Sam Huff Passes Away 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. Deborah Matthews, a lawyer for Huff’s daughter, Catherine Huff Myers, told The Associated Press that Huff died of natural causes in Winchester, Virginia. An obituary released by the Giants said Huff had been diagnosed with dementia in 2013. 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 coal mining country, Huff became a two-time All-Pro in a career that spanned 1956-69, regularly crashing into the likes of Jim Brown, Jim Taylor and other bruising running backs.