Sam Huff forever bristled over the trade from Giants to Washington
Washington's Sam Huff poses in front of his jersey in the locker room in Washington in December 1967. Credit: AP
Sam Huff was standing on the sideline watching practice at Washington’s training facility several years ago, preparing for the radio broadcasts he’d been doing for years alongside Hall of Fame former quarterback Sonny Jurgensen. An easy smile crossed Huff’s face as he talked to a visitor.
But when the conversation steered toward the Giants, his original NFL team, for which he’d become one of the greatest middle linebackers in pro football history and one of the most popular Giants players ever, a darkness swept over Huff’s countenance.
This was in the late 1990s, decades after Huff had been traded to Washington on April 10, 1964 — yet the anger Huff flashed made it seem as if the deal had happened the day before.
What Huff said about Allie Sherman, the erstwhile Giants coach who sent Huff to Washington for defensive tackle Andy Stynchula and running back Dick James, will not be printed on this page.
Suffice it to say that Huff remained as furious about Sherman’s decision then as he was when it happened. He’d also been angry at team owner Wellington Mara, who signed off on the coach’s move, but Huff eventually made peace with Mara.
He despised Sherman for the rest of his days, a testament to how gut-wrenching it was to have his heart torn out from him when he was forced to leave New York.
Huff died Saturday at age 87, one of the legendary football lives having ended after several years in which he battled dementia.
Sam Huff, foreground, and Don Chandler, both New York Giants' backs, relax in the dressing room at Yankee Stadium in New York on Dec. 11, 1963. Credit: AP/Eddie Adams
Huff was one of football’s most charismatic players, a man who had to be talked into staying with the team by former Giants assistant — and soon-to-be Packers coach — Vince Lombardi after getting frustrated and homesick before his first season in 1956. A man who eventually blossomed into the prototype middle linebacker under defensive coordinator — and soon-to-be Cowboys coach — Tom Landry.
Huff helped to transform defense into the hallmark of the Giants’ franchise as the club reached six NFL championship games from the mid-1950s to the early ’60s. One of football’s toughest tacklers, he helped the Giants win the NFL title in his rookie season in a 47-7 blowout of the Chicago Bears at Yankee Stadium.
He went to five Pro Bowls, was chosen as the NFL’s best linebacker in 1959 and had an aura that transfixed Giants fans and attracted national attention rarely enjoyed by a defensive player, helping to transform the NFL into the sports behemoth it has become today.
He was the first NFL player to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and Walter Cronkite, in a television documentary called "The Twentieth Century," did an iconic piece on him called "The Violent World of Sam Huff."
Sam Huff, foreground, and Don Chandler, both New York Giants' backs, relax in the dressing room at Yankee Stadium in New York on Dec. 11, 1963. Credit: AP/Eddie Adams
Huff was a larger-than-life athlete who brought Giants fans to their feet at old Yankee Stadium, where he often got the better of running backs Jim Brown and Jim Taylor. New York embraced the baby-faced linebacker from small-town West Virginia, and Huff loved New York back like few others.
The connection was powerful, and Huff thought it was permanent. Even though his team was starting to age around him under Sherman, Huff didn’t want to leave New York.
As he watched players such as Rosey Grier, Cliff Livingston and Dick Modzelewski leave in trades, Huff approached Mara to get assurances he wouldn’t be traded. Mara told him he would remain with the team. But by 1964, after the Giants had lost NFL title games the previous three years, Mara relented after Sherman pressed him to deal Huff.
He was devastated at having to leave New York.
He promised revenge.
It came on Nov. 27, 1966, when Huff called timeout with three seconds to play and Washington holding a 69-41 lead at home. Charlie Gogolak kicked a field goal to finish off the game, and the 72 points surrendered by the Giants that afternoon remain the most ever given up in a single game.
Coach Otto Graham was criticized for running up the score, but Huff later acknowledged, "I took it upon myself to yell for the field-goal team to get out there."
After the game, he told reporters, "Justice is done."
Huff, who retired after the 1969 season, took his rightful spot in the Hall of Fame in 1982 after a marvelous career defined by toughness, competitiveness and an intensity that few others could match. But it also was tinged with regret that he couldn’t finish his career where it started.
Time never softened those feelings.
He simply yearned to be a Giant for life, and he never forgave Sherman for taking that away.
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
