Gadzooks, does this ever take me back... 
to the days of truly classic NFL players and coaches of the 1950s through the early 1960s such as Yale Lary, Joe Don Looney, Joe Schmidt--
And... 
Bobby Layne:
"He was irresistible. He claimed his reputation as a quarterback who could close down a bar on Saturday night and close down the Cleveland Browns the next afternoon was largely a creation of the gossips in the press.
"But listen, even Damon Runyon or Ring Lardner would be mentally taxed to create a Bobby Layne. He really did crash into a streetcar. He really did apply for the Texas Tech football coaching job in 1980, promising to `recruit with $100 bills.`
"He once beat a case involving an early morning crash into a parked car when his attorney persuaded the judge that the arresting officer had taken his Texas twang for drunken slurring.
"When the attorney also claimed that Layne had been the victim of ``a case of laryngitis,` a voice from the back of the court room whispered loudly,`What? A whole case?`
"`Winnin`s the big thing,` he said once, `not records. Look at Fran Tarkenton. He set all those records, but he was throwin` three-yard passes to his backs and getting them killed. How many championship rings does he have?` Layne won by refusing to be beaten, by refusing to let his teammates lose.
"`He was a unique leader,` said Yale Lary, who played on the great Detroit teams with Layne and later joined him in the Hall of Fame. `When he said block, you blocked. And when he said drink, you drank.`"*
And Alex Karras knew a thing or two... 
about Bobby Layne:
Layne took Karras under his wing, which in the world of Bobby Layne took on an entirely different meaning than from what you and I take that to mean.
Karras re-told the experience in the early-'70s to the late Detroit Free Press sports writer George Puscas, who Karras grew close to while playing for the Lions.
Seems Layne turned Karras into his personal drinking buddy during that 1958 camp.
“I was drunk all the time,” Karras told Puscas. “I have no idea how I made the team because I was hungover at every practice.”
Karras wasn’t a drinker, per se, and definitely not one to partake of hard liquor. But Layne loved his Cutty Sark, which meant Alex had to love it, too.
Layne, according to Karras, only required one, two hours of sleep per night. The two of them would stumble into the dorms at Cranbrook after a long night of partying at a bar in Pontiac, and while Karras struggled to squeeze a little sleep into his body, Layne would head into the shower and sing his favorite song, “Ida Red,” fresh as a daisy.
Karras said that he heard that Layne’s lack of sleep was due to fear of sleeping, because when Bobby was a kid he lost his parents in a car accident and spent an entire night stuck in the overturned car with their dead bodies.
I can see that theory.
But on the practice field, while Karras battled hangovers, Layne was spry, imparting his knowledge of quarterbacking to his receivers and even the coaches.
“Tell that boy to take that route one more step before turning right,” Layne would say in his Texas twang. And, Karras said, when the receiver did it, he found the ball perfectly delivered by Layne.
“The coaches listened, because they knew that nobody knew quarterbacking better than Bobby Layne,” Karras said.**
How good was Bobby Layne? Consider... 
these three facts:
1. As starting quarterback of the Lions from 1950-58, he led the team to three NFL championships (Super Bowl victories before there were Super Bowls) in four league championship games — those four appearances coming within six years of play, 1952, ’53, ’54, ’57.
2. Layne played eight full seasons for the Lions, 1950 through 1957; in those eight years the team either played in a championship final or had the division championship decided by their final game of the regular season SIX times. (They fell short of being champions by last-game losses in 1951 and 1956.)
3. He used to park his car on the sidewalks of Detroit.
When Bobby was out on the town, which was often, he had little care for such niceties as parking, which tended to cut down on his happy hour time. A common result of such flagrant lawbreaking was the entrance of Detroit cops who — upon learning the car was Bobby’s — were treated to game tickets, autographs, and stories they could tell their buddies about encountering the legendary Layne.
Joe Schmidt tells a story of bar-hopping with Bobby as a young Lion one night in the ’50s, when Bobby pulled up to the front door of one local establishment. And I mean he pulled UP to the front door. When the cops filed in, demanding to know who had parked on the walkway, Joe feared the worst. His fears were eventually banished when he found himself back in Bobby’s car as it sped up Grand River Avenue, following a police escort, with lights and sirens blazing, running red lights on their way to the next saloon.
Bobby got arrested once in Detroit. Once. And it was the biggest news in town when it happened in August of 1957. Yes, the charge was erratic driving. The idea that some officer had actually busted Bobby was as newsworthy as the charges themselves. With a celebrity of the athletic status of Layne, just as with Bob Probert decades later, it’s a good bet that if a star jock is booked once for an alleged crime, he has been let go with a warning — and an autograph and game ticket promises — about a hundred other times. When Bobby went to trial on his charges — the officer testified that from his voice and behavior the Lions quarterback likely had been drinking — he threw himself on the mercy of the court by explaining that what some thought was a drunken slur was actually the way people from Texas, like ol’ Bobby, spoke the language. NOT GUILTY!
News of Layne’s acquital quickly spread across town, and the Lions celebrated it with a wild drinking party at a tavern that hung a sign saying “Ah ain’t drunk … Ah’m from Texas!”***
Gadzooks, those were the days... 
weren't they, Don?
Hey, I loved... 
Bobby Layne!
And not one reporter in those days claimed Don or Bobby... 
were gay--
*** http://blog.detroitathletic.com/2010/08/04/cars-bars-booze-and-the-legend-of-bobby-layne/
http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/07/23/44/1915156/6/628x471.jpg