Kevin Greene, former Carolina Panthers linebacker and Hall of Famer, has died
Kevin Greene, one of the greatest players on the Carolina Panthers’ early teams of the 1990s, died Monday. He was 58. The cause of death wasn’t immediately known, but the Pro Football Hall of Fame sent out a statement confirming his passing.
Greene played three of his 15 NFL seasons with the Panthers and made the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016, becoming the first former Panther in the hall that had played multiple seasons with Carolina. With the Panthers in 1996, he led the NFL in sacks and teamed with Lamar Lathon to form one of the NFL’s most feared pass-rushing combinations.
“People called me crazy,” Greene told The Observer once in an interview. “But I loved playing football. When you’re passionate about something, that love is going to show.”
Greene’s death shocked the Panthers community and his former teammates. “I just talked to Kevin last Wednesday,” said Lathon in a phone interview Monday night. “We told each other we loved each other, just like always. I can’t make sense of this at all.”
“It’s absolutely shocking news,” said former Panthers tight end Wesley Walls, who joined the Panthers along with Greene in 1996 and played alongside the linebacker for three years. “Kevin was an old-school warrior, a natural entertainer and completely unblockable. There would be times in the middle of a game week that I’d say, ‘I don’t know whether Kevin can play.’ He was always overcoming some type of injury. But when Sunday came, you wanted that guy on your team. I’ve never seen anybody tougher.”
With his charismatic personality and explosive playmaking, Greene quickly became a fan favorite. As his former Carolina coach Dom Capers once told The Observer about Greene: “Coaches can tell when a player has that ‘it’ quality, and Kevin had ‘it’ — that sense of energy that was good for a team.”
Once a walk-on at Auburn, Greene posted 160 sacks over his 15-year NFL career and retired as the No. 3 sacker on the league’s all-time list. With Carolina — in 1996, 1998 and 1999 — Greene collected 41.5 sacks and averaged nearly one sack per game, posting three double-digit sack years for Carolina in his mid-30s.
After most of those sacks, Greene did an exuberant celebration. As his former teammate Eric Davis once said: “Kevin Greene did a dance every single sack.”
Greene’s passion occasionally came out in other ways, too. In 1998 while with the Panthers, he angrily grabbed Panthers assistant coach Kevin Steele by the collar in a sideline altercation. Capers allowed Greene to keep playing in that game, which became a point of controversy, but suspended him for the next one. Steele and Greene quickly made up after the incident.
Once his playing career ended, Greene became a respected NFL assistant coach for the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers. And although Greene never won a Super Bowl as a player, he did win one as an assistant coach at Green Bay. He later gave up coaching for a time and had been living with his family in the Destin, Fla., area in recent years.
More sacks than Lawrence Taylor
During his 15-year NFL career, Greene played for four franchises — the L.A. Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers and the Panthers. The Panthers caught him at the tail end of his career, but he still was one of the best pass rushers the team ever had as a 3-4 outside linebacker.
Even in his final year at age 37 in 1999, he had 12 sacks, which would easily lead the Panthers’ current team. With his signature blond mane flying, Greene also dabbled in professional wrestling in the offseason, where his big personality fit right in with Ric Flair (they once shared a wrestling ring together and were good friends).
Only Reggie White and Bruce Smith have more career sacks than Greene and his 160 (sacks didn’t become an official NFL statistic until 1982). Greene told the Observer in January that he always wanted to finish as the best sacker among all linebackers, including former North Carolina and NFL star Lawrence Taylor.
Said Greene: “I knew when I retired I really wanted to play longer and I wanted to be more productive than Lawrence Taylor.... I wanted to show I could put better numbers on the board than the great Lawrence Taylor. And I was able to do that.”
Greene’s final two sacks of his career came in his last game for Carolina in 1999, when he corralled then-New Orleans and future Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme twice. Understanding that it was probably his final game, several of Greene’s teammates carried him off the field after the contest ended.
Panthers coach Matt Rhule expressed his sympathy Monday. “On behalf of myself, our staff, our team, everyone at the Carolina Panthers, I want to extend our deepest condolences to the family of Kevin Greene,” Rhule said. “A great player, coach and obviously a Carolina Panther. His loss is sad for us all.”
A series of concussions, 2 heart stents
Speaking to Greene was a joy for most reporters, as he was game for just about anything (he and Lathon once dressed as Santa Claus for an Observer photo shoot) and he tried hard to make his descriptions vivid. Consider this one to the Observer in 2019 when he was describing his lone Carolina touchdown, in 1996, on a 66-yard fumble recovery and return.
Recalled Greene: “Remember, I was an old man by this time — 34 years old, although I still did lead the league in sacks that year (with 14.5). I remember looking over my shoulder, gauging whether anyone was going to chase me down, and then I turned back and just started screaming while running down the field. Toward the end, I literally stopped breathing. I was straining with every muscle in my body.
“When I got to about the 5, I knew I was done. I thought I was about to get caught. I just dove for the end zone, hit on my shoulder and rolled over. I sucked the life-giving air into my lungs, and I heard the crowd, and I celebrated.”
To play as long as Greene did required many physical sacrifices. He once estimated to The Observer that he had 20-30 concussions during his career.
“I’ve had issues,” he told The Observer in January. “I’ve had both hips replaced, ended up having four shoulder surgeries, I had two stents put in my heart and I lost count of how many concussions I had when I played. But I wouldn’t change anything. It is what it is.... I think I did something that not a lot of people can do, which is play your passion out, all your passion for this game of football that I truly loved.”
Among Greene’s survivors is his wife, Tara, who occasionally sang the national anthem at Panther games during Greene’s playing career. Greene considered her his pregame good-luck charm and would boast about the Panthers’ excellent record when Tara sang before the game. The couple also has a son, Gavin, and a daughter Gabrielle. Gavin Greene, 23, is an outside linebacker at Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss.
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 5:07 PM.
