Sports

R.I.P. Kent Hull, Bills’ center

blog by Ben Tsujimoto • October 19, 2011 @ 8:19am

Kent Hull was the perfect center for the Super Bowl Era Bills. He wasn’t the fastest individual, but he had the stamina to flawlessly keep pace with the K-Gun, the Bills’ blistering no-huddle offense. Hazy memories endure of fall Sunday afternoons in the mid-‘90s, of Hull snapping the football to Kelly with clearly-gassed defensive linemen across from him, gasping for breath before inevitably being shredded by the Kelly-to-Reed connection. That was an unstoppable offense, a well-conditioned unit that operated with surgical precision.

Centers are easily forgotten—they don’t have a “sexy” role—but they’re players that put a play into motion, that line up across from some of the largest humans on earth, that keep the rest of the offensive line aware and responsible. Plus, Kent Hull was a good dude, by all accounts.

Read the Buffalo News sports columnist Jerry Sullivan’s article from the day Hull retired in 1996. Players like Hull—leaders who embrace, the team, fans and the media alike, don’t come around too frequently, and his memory as a prominent face of the greatest era in Bills’ history won’t be forgotten.

TAGGED: andre reed, buffalo bills, center, jerry sullivan, kent hull, rip, super bowls