Del Shofner, One of the more brilliant Professional football pass receivers of his time, who combined with Y.A. Tittle to aid propel the The big apple Giants to 3 consecutive league championship video games while in the early sixties, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 85.
His Dying was declared by his daughter Laurie Shofner Corwin, who did not specify the trigger. Shofner lived in Bradbury, Calif., but was for some of his existence a resident of San Marino, nearby.
A tall, slender Texas indigenous who could outrun and outmaneuver most any defensive back, Shofner revived his profession in Ny soon after the Los Angeles Rams experienced specified up on him when he was only 26 decades old. He was a cheap customized football jersey five-time Pro Bowl participant and went on for being named by the Pro Soccer Corridor of Fame for the N.File.L’s all-decade crew for that sixties.
“We identified as him ‘Slim’ or ‘Blade,’ and when I imagine him I consider Clint Eastwood,” Sam Huff, the Giants’ Hall of Fame Center linebacker, recalled in his memoir “Tough Stuff” (1988). “Lean and indicate out on that field, excellent pace and superior moves, with legs potent plenty of to break tackles and leap into the air.”
As Claude Crabb, a Washington Redskins defensive again, after place it: “If he contains a sample of any form, it’s his weaving motion. It drives you nuts seeing him dip in and dip out as he moves downfield. He’s so quickly that in case you make the incorrect shift you can’t recover.”
The Giants obtained Shofner and Tittle, his fellow Texan, two months apart. They acquired Tittle, the San Francisco 49ers’ star quarterback from the 1950s, in mid-August 1961 when he was 34, sending the lineman Lou Cordileone to San Francisco in what turned a person of where can i get cheap jerseys pro soccer’s most a single-sided bargains. They attained Shofner with the Rams for 2 superior draft picks following the recently arrived Tittle, whose 49ers had usually faced the Rams, raved about him for the Giants’ operator, Wellington Mara.
The acquisition of Shofner and Tittle gave the Giants a long-variety passing risk within an offense presently that includes Kyle Rote, Alex Webster along with the ageing quarterback Charlie Conerly during the backfield. (Frank Gifford was to return in 1962 from his devastating hit through the Philadelphia Eagles’ Chuck Bednarik inside a 1960 game.) Acquiring won a few meeting titles and an N.F.L. championship in the next fifty percent of the nineteen fifties, the Giants also experienced a whole new mentor in Allie Sherman and were being about to embark on Chapter two of their glory yrs.
The Tittle-to-Shofner prolonged-length passing performs thrilled Giants lovers. Shofner, 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds or so and adept at heading up more than the outstretched arms of defenders, caught 68 passes, one-period Giants file at time, in 1961. When Tittle threw seven touchdown passes in opposition to the Redskins within an October 1962 sport, Shofner, who snared one of these, had 11 receptions, tying Gifford’s solitary-game club mark, and he amassed 269 yards on go receptions, nevertheless a Giants report.
He was the 1st Giant to realize at least one,000 yards in receptions inside a season, exceeding that milestone in Each and every of his very first 3 many years Together with the team.
The Giants went into the N.F.L. championship activity in 1961, ’62 and ’sixty three, but dropped twice towards the Green Bay Packers and after that to the Chicago Bears. Shofner caught 32 touchdown passes while racking up in excess of three,four hundred yards in that span.
“I was awfully unhappy to go,” he explained of his trade within the Rams to your Giants, as quoted by Jim Baker and Bernard M. Corbett inside their oral background “Probably the most Unforgettable Video games in Giants History” (2010). “It took me most likely a number of months in advance of I noticed how Blessed I used to be.”
Delbert Martin Shofner was born on Dec. eleven, 1934, in Center, Texas. He performed halfback at Baylor, starred for a sprinter and was named most useful player inside the 1957 Sugar Bowl sport for his 54-garden operate that set up a touchdown in the 13-seven upset of unbeaten Tennessee.
The Rams chosen Shofner in the primary round with the 1957 draft. Just after taking part in at defensive again, he was switched to split conclude in 1958 and acquired a league-top one,097 yards in move receptions. He had One more fantastic season in 1959 but caught only 12 passes in 1960, when he battled ulcers as well as a leg damage, prompting the Rams to ship him for the Giants.
Magnificent as it absolutely was, the Tittle-to-Shofner blend thrived For less than three seasons. Tittle, whose leveling by a Pittsburgh Steelers lineman in a very 1964 sport was captured in a unforgettable photo, retired after that season. Shofner’s ulcers and leg injuries constrained his Participate in in his previous four decades as a Giant. He retired next the 1967 time with 349 career receptions for fifty one touchdowns and almost 6,five hundred yards.
He afterwards owned a company selling components for animal feed.
Shofner lived in San Marino for in excess of 50 yrs. His wife, Carol Shofner, died in 2015.
Together with Ms. Corwin, He's survived by A further daughter, Stacey Shofner Gates; a son, David; and five grandchildren.
Tittle turned a celeb in The big apple — the balding, frequently-battered warrior who observed a second lifestyle in soccer and was later on elected to the professional Soccer Corridor of Fame. Shofner couldn't match Tittle’s charisma.
Nevertheless the Texan known as Trim, as well as his teammate Conerly, graced billboards and Journals through the entire nation. They have been One of the figures picked out to model as that American advertising icon of their working day, the Marlboro Person.
Michael Levenson contributed reporting.