As originally aired on The Rochester Press Box.
Steve Tasker was a nine-time semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And was on a senior’s committee list of deserving candidates just this year. So, he may yet get there. But besides Steve, who is the most deserving former Buffalo Bill for the Hall of Fame. There is one glaring omission.
Consider… this. He is the all-time leading scorer for a cornerstone NFL franchise. The New York Giants. Named one of the fifty best to ever play for the team. Most importantly, he absolutely revolutionized the game of football. But has never received so much as a Pro Football Hall of Fame nomination.
Pete Gogolak began his pro football career in 1964 with the two-time American Football League champion Buffalo Bills. He was the placekicker. Emerging from an era when kickers hit the ball straight on and often played other positions. Think George Blanda, Paul Hornung and Bobby Layne. As kickers, most were pretty lousy by modern standards. The Hungarian refugee took the game by storm. Pete Gogolak. The very first soccer style kicker.
After excelling for two years playing for the Bills, he was poached by the New York Giants, who broke an agreement not to sign players under contract to the other league. It put pro football on the fast track toward a merger. The Giants were desperate to replace Bob Timberlake, who’d made just one field goal in fifteen attempts the year before. Gogolak played nine seasons with the Giants. And fifty years after retiring, he is still their all-time leading scorer.
Gogolak is in the Cornell Hall of Fame. He’s in the Giants Ring of Honor. But never got consideration from Canton. Still, I defy you to find any player who had a greater impact on the game of football as we now know it, than the former Buffalo Bill.
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