By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

Ervin Parker, Bills

Taken in Round 4 in 1980

Other picks in that round: Eric Hipple played 102 games at quarterback after he was taken by the Lions. Western New Yorkers might remember native son Bill Hurley, who played quarterback at Syracuse but was tried as a defensive back by the Steelers.

The details: Parker spent two seasons as a reserve for the Bills in 1980 and 1981 before taking a spot as a starter in 1982. That was the year the players went on strike in midseason, so he only played nine games. Parker was waived in 1984; he had tryouts with the Chargers and Seahawks but never played another game in the NFL.

Other 93s: Van Williams was a backup running back in the mid-1980s for the Bills. Trey Junkin spent a little more than one season in Buffalo as a linebacker before he was waived. But he did better elsewhere as a tight end and long snapper, playing a total of 19 seasons in the NFL.

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

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