As many followers of the Jets and the NFL know and Johnson alluded to, one of Klecko’s claims to fame is that he’s one of solely three gamers to have been voted to the Pro Bowl at three completely different positions — defensive finish for the ’81 Pro Bowl, D-tackle for the ’83 and ’84 video games, and nostril in 1985. He was additionally named NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1981. Klecko’s postseason honors have been constructed on a quantity of spectacular achievements, together with:
â– His sack complete from 1982, when particular person defensive sacks turned official, via the 1987 season, his final as a Jet, is just 24. But together with the sack analysis that has been accomplished relationship to 1960, Klecko’s regular-season complete unofficially blooms to 78, which is second-most in franchise historical past, behind solely Mark Gastineau’s 116.
â– He unofficially had at the least one full sack in every of his closing six video games as a rookie in 1977, then opened the ’78 marketing campaign with 4 extra video games of at the least one full sack. The streak of 10 consecutive video games with a full sack is a franchise mark, and had sacks been official within the second half of the Seventies, it is believed he would’ve set an NFL mark that might have remained tied for essentially the most in league historical past till the Chiefs’ Chris Jones assembled an 11-game sack streak in 2018.
â– His philosophy of “I don’t care what you do” relating to the place his coaches performed him prolonged to particular groups, particularly the kick-block unit. He had 5 blocked kicks (one punt, two FGs, two XPs) over time, equaling the franchise file for many blocks in a profession established by Paul Crane in 1971, a couple of years earlier than Klecko bought began.
As tough and hard and pleasant as Joe stays all these years later, he is also humbled by this elusive prize that’s lastly his. Asked about what he remembered most about his enjoying days, his first thought was the New York Sack Exchange — Mark Gastineau, Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam and him — that scared opposing QBs and offenses to the tune of a team-record 66 sacks in 1981. A second thought was how nice Jets followers have been and are.
And he reluctantly in contrast his fashion of play to 2 present NFL D-line stars within the Rams’ Aaron Donald and the Steelers’ Cameron Heyward.
“There’s two guys I would say that play a lot like I did,” he mentioned. “Heyward, the way he plays with his strength, running people over a lot, and Donald, who plays with his quickness. I had both those things on my side. Once I got a guy worried about running over him and he’d hunker down and try to sit down on me, I’d go right around, I’d bang their hands and stuff like that. Those two guys, they remind me of what I did.”
Among the numerous well-wishers for Klecko in Phoenix was one other Pittsburgh participant of notice. Terry Bradshaw was sacked by Klecko in Game 3 of Joe’s 10-game sack streak in ’77 and once more in ’81, in between the 2 performing within the 1981 Burt Reynolds film The Cannonball Run and earlier than Bradshaw went on to fame and fortune as a Fox soccer speaking head.
“I love Joe Klecko,” Bradshaw instructed newyorkjets.com‘s Eric Allen alongside Radio Row this week. “He was tough. You had to always build your offense around him. First you had to protect yourself against him. Then you had to trap him, you had to try to neutralize him. If you didn’t, he was so disruptive.
“Tell him I mentioned congratulations, well-deserved.”
We’ll try this, Terry, however we can’t be the one ones. After all, the wait is over for Joe and the dam of Jets followers’ nicely needs has damaged.