To the generation of sports fans currently in their teens, 20s, and 30s, Ken Stabler was never a Super Bowl champion, an NFL MVP, or a quarterback who once took orders from coaching legends like John Madden and Bear Bryant. To football fans under the age of 40, Stabler was just another gray-haired gentleman sitting among Alabama's alumni, whom CBS' cameras loved to show between downs on SEC Saturdays. But for the few thousand young people who played All-Pro Football 2K8 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the quarterback called “Snake” might be remembered a bit differently.

On Visual Concepts' virtual gridiron, Stabler's schizophrenic performances often left players thinking that he was one of the weakest signal-callers in the game's “silver” tier. Stabler would start out most matches as a wild, unreliable thrower, encumbered by subpar arm strength and an awkward running posture. For those reasons, The Snake rarely appeared in people's lineups online, especially since silver colleague Randall Cunningham would immediately impress most gamers with his ability to scramble like a running back and throw like a JUGS machine. Athletically, Cunningham was the clear choice if you were shopping for a silver gunslinger. Philadelphia's “Rocket Man,” however, lacked two powerful intangibles that would help make Stabler a late-game assassin in All-Pro Football 2K8: the mysterious “clutch” and “leadership” signature skills. To this day, no one outside of Visual Concepts' development team has ever discovered how these two abilities actually impact the on-field gameplay. But any time that you needed to make a crucial conversion to protect a lead, or were trying to mount a desperate comeback, it just seemed like Stabler would always come through with a big play whenever the pressure was highest. Cunningham, conversely, was the quarterback who'd be sailing balls over receivers' heads or surrendering a costly fumble whenever contests were within one score.

Stabler's unorthodox left-handed delivery –- as opposed to Cunningham's traditional right-armed rifle -- also worked well against online opponents with one (or less) legend on their defensive line, as in that scenario, Snake's blind side would typically be occupied by a harmless, generic-tier pass rusher. The rascally Raiders' scruffy beard and disorderly bangs even scored some extra style points, given that the game's other lefty superstar, Steve Young, sported a boring crew cut and an unintimidating baby face.

People's memories of sports icons -- even those as great as Jordan and Gretzky -- gradually regress, starting with a few spectacular seasons, then dwindling down to a few famous games, and finally settling on a few unforgettable shots. By recreating dozens of deceased and retired hall of famers, videogames like All-Pro Football 2K8 allow younger sports fans to record their own stories about athletes from earlier eras, filling in the missing chapters that SportsCenter conveniently neglects, and fathers have mostly forgotten.