Tom DempseyControversial record-setting placekicker dies at 73'
⚜ 19Dempsey's number with the SaintsDempsey was born with a congenital defect on his right foot that left him with a short stub. He joined the New Orleans Saints in 1969; he made the Pro Bowl and was an All-Pro his rookie season. In 1970, he made his most famous kick: a 63-yard field goal that stood for 43 years as the longest field goal in NFL history.
Controversy eventually arose suggesting that Dempsey's kicking foot posed an unfair advantage and that his kick—a full seven yards longer than the previous record set by Bert Rechicar—was evidence that field goals had become too easy. Over the course of the 1970s, the NFL moved the goal posts back ten yards and then made a rule requiring any kicker with a deformed foot to use a kicking shoe that resembles a normal shoe.
Despite Dempsey's record kick, the Saints did not retain him after the 1970 season. He spent a plurality of his career, four years, with the Philadelphia Eagles, then two with the Los Angeles Rams. The requirement to change his shoe in 1977 effectively ended Dempsey's effectiveness, and his last two stints with the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills were ineffective.
Dempsey suffered several tragedies in his later life; losing many of his possessions from flooding in Hurricane Katrina, he quipped that the hurricane could not take away the memories—only to lose much of his memory to a dementia diagnosis in 2013. He died April 4 following a seven-year battle with dementia, complicated by coronavirus caught in the nursing home where he was staying.
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