1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - NFL Legend Sonny Jurgensen Passes Away: February 6th, 11:25am

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

NFL Legend Sonny Jurgensen Passes AwayAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. Welcome back. Often in sports, you meet people who have an impact on you in a deeper, more meaningful way than others. I was blessed to, they say don't meet your eyes. idols. Don't meet your hero. Well, in Washington, D.C., I met

I met mine and I got to work with mine. One of my first sports heroes were number nine. And in that era as a kid in the late 60s, early 70s, there were,

especially early on, there were two quarterbacks that held the attention in the admiration of most football purist. One was John Unitas, who was in Baltimore, and we would draw plays up in the grass and in the dirt.

And that's how you would mimic him with the high top black, black shoes. The other for me was number nine. Christian Adolph Sonny Jurgensen, who was a star, a two-way star at Duke University, made all conference, led the conference in touchdown passes

and interceptions as he played safety. Sonny was a bad man. And Sunny won an NFL championship with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1960, was traded to the Washington Redskins. Two-time first team all NFL. NFL two-time all-second team made five Pro Bowls in the 60s. Five of the 10 Pro Bowls in the 60s.

He was the quarterback. Five times the NFL passing leader, two-time NFL passing touchdowns leader, led the league in NFL pass-a-rating, NFL completion percentage leader, was the NFL all-decade quarterback for the 60s. He was that good. he was that good. And when he was done, playing quarterback for Washington, he had thrown the ball so much around and playing for,

for legendary, two legendary coaches in, in Vince Lombardi in his final year and his one year in D.C. And then George Allen, two great coaches. But when, when Sonny, retired from the game. When he left his four receivers, Bach, all four of his receivers were in the NFL's all-time career top 20 in receptions leaders. All four, Charlie Taylor was number one. I believe at the time Bobby

Mitchell was number three. Roy Jefferson finished in the top 20. Jerry Smith at the time was number two at all tight ends. I want to say 60 plus touchdown receptions at tight-in. Maybe the best tight-in we don't talk about on a regular basis. That's how good Sonny was. Sonny invigorated Vince Lamberti. The idea of coaching Sonny Jurgensen intrigued him. Sonny did a thing.

His camps were renowned in the district, Maryland. in Virginia. His social capabilities, his ability to engage the crowd and engage one-on-one, I'm not sure. I met a better pro-athlet who was better in the room

of just talking one-on-one with anybody that wanted to have a conversation. He made time for everybody. He would shake your hand, he'd share a laugh, and a smile. Some antidote will come up about he would ask you who your favorite player was. And then he, of course, he had a story about your favorite player. And he jumped on the bandwagon. He, people think of Joe Thaisman as the first Washington quarterback to go into the national TV market.

But no, it was Sonny Jurgensen, who was the CBS analyst for games. It was Sonny Jurgensen who opened that door for us. and then Thaisman came along. But Sonny Jurgensen was the CBS national guy. He was that good. And for football fans of the 70s and 80s and 90s, when you hear talk of Washington and the Super Bowl runs, often they will go to the radio call.

And the tag was Sonny Sam and Frank. Sunny Sam and Frank. And just as Husker fans do here, often they will turn down the national feed to listen to the local guys that they love. talk about them in a way they want to be talking about. Sonny Jurgensen, Sam Huff, another Hall of Famer, and the legendary Frank Herzog would call those games,

and they would invite you into the booth. Bach, I can't even count the number of times I was invited into the radio, play-by-play booth at RFK Stadium, just to stand there and watch them do what they did better than anybody else. And there was always a hot dog, a hot, hot, hot dog waiting for you. you. When I was of age, there was always a beer. It could be 10 degrees outside.

There's still going to be a cold view away for you. He was offended by coffee being in the room. Sunny lived the best nightlife. They talk about legendary quarterbacks. I'm not sure anybody was better in the nightlife game than Sunny. But in the radio booth, calling games. His descriptive form to breaking down what a quarterback is looking for, where the eyes go, pre-snap read,

throwing through lanes. I had never heard anybody talk about throwing through clean windows for a quarterback to be able. It's one thing for a quarterback to know where he needs to go to ball and know where the ball needs to get to, but he was the first person to identify that there are no clean throws through a dirty throwing window, that the offensive line has to clear path,

exactly a window on time and on purpose for that quarterback to throw a ball through the window to get it to the receiver where the receiver can make a play. He was the first person to be descriptive in what quarterback play was actually going to be and throwing the football. He is famous for his 40-yard behind-the-back spirals, where he would just stand at practice and he would throw to Charlie Taylor from behind the back by 40 yards on a line. and had visions of being an all NFL punter and kick returner,

and he wanted to be what Sammy Ball was, which was leaving the league in the NFL and his interceptions and passing and funding in the same year. He thought I was great. Sammy was better. He would tell you all the time when people talked about the best Washington NFL quarterback of all times, and he said, it's Sammy Ball, stop. He goes, but I wasn't bad. I wasn't bad. What sports does to us is that lets us identify

who we want to root for and who we want to be like. Sonny took the game, played it in a way that it hadn't been played. He threw the football unlike anybody else at the time. Nobody else was doing what Sonny was doing. And then he took that love for the game and he took it national and then he brought it back home. And every Sunday in NFL season, for decades. Sonny would sit and we would welcome him into our homes and he would welcome us into the radio booth. We felt like we were sitting there with him watching the game.

That's the job of the play-by-play guy, the analyst, the radio folks. Tell us what we can't see. Tell us what we need to know. And then love us while you do it. Sonny Jurgis is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever lived. He's a hallfamer and it's unquestioned. he should be in the broadcast Hall of Fame if he's not. But he was in the Human Hall of Fame.

He removed the stigma of not being the perfect body. He had a pot belly and flaming red hair, but the smile, he was the guy that would put on his Sunday uniform and light up a stogie and just stand in the tunnel and smile. He talked to every security guy, every photographer, every person standing on the sideline, got some son. He'd have the Stogee, and he'd just chew it, and he'd pay tribute to Vince LaBardi

who told him not delighted on the field. So he just held it and just hold on to it. It was a great personality. And for whatever sports hero you have, there's a reason why they're a sports hero. They showed you something that you could be, some greater version of yourself. Sonny, I mimicked his call when I was a kid, man. I would go out front and I would play whoever Washington was playing that day. And I do, I play the game and I do the play by play myself.

Oh, there goes the weird Pearson kid. He's out front calling his own football game again. Sonny did that for me. So it's a sad day for me. It's a sad day because he's one of my favorite people. in this business, in this business, decades, decades from the 70s all the way through, I think 2015,

Sonny Jurgensen would turn on that radio microphone and get busy through Super Bowls and everything else. Through strikes, through new quarterbacks, good quarterbacks, and bad. Whoever your sports hero is, this segment is for them. whoever you're a sports hero is. I go back too often what my grandmother told me is that when someone we care about passes away, we should say their name.

And a little bell goes off in heaven. Christian Adolf, Sonny Dirkinson. Appreciate you. Well done, sir. We'll go to break. We'll close out. We'll give away some Super Bowl boxes. Got some trivia for you.

We'll do that when we come back. one-on-one.