New Orleans Breakers Flashback: Clint Wenzel – VIDEO

The New Orleans Breakers were a United States Football League franchise that played in the Louisiana Superdome for one season, in 1984. The Breakers began their USFL tenure in Boston, in 1983, but a stadium issue forced a move, allowing New Orleans real estate developer Joe Canizaro to buy the team, and move it to New Orleans for the 1984 season.

In 1984, the Breakers began the season 5-0, but went 3-10 the rest of the way, and missed the USFL playoffs.

New Orleans supported the team well, with the Breakers averaging 30,557 per game, but the USFL opted to move their schedule from the spring to the fall in 1986, and with the Saints in town, the franchise elected to move to Portland for the 1985 season.

All summer long, we’re looking back at former players for the New Orleans Breakers.

Today, defensive lineman Clint Wenzel:

Wenzel played his college football at Tulane, where he was a four-year letterman and three-year starter, compiling 229 tackles, along with five sacks and an interception in his career with the Green Wave, from 1980-1983.

After going undrafted in the 1984 NFL Draft, Wenzel wass a territorial selection of the New Orleans Breakers in the 1984 United States Football League Draft, which consisted of 20 selections by each team, with expansions teams making 30 selections. .

The 6-foot-3, 249-pound Wenzel recorded 12 tackles with the Breakers in 1984, mainly as a reserve, and on special teams.

The Breakers moved to Portland in 1985, and Wenzel moved with them, playing the final year of his professional career.

Below, watch Wenzel, who wore # 79, and the Breakers, take on the Birmingham Stallions, from week six of the 1984 USFL season, back on Monday, April 2, 1984: