Bob Talamini, who spent eight years with the Houston Oilers before joining the New York Jets and helping them win the Super Bowl in 1969, died on May 30 at the age of 83.
The Jets announced Talamini’s death on their website on Saturday night, though no cause of death was provided. An obituary said that service would be held Monday at Saint Albert The Great Newman Center in New Mexico.
A six-time AFL All-Star for the Oilers, Talamini helped them win two championships in the league’s first two seasons after being drafted in 1959 out of Kentucky. The guard also received three first-team and three second-team All-AFL awards.
He spent only one season with the Jets but it was the best in franchise history, helping them win their only Super Bowl. He was long considered the ‘The Missing Piece‘ to New York’s Super Bowl puzzle.
“Bob Talamini’s nickname should be ‘The Missing Piece.’ ” longtime Jets public relations director Frank Ramos said, “because the Jets players all referred to him as the missing piece for the Jets to win the World Championship. … The players felt this was the answer for the ground and passing games and it proved true.”
“Without Talamini, we don’t win,” Namath told The Associated Press last year. “Maybe we don’t even get there. But we don’t win without Bob Talamini.”
“When people want to talk about football,” Talamini recalled in the Houston Chronicle in 2004, “they never mention the six All-Pro years with the Oilers. They want to talk about that Super Bowl. I was fortunate to be part of it.”
[NFL, New York Jets]