Former NFL safety Easterling dies at 62
April 20, 2012 By
ATLANTA – Former Atlanta Falcons safety Ray Easterling, who helped lead the team’s vaunted defense in the 1970s and later filed a high-profile lawsuit against the NFL targeting the league’s handling of concussion-related injuries, has died. He was 62.
Easterling played for the Falcons from 1972 to 1979, helping to lead the team’s “Gritz Blitz” defense in 1977 that set the NFL record for fewest points allowed in a season. After his football career, he went on to start a successful financial services company in Richmond, Va. He died Thursday in Richmond, said his wife, Mary Ann Easterling. She declined to release the cause of his death.
“He was a wonderful husband and father,” said his wife. “In everything he did, he was a charger. He went full tilt.”
After his playing days were over, Easterling started to suffer the consequences of the years of bruising hits, his wife said. He suffered
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