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Former New Orleans Saints kicker, Tom Dempsey, died from the virus last night. He'd been suffering from dementia.
Most of you have never heard of him, and but for one kick in 1970, would have little reason to. He was fat and born with no toes on his kicking foot.
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Most of you have never heard of him, and but for one kick in 1970, would have little reason to. He was fat and born with no toes on his kicking foot.
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He had a custom shoe for that foot, with a flat plate on the toe. Many said this gave him an advantage, but if you looked at his overall, physical condition it didn't seem so.
He held for many years, the record for the longest field goal in an NFL game.
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He held for many years, the record for the longest field goal in an NFL game.
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His kick, with time expired, lifted the Saints to a 19-17 win over the Lions. I'm going to link a video, which shows the end of the game. But at the time, very few outside of Detroit or NO would have seen this. There were no national sports networks.
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I didn't see it until the next night. We saw NFL highlights at halftime on Monday Night Football. If you missed that, you had to wait until Saturday for a show called This Week in the NFL.
The 1970 Lions were about the same as the 2019 Lions.
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The 1970 Lions were about the same as the 2019 Lions.
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The Saints of 1970 were about like the Browns of 2019. This game meant very little to anything else going on in the league.
I was watching another game and the announcer told of Dempsey kicking a 63 yd field goal. It was just unbelievable.
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I was watching another game and the announcer told of Dempsey kicking a 63 yd field goal. It was just unbelievable.
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My condolences to the Dempsey family.
Here is the clip, in 1970 quality. The kick looks even longer, because the goal posts were still on the goal line. The ball was 10 yds further back than it would be now.
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Here is the clip, in 1970 quality. The kick looks even longer, because the goal posts were still on the goal line. The ball was 10 yds further back than it would be now.
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