Super Jet Rochester dies at 81
Paul “Rocky” Rochester, a defensive lineman on the Jets’ Super Bowl-winning team in 1969, has died. He was 81.
The team announced Rochester’s death on its website Tuesday, saying it happened last weekend, but did not provide additional details.
Rochester began his pro football career with the Dallas Texans in 1960, and played three-plus seasons with the AFL team that would become the Kansas City Chiefs. Shortly after he was released during the 1963 season, Rochester was signed by the Jets and became their starting left defensive tackle.
He played 6 1/2 seasons for the Jets and capped his playing career with a Super Bowl victory.
“Paul was an underrated defensive tackle who played a major role on the Jets’ Super Bowl championship team,” former Jets public relations director Frank Ramos told the team’s website. “He was a great run stopper who enabled defensive ends Gerry Philbin and Verlon Biggs to rush from the outside and John Elliott, the quick defensive tackle, to rush up the middle. Walt Michaels came up with a scheme to use undersized linebacker Carl McAdams at DT on passing downs, leading the 1968 Jets to have the No. 1 defense in the AFL.”
NOVAK: OPEN MAY BE OUT
Top-ranked Novak Djokovic is thinking of skipping the U.S. Open and instead returning to competition on clay ahead of the rescheduled French Open.
Speaking to Serbia’s state broadcaster RTS on Tuesday, Djokovic said the restrictions that would be in place for the Open because of the coronavirus pandemic would be “extreme” and not “sustainable.”
I WANT TO FISH LIKE MIKE
Michael Jordan and the crew of his 80-foot fishing boat named “Catch 23” hauled in a 442.3-pound blue marlin on Tuesday at the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, an event held annually off the coast of Morehead City, North Carolina.
The fish wasn’t big enough to place in the top three, so it is not eligible for prize money. But Jordan and his crew still have two more days to catch a bigger marlin and collect some prize money. The leading blue marlin weighed in at 494.2 pounds.