There have been many passings in the football world of later including two Hall of Fame defensive linemen, so this passing will be limited to former football players.
The 1968 NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion, Culp is thought of by many as the best nose guard ever for teams that used the "3-4" defense and is a rarity in sports- Culp was part of two incredibly lopsided trades.
Drafted in 1968 by Denver in the second round, the career nose tackle was thought to be too small for the defensive line, and was moved to the offensive line in his first training camp.
After that predictably didn't go well, the Broncos traded a player that they just picked in the second round to the Kansas City Chiefs for a fourth-round pick without Culp playing in a game for Denver,
After six seasons in Kansas City and making two Pro Bowls, Culp had signed a "futures" contract with the WFL Southern California Sun as had Houston Oilers defensive tackle John Matuszak, the top overall pick in the 1973 draft, with the WFL Houston Texans.
Kansas City got the great idea to trade Culp AND their first-rounder in 1975 to Houston for Matuszak, who would play only twenty-two games with the Chiefs.
Houston would use the first-rounder to select another Hall of Famer in linebacker Robert Brazile.
Humphrey was one of the few reasons to watch the Atlanta Falcons in the 70s and played in the era before the sack was an official stat, so most of his 130 career sacks are unofficial.
The 1968 defensive rookie of the year, Humphrey made six Pro Bowls in Atlanta between 1970 and 1977 before leaving the team four games into the 1978 season and sitting out the rest of the season.
Humphrey forced a trade to the Eagles, where he would play the final three seasons of his career and led the 1980 NFC Champions with 15.5 sacks before entering the Hall of Fame in 2014, better late than never.
Humphrey also had one final note of off-the-field fame to children of the seventies when he made a guest appearance on the Dukes of Hazzard as a rifleman looking for the Duke boys!
Lucci played most of his career with the Lions, but started his career in Cleveland with the Browns and was on the Browns 1964 championship team.
Lucci would make only one Pro Bowl as a Lion but this was at the same time as Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, and Mike Curtis, and a player that was good enough to be at the level of "Hall of Very Good" but was lost in the shuffle behind those stars.
Matte spent his entire twelve-year NFL career with the Baltimore Colts after the Colts took him in the first round of the 1961 draft from Ohio State.
Matte led the NFL in touchdowns in 1969 as a running back and made two Pro Bowls.
Matte scored three touchdowns in the Colts' 1968 NFL championship win and ripped off a fifty-eight-yard run in Super Bowl III against the Jets but was caught from behind by former Colt teammate Johnny Sample.
Matte is also famous as the Colts emergency quarterback in the 1965 season finale and their overtime playoff loss to the Packers after injuries to Johnny Unitas and Gary Cuozzo forced Matte into action with a wristband with the team's plays, which was the first of its kind for the time.
Matte was involved with the CFL team in Baltimore and the Ravens serving as a commentator for both teams.
Powers spent six seasons with the Oakland Raiders at safety and started for the Raiders in Super Bowl II but made a larger name as the head coach of the Missouri Tigers in the seventies and eighties.
Powers coached Washington State in 1977 and took the Cougars into Nebraska and stunned the Huskers on their home field in the opening game to make Powers a hot coaching prospect.
Powers was hired by Missouri in 1978 and upset Nebraska again, which Missouri would not do for the next twenty-five years.
Powers took Missouri to bowl games in his first four seasons and five of his first six, never finishing with a losing record until his seventh and final season with a 3-7-1 record in 1984, after which Powers was fired.
Powers would never coach again and would become a car salesman in St.Louis, while the Tigers would not make another bowl game until 1997 and did not have a winning record until the same 1997 season after the firing of Powers.
Goodbye to Speedy Duncan at the age of 79.
Duncan made the AFL All-Star team on three occasions for the San Diego Chargers and would make the Pro Bowl in 1971 with Washington as a punt returner.
Duncan would intercept twenty-four passes and return four punts for touchdowns in his career with San Diego and Washington.
Goodbye to Demaryius Thomas at the age of 33.
Thomas spent most of his ten-year career with the Denver Broncos and made four Pro Bowls with two All-Pro selections.
Thomas finished with over 1,000 yards on four occasions and ten or more touchdowns on three others.
Thomas is the player that grabbed a short pass from Tim Tebow and took it eighty yards for a touchdown on the opening play of overtime of a 2011 playoff game for Denver against Pittsburgh to give the Broncos the victory.
The play set a playoff record for fastest ending to an overtime playoff game and longest scoring play to end a playoff game.
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