Bob Trumpy, who parlayed a 10-year career as a tight end with the Cincinnati Bengals into a prolific NFL broadcasting career, has died. He was 80.
Trumpy began his broadcasting career in 1978 — one year after retiring as a player — as an NFL color analyst for NBC Sports. Paired with Dick Enberg on NBC’s top announcing crew, Trumpy would work for the network until 1997. He and Enberg called Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII — the last two Super Bowls won by the Dallas Cowboys.
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“I’ve known Bob since we started here and he had an extraordinary career as both a player and a broadcaster,” Bengals president Mike Brown said in a statement released by the team. “He was an exceptional and rare tight end who could get downfield and split zone coverages. Speed was his hallmark. He was as fast as any wide receiver and was a deep threat. That was rare for a tight end then and it’s rare now.
“As a broadcaster, he made his mark both locally and nationally, and excelled at sports other than football in a career that was as successful as what he accomplished on the field. He did it all very well and I regret his passing.”
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After his time at NBC ended, Trumpy joined Westwood One as an analyst, a job he held until his retirement in 2007.
In 2014, Trumpy received the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio & Television Award for “longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football.”
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“In addition to being a former player and having a great set of pipes, what made Bob great was that he was never afraid to give his opinion,” NBC Sports executive Jon Miller, who worked with Trumpy in the 1980s and 1990s, told the Hall of Fame in 2014. “He did his homework and had a great passion for the sport. Bob’s one of the few guys who could talk about the game as well as he played it.”
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