Hall of Fame LB Sam Huff dies at 87
Sam Huff, the hard-hitting Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the New York Giants reach six NFL title games from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s and later became a popular player and announcer in Washington, died Saturday. He was 87.
Huff family lawyer Deborah Matthews told The Associated Press that Huff died Saturday of natural causes in Winchester, Virginia.
Huff always will be remembered as the furious middle linebacker in a 4-3 scheme developed for him by fellow Hall of Famer Tom Landry, his defensive coordinator with New York and later the architect of the Dallas Cowboys’ rise to power.
Raised in West Virginia in coal mining country, Huff became a two-time All-Pro in a career that spanned 1956-69. His major regret was winning only one of the title games in which he played, the championship in his rookie season when the Giants crushed the Chicago Bears 47-7 at Yankee Stadium.
Huff was selected as the NFL’s top linebacker in 1959. He went to five Pro Bowls, four with the Giants and one with Washington, playing in an era when he regularly crashed into the likes of Jim Brown, Jim Taylor and other bruising running backs.
The baby-faced Huff also became the first NFL player featured on the cover of Time magazine, appearing on Nov. 30, 1959.
“The Twentieth Century,” a documentary television program hosted by Walter
Cronkite on CBS that began in the late 1950s, once broadcast a piece on him titled “The Violent World of Sam Huff.” Huff wore a microphone during practice and an exhibition game for the piece.
Drafted out of West Virginia in the third round in 1956, Huff played for New York from 1956-63. He was traded to Washington before the 1964 season and played there for the next four seasons. He retired after the ‘67 season, sat out the following year and returned for a final season in 1969 as a player-coach under Vince Lombardi.
When Huff was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982, he said football players can’t be discouraged and will not quit, even if beaten in a game. He believed in fair and hard play.
“He may not be in allAmerican, but he is an example of the American way,” Huff said in his induction speech. “He is judged not for his race, nor for his social standing, or not for his finances, but by the Democratic yardstick of how well he blocks, tackles and sacrifices individual glory for the overall success of his team.”
Huff spent three seasons working as a color commentator for the Giants on radio before moving over to a similar job with Washington, where he spent 38 years calling games, starting in 1975.
From 1981-2012, his longtime broadcasting partner was a former Washington teammate, quarterback Sonny Jurgensen. They called all three of Washington’s Super Bowl titles.