These are the Arizona Cardinals retired jersey numbers

J.J. Watt honors the late Marshall Goldberg, another Cardinals war hero

Marshall Goldberg was teammates with Mauldin on the 1948 NFL Championship team. Goldberg was a second-round pick in the 1939 NFL Draft who would spend ten seasons with the Cardinals and gain over 1,600 rushing yards in his career.

Part of his career was interrupted to go serve in the Army, where he would be a lieutenant in the South Pacific. Goldberg returned for three more seasons, retiring after the 1948 campaign where the Cardinals lost to the Eagles when Steve Van Buren (no relation to the author) punched the game’s only touchdown during a blizzard in the fourth quarter.

When J.J. Watt came to town, he called a relative of Goldberg and asked for their blessing to wear Marshall’s number. They granted him the opportunity to do so, and there’s no better person in the league right now to do such a thing than the exemplary human such as Watt.