Sonny Jurgensen, the free-spirited quarterback who became one of pro football’s finest passers, throwing for 255 touchdowns with the often lackluster Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins, died on Friday. He was 91.
His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the Washington Commanders, formerly the Redskins, who said that he died in Florida.
Playing seven seasons for the Eagles and 11 for the Redskins, Jurgensen was a naturally gifted drop-back passer who repeatedly threw on-target spirals under pressure.
He led the N.F.L. in pass completions four times; in passing yardage five times; and in touchdown passes twice. He was a five-time Pro Bowl player; he was named to the league’s all-decade team for the 1960s; and he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983.
“He may be the best the league has ever seen,” Vince Lombardi, who coached Jurgensen’s Redskins in 1969, once said. “He is the best I have seen.”
Bobby Mitchell, one of Jurgensen’s favorite receivers with the Redskins, told David Elfin for “Washington Redskins: The Complete Illustrated History” (2011), “It didn’t matter what the coverage was, Sonny could get the ball in there.”
Jurgensen was often at his best against the Redskins’ division rival Dallas Cowboys, throwing for at least 300 yards five times against them.
“We would hold them for two or three quarters, and then they would score three times to blow us out of the water,” said Bob Hayes, the Cowboys’ future Hall of Fame receiver. “You could never relax against Sonny.”
Christian Adolph Jurgensen III was born on Aug. 23, 1934, in Wilmington, N.C. His parents, Christian A. Jurgensen II and Lola (Johnson) Jurgensen, had a trucking company.
As a sophomore, he was a backup quarterback and an outstanding defensive back on the 1954 Duke team that defeated Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. In his final two years, he started at quarterback and defensive back but, on a Duke team that relied more on the running game, Jurgensen’s passing skills were seldom highlighted.
The Eagles waited until the fourth round of the 1957 draft to select him. He was mostly on the Eagles’ bench for four seasons, usually watching the future Hall of Fame quarterback Norm Van Brocklin.
When Van Brocklin retired after taking the Eagles to the 1960 N.F.L. championship, a victory over Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers, Jurgensen emerged as a star, leading the N.F.L. in completions (235), passing yards (3,723) and touchdown passes (32) in 1961.
He had another fine season in 1962, when he again was No. 1 in passing yards, but he was a contract holdout in training camp in 1964 and was traded to the Redskins for quarterback Norm Snead before the 1965 season.
Jurgensen made no effort to hide his penchant for nightlife. “When I left Philadelphia, the bartenders all wore black armbands,” he was quoted as saying in a 1969 Life magazine profile.
He added that Otto Graham, his coach in Washington before the arrival of Lombardi, “likes candy bars and milkshakes, and I like women and scotch.”
Jurgensen often connected with Mitchell, Charley Taylor and Jerry Smith in his Redskins years, and he led the league in three major passing categories — completions, yardage and touchdown throws — for a second time, in 1967. But the Redskins had poor defenses and losing records.
That began to change when Lombardi became the team’s coach in 1969 after building the Packer dynasty. Although Lombardi was famously autocratic and Jurgensen mixed his football with pleasure, they meshed well.
Jurgensen shaved off his mutton-chop sideburns and shed 10 pounds to please Lombardi and was, in turn, impressed by how Lombardi simplified the game. He gave his quarterback fewer plays but more autonomy, allowing Jurgensen to chose multiple passing options with each play.
Jurgensen led the N.F.L. in completion percentage and passing yardage in 1969, when Lombardi’s Redskins went 7-5-2, its first winning season since 1955.
In the summer before the 1970 season, Lombardi was generous in praise. “Jurgensen is so important in my plans that if he were to leave, I’d follow him the next morning,” Lombardi was quoted as saying in David Maraniss’s biography of the coach, “When Pride Still Mattered” (1999).
Lombardi died of cancer before the season began. Bill Austin replaced him for one year, and then George Allen was named head coach and revived the Redskins’ fortunes.
But Allen favored Billy Kilmer, a more conservative quarterback, over Jurgensen, who faced mounting injuries in his late 30s. Sidelined with a torn Achilles’ tendon, Jurgensen did not play in the Redskins’ Super Bowl loss to the Miami Dolphins in 1972.
His final game came in the 1974 divisional playoffs. Jurgensen retired with 32,224 passing yards alongside his 255 touchdown throws. He was later a pro football analyst for CBS and a longtime commentator for Redskins games on radio.
He and his first wife, Suzanne Long, from whom he was divorced, had two sons. He and his second wife, Margo (Hurt) Jurgensen, also had two sons. Information about his survivors was not was immediately available.
In looking back on his playing days, Jurgensen offered an excuse of sorts for his hard-playing, hard-living reputation and his less-than-chiseled physique. It promoted a kinship with fans, he said.
“I didn’t have a good tailor for my uniform, so I always had little roll in front of me,” he recalled in “Hail Victory: An Oral History of the Washington Redskins” (2006), by Thom Loverro. “Fans liked it. They could sit at home and say to their wives, ‘I just want to watch football,’ and maybe the wife would say, ‘You’re just sitting around here drinking beer. Get in shape.’
“The guy could point to the television and say, ‘Look at that guy. If he can play, I can play.’”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
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