Pete Lammons played six seasons with the Jets, including in their Super Bowl III win in 1969
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Pete Lammons, a former New York Jets player, has died at the age of 77 following a boating accident.
Lammons was participating in a Major League Fishing tournament in Brookeland, Texas, on Thursday morning when he tripped, fell into the lake and could not be saved, the fishing organization said in a statement.
Attempts were made to rescue Lammons from the water but they were unsuccessful and an autopsy has been ordered, MLF said in the statement, noting that Lammons was “an experienced co-angler” with 57 fishing tournaments under his belt.
“Unfortunately, he had two stents put in the past two weeks and he was weak from that,” his nephew Lance Lammons explained to the Jacksonville Progress. “Pete’s girlfriend tried to talk him out of fishing for health reasons.”
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Lammons joined the Jets as a tight end in the eighth round of the 1966 AFL draft and played with the New York team through 1971. He was then traded to the Green Bay Packers, where he concluded his career in 1972.
His time with the Jets included the team’s Super Bowl III win over the Baltimore Colts in 1969, during which Lammons had three targets and two catches.
The head coach at the time, Weeb Ewbank, referred to Lammons and wide receivers Don Maynard and George Sauer as “the finest trio of receivers in pro ball to throw to,” the team said in a tribute to Lammons on Friday.
In 2019, Lammons attended the 50th anniversary dinner for the surviving members of the Super Bowl III team.
“Just being around and seeing the guys one more time, unfortunately knowing that it’s probably the last time we’ll all get together,” he said at the time, according to the Jets’ website. “Everybody’s getting a little long in the tooth, so to speak, and injuries and illnesses and what have you are taking the boys away. The Jets did a good job of having things for us. It was nice.”
“Fifty years, lord have mercy,” Lammons added to ESPN before the dinner. “That’s a long time. You just kind of realize this will probably be the last time we all get together. Quite a few of us have departed, so it won’t be quite as much fun without them.”
