NFL: Beaumont native, Raiders great Wells dies at 76
Published 11:07 pm Thursday, December 27, 2018
Warren Wells, who posted big receiving numbers as an Oakland Raider from 1967-70, died Thursday at his Beaumont home, the team confirmed. He was 76.
Wells caught 47 passes for 1,260 yards and 14 touchdowns during the 1969 season, the last that the Raiders played in the American Football League. The AFL merged with the National Football League the following season.
In his four years with the Raiders, Wells caught 156 passes for 3,364 yards and 42 touchdowns. His career average of 23.1 yards per catch was an NFL record until the criteria was changed to a minimum of 200 career receptions, according to The Mercury News of San Jose, California.
“You could compare him to anyone who played the game. He was that good,” former Raiders receiver Fred Biletnikoff told The Mercury News. “Some of the things I saw him do, the catches I saw him make, were amazing. He was a great friend. Could be tough to get a smile out of sometimes, but he still had a great sense of humor. It’s sad to see another one of our friends pass away.”
Wells was arrested in the locker room after the Pro Bowl in the 1970 season on a probation violation from a conviction two years earlier for aggravated assault, the newspaper reported. The original charge was rape.
He served 10 months in prison and never again played football. Afterward, he dealt with a string of legal troubles, mostly having to do with alcoholism, according to The Mercury News.
Wells was a Beaumont native who played at Hebert High School and then Texas Southern. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 1964 but played just one season there before being drafted into the military in the 1960s, according to Bleacher Report, and resurfaced onto the pro football scene with the Raiders in 1967. That year, the team won the AFL championship over the Houston Oilers before losing to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl II.
“I followed Warren Wells in high school at Beaumont Hebert High School, because I’m from Houston, that was a rival high school,” former Raiders wide receiver Cliff Branch, a Houston Worthing graduate, said on the team’s obituary of Wells. “Saw him play at Texas Southern University and he was unbelievable. He was a deep threat in those days, and he was a deep threat for the Raiders.”
Wells was an AFL All-Star in 1968 and Pro Bowler in 1970. He was one of 16 former pro players who received keys to the city of Beaumont from then-Mayor Ken Ritter in 1971.