for 1216 points in 1363 games. He is 37th on the All-Time Goal Scoring list. The best seasons of his career came with the Chicago Blackhawks where he had 4 consecutive seasons of 40 goals or more [he had 41-50-53 and 46 goals in those 4 seasons from 1990-94.} Jeremy Roenick stands out as the best athlete to wear the #97.