Sam Huff, the Giants’ Hall of Fame middle linebacker who became the face of pro football, his feats celebrated in the national news media when the N.F.L. began to vie with major league baseball as America’s No. 1 sport, died on Saturday in Winchester, Va. He was 87.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter, Catherine Huff Myers, who said Huff learned he had dementia in 2013.
Playing for the Giants in their glory years of the late 1950s and early ’60s, Huff came out of the West Virginia coal country to anchor a defense that gained the kind of renown that had previously been reserved for strong-armed quarterbacks and elusive runners.