Bannon, Stoller In NFL Camps

Bulldogs Hope to Meet Week 10

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Former Yale teammates Shane Bannon '11 (in photo) and Jake Stoller '12 hope to run into each other – literally - on a Sunday this fall. A collision of Bulldogs would be a good thing because that would mean there are two playing in the NFL in 2012.

Bannon (Southbury, Conn.), an H-Back with Kansas City, and Stoller (Shaker Heights, Ohio), a Pittsburgh defensive tackle, are in camps now trying to make their 53-man squads.

Bannon (6-3, 245) was a seventh-round draft pick in the 2011 draft and was on the Chiefs' practice squad last season. A break-out senior season at Yale and very hard work over the ensuing winter made him attractive to a number of NFL teams.

Stoller (6-3, 284), who enjoyed an excellent senior collegiate campaign a year after Bannon, signed with the Steelers as a free agent last spring.

If the two Bulldogs meet this fall on the field it will have to wait until week 10 when the Chiefs go to Heinz Field to face the Steelers for a Monday Night Football (ESPN) game on Nov. 12.

Twenty-six Yale men have played in the NFL, from Fido Kempton (Canton, 1921) to Eric Johnson '01 with San Francisco and New Orleans in recent seasons.  Yale was represented on NFL rosters for 29 consecutive years from 1961 through 1989.  Two Yale alumni, Dick Jauron '73 and Charley Ewart '38, have been NFL head coaches, and several Yale alumni have held NFL assistant coaching and executive positions.

Ivy Players Currently on NFL rosters:

Jeff Adams, Columbia - Dallas Cowboys

Shane Bannon, Yale - Kansas City Chiefs

Matt Birk, Harvard - Baltimore Ravens

Kevin Boothe, Cornell - New York Giants

Desmond Bryant, Harvard - Oakland Raiders

Colin Cloherty, Brown - Jacksonville Jaguars

Zak DeOssie, Brown - New York Giants

James Develin, Brown - Cincinnati Bengals

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Harvard - Buffalo Bills

Kevin Murphy, Harvard - San Francisco 49ers

Kyle Newhall-Caballero, Brown - Oakland Raiders

Nick Schwieger, Dartmouth - St. Louis Rams

Jake Stoller, Yale - Pittsburgh Steelers

Greg Van Roten, Penn - Green Bay Packers

Bryan Walters, Cornell - Minnesota Vikings