DE Lassiter Was One of the Eleven Angry Men

Ther e is a fa mous picture of defensive end Ben Davidson of the Oakland Raiders delivering a vicious hit that knocked the helmet off Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath of the New York Jets in a 1967 game at the Oakland Coliseum won by the Raiders, 38-29.

The word was that Namath’s jaw was broken on the play, but that actually happened earlier in the game when the Raiders’ other defensive end, Ike Lassiter, made another big hit on Namath.

“Ike was always mad about that, because Ben got the credit,” Managing General Partner Al Davis of the Raiders said several years later.

Namath, for his part, wouldn’t give the Raiders any satisfaction, saying after the game that he hurt his jaw by “biting into a steak bone” at dinner the night before.

“I don’t remember that play,” Namath said. “All I remember when I got to the sidelines after the series was telling (orthopedic surgeon) Dr. (James) Nicholas it felt like air was coming out of my left jaw area. The big change for me was I went to a cage facemask after that.

“ … I disliked (the Raiders) because of their overly aggressive–I hate to say dirty–play. But there were situations where you got a hand in your face, or scratched at the eyes. Your head would get twisted when you were on the ground. Little extra things that kinda got you ticked at them.”

Namath also said: “When I went out to the Raiders’ office years later, they had a picture when you walked into the front door, they had a picture that was about 15 feet high and about 8-by-10-feet wide, and it was a picture of me flying through the air, and the helmet flying through the air. I thought it was Davidson, but I was told that maybe Lassiter was the one that broke my cheekbone at the time.

“But that picture was … man, it was like, ‘Look what we do.’ (Laugh) It was really a heckuva photo.”

Lassiter and Davidson were members of the Raiders’ famed Eleven Angry Men of Defense, teaming with tackles Tom Keating and Dan Birdwell, and in 1967 they amassed 67 sacks for 665 yards in losses, a pro football record for a 14-game season.

The all-time record for a 16-game season is 72, set by the Chicago Bears in 1984.

Legendary sportswriter Larry Felser of the Buffalo Courier-Express wrote after the Raiders collected 11 sacks of quarterback Jack Kemp in a 24-20 victory over the Buffalo Bills at War Memorial Stadium in 1967, that the Silver and Black “play defense like Eleven Angry Men.”

Bob Valli of the Oakland Tribune picked up the phrase and used it for the rest of the season.

While Davidson and Keating got most of the notoriety, Lassiter also was a standout in his five seasons with the Raiders.

The 6-5, 270-pound Lassiter was drafted out of little St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C., in the ninth round (No. 115 overall) of the 1962 National Football League Draft by the Los Angeles Rams, but opted to play with the Denver Broncos of the American Football League instead and was traded to the Raiders in 1965.

Lassiter led the Raiders and the AFL in sacks in 1967 with 17 and had a total of 61½ in his five seasons with the Silver and Black, making at least 10 in every season except one. He had 15 in 1969, 11½ in 1968, 10 in 1966, and eight in 1965.

Those 1967 Raiders went 13-1 and routed the Houston Oilers, 40-7, in the AFC Championship game at the Oakland Coliseum, before losing to the Green Bay Packers, 33-14, in Super Bowl II at the Orange Bowl in Miami in legendary Vince Lombardi’s last game as coach of the Pack.

“King Kong and 10 gorillas couldn’t beat us today,” Lassiter said after the AFL Championship Game. “And we’ll play better in the Super Bowl.”

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but the Raiders’ front four still got in their shots, sacking Packers quarterback Bart Starr five times.

Even though Lassiter was less heralded than Davidson, Keating, and Hall of Fame cornerback Willie Brown on the Raiders’ defense, he was selected first-team All-AFL in 1966 and second team in 1967, 1968, and 1969.

Lassiter finished his career by playing two seasons for the New England Patriots in 1970 and 1972, before coming out of retirement to play for the Jacksonville Sharks of the World Football League in 1974.

In retirement, Lassiter became a teacher, counselor, and football coach, and was a servant at his local church in Oakland, where he died on Feb. 15, 2015, at the age of 74.

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