Gerry Philbin, an undersized but strong and fast defensive end for the New York Jets who helped throttle the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III, died on Wednesday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 83.
His son Douglas confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.
Although he was considered somewhat small for a defensive end at 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds, Philbin was a master of the quarterback sack.
“Getting to the passer is the most difficult thing for me to do,” he told Newsday in 1967. “If I get him once or twice a game, I’m doing my job.” He added: “Football is like war. There’s a different battle every Sunday. You either give a physical beating or you take one.”
In 1967, 15 years before quarterback sacks became an official statistic, Philbin was credited with 12. The next season, which led up to Super Bowl III, he brought quarterbacks down 14 times, the most in the American Football League, ahead of Ike Lassiter of the Oakland Raiders, who was 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds, according to pro-football-reference.com. By another count, from the Jets’ annual analysis of coaches’ film, Philbin had 19 sacks that year.
Philbin’s 64.5 career sacks are the fourth-most in Jets history, according to the team, behind Mark Gastineau’s 107.5, Joe Klecko’s 78.0 and Shaun Ellis’s 72.5.
“He was very quick, and he had a spin move that would drive offensive tackles crazy,” John Schmitt, the Jets’ center at the time, said about Philbin in an interview. “That was his big thing.”
In 2011, Philbin was inducted into the Jets’ Ring of Honor at MetLife Stadium, along with linebacker Larry Grantham, a former teammate; wide receiver Al Toon; and running back Freeman McNeil. Speaking to the Jets’ website before the induction, Grantham described Philbin’s relentless defensive style.
“I always remember Gerry down on the goal line,” he said. “He’d always get penetration, and that would really help stop any kind of running play to his side. He rushed the passer great, he played the run great, and he gave you 120 percent every play.”
Much of the attention paid to the Jets in 1968 focused on Joe Namath, their glamorous quarterback. But they had a well-rounded team that also included a defensive line with Verlon Biggs, the massive defensive end who bookended Philbin, and the tackles John Elliott and Paul Rochester.
The Jets finished 11-3 in the regular season and beat the Raiders to win the American Football League championship. On Jan. 12, 1969, they faced the Colts, the champions of the tradition-bound N.F.L., in Super Bowl III. The Colts were heavy favorites, but Namath, in a boastful mood, guaranteed a Jets win.
The Jets stopped the Colts’ offensive attack and forced five turnovers. Afterward, Philbin was asked by The Daily News what surprised him the most about the Colts.
“When they scored against us,” he said.
Philbin was chosen to play in the 1968 and 1969 A.F.L. All-Star Games, and though he was never inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it did name him to the All-Time Team of the A.F.L. in 1969.
The A.F.L. and N.F.L. merged in 1970.
Gerald John Philbin was born on July 31, 1941, in Pawtucket, R.I., to John and Hermine Philbin. A defensive end for the University of Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo), he was picked by the Jets in the third round of the A.F.L. draft and by the Detroit Lions in the third round of the N.F.L. draft. He chose the Jets because, he said, they showed him respect by sending a private jet to bring him to New York.
The Jets tried him out as a linebacker and offensive guard, but he wound up as a defensive end.
“Once they put me there and played a few exhibition games, I stayed there,” he told the Jets’ website in 2018. He became a full-time starter in 1965, when he had 6.5 sacks. The next season he amassed 10.5, second to Biggs’s 12.5.
In the 1969 season that followed the Jets’ Super Bowl victory, the franchise’s only one, they finished with a record of 10-4, and Philbin’s 12 sacks tied him for fifth in the league. But it was his last strong season: A shoulder dislocation in 1970 and ligament damage to his left knee in 1971 limited his time on the field.
In 1972, when he asked Weeb Ewbank, the Jets’ coach and general manager, for what he called a “token raise,” Ewbank reportedly told him, “We don’t give out any donations.” But Namath got a big salary boost, despite also having injuries that kept him from playing, which only further fueled Philbin’s resentment of Namath and Ewbank.
In early 1973, Ewbank traded Philbin to the Kansas City Chiefs, who flipped him a few months later to the Philadelphia Eagles. During a preseason game between the Jets and Eagles, Philbin flattened Namath with a late hit from his blind side. Namath got up from the muddy field and hollered at Philbin.
“Namath had come to represent everything that pissed him off about the Jets,” Mark Kriegel wrote in “Namath: A Biography” (2004). “Charity? Here’s your charity, Weeb.”
When Philbin announced late in the 1973 season that he would soon retire, he expressed regret about his encounter with Namath.
“That was really an unfortunate incident because I really like Joe,” he told The New York Times. “I would hate to go out with something like that against me.”
He unretired in 1974 to play for the New York Stars of the upstart World Football League. The team moved to Charlotte during the season.
After his playing days, Philbin owned a sand and gravel business on Long Island and was later a real estate agent. In 1985, he and a partner in the sand business were acquitted of manslaughter by a Suffolk County jury in the death of a workman who was killed when a sand pit caved in at a project in Smithtown, N.Y., on Long Island.
In addition to his son Doug, Philbin, who lived in Palm Beach Gardens, is survived by another son, John; three grandchildren; and three sisters, Lois, Lilian and Patsy. His marriage to Trudy Wood ended in divorce.
During the third game of the 1968 season, Namath threw five interceptions (along with four touchdowns) on the road against the Buffalo Bills in a 37-35 loss. The next week, back home at Shea Stadium to play the San Diego Chargers, Philbin had some advice for Namath before the game.
“Gerry, Joe and I are running onto the field,” recalled Schmitt, who was with them. “And Gerry says, ‘Joe, remember, we’re wearing green this week.’ Joe nearly fell to his knees laughing.”
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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