Hall of Famer Kennedy dies at age of 48
MIAMI: Cortez Kennedy, an American Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle who played 11 seasons for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, was found dead on Tuesday in Florida, the Orlando Police Department said. He was 48.
Police said there was nothing suspicious about his death but an investigation was being conducted because he was unattended when he died.
In a statement on Twitter, the Seahawks described Kennedy as “the heart and soul of the Seahawks through the 1990s” and “a loyal son, father, teammate and friend to many.”
“Really sad to lose a guy like Cortez Kennedy,” Broncos’ general manager John Elway tweeted. Elway was chased around by Kennedy twice a year for much of the 1990s as competitors in the AFC West. “A great personality, a great player and I enjoyed competing against him.”
Kennedy was a starting defensive tackle on the University of Miami’s 1989 national college championship team and selected with the third overall pick in the 1990 NFL Draft by Seattle.
Spending his entire NFL career with the Seahawks, Kennedy was selected to the Pro Bowl all-star game eight times, earning the 1992 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award after making 14 quarterback sacks that season.
Kennedy made 58 career sacks and made or assisted on 668 tackles, recovered six fumbles and intercepted three passes over 167 games, playing a reserve role only in his debut campaign.
Kennedy was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012, the same year the Seahawks retired his No.96 jersey.
Meanwhile Super Bowl 55 was moved from Los Angeles to Tampa by NFL team owners on Tuesday, days after developers delayed a new California stadium’s projected opening by a year to 2020.
In addition to shifting the 2021 Super Bowl venue to Florida, owners also awarded Los Angeles the 56th Super Bowl in 2022 during league meetings in Chicago, the NFL announced.
Owners made the move five days after the new stadium project, set to be the new home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, was pushed back from a 2019 scheduled unveiling.
Last year, NFL owners awarded the yetto-be-built Southern California venue the 2021 Super Bowl. But record rainfall in the region caused construction delays, up to 15 feet of water flooding the excavation site, forcing delays that put the project too far behind schedule to finish in 2019.
The current rotation of Super Bowl host cities now includes a domed venue in the cold-weather market of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Super Bowl 52 next February, then Atlanta for Super Bowl 53 in 2019, South Florida in 2020, Tampa in 2021 and Los Angeles in 2022.