George Kunz

For the mineralogist with the same name, see George Frederick Kunz.

George James Kunz (born July 5, 1947) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive lineman in the National Football League (NFL) from 1969 to 1980. He played college football with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, earning consensus All-American honors in 1968.

George Kunz

Kunz in 1972
No. 75
Position:	Offensive tackle
Personal information
Born:	(1947-07-05) July 5, 1947 Fort Sheridan, Illinois, U.S.
Height:	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Weight:	257 lb (117 kg)
Career information
High school:	Loyola (Los Angeles, California)
College:	Notre Dame
NFL draft:	1969 / round: 1 / pick: 2
Career history
Atlanta Falcons (1969–1974) Baltimore Colts (1975–1980)
Career highlights and awards
3× First-team All-Pro (1972, 1973, 1975) 2× Second-team All-Pro (1976, 1977) 7× Pro Bowl (1969, 1971–1973, 1975–1977) National champion (1966) Consensus All-American (1968)
Career NFL statistics
Games played: 129 Games started: 126 Stats at Pro Football Reference

Kunz was selected in the first round of the 1969 NFL/AFL draft with the second overall pick. He was a seven-time Pro Bowl selection in the NFL, playing with the Atlanta Falcons (1969–1974) and Baltimore Colts (1975–1980).

In his later years Kunz worked as an attorney practicing in Las Vegas, Nevada.

College career

Tackle at the University of Notre Dame, he was 1968 consensus First-team All-American and a member of 1966 Notre Dame national championship team. He was a two-year starter at right offensive tackle and co-captain of Irish team in 1968. In addition he was National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete honoree in 1968, being voted Academic All-American in 1968 and winner of NCAA post-graduate scholarship.

Kunz was regarded as the best offensive lineman of his draft class in 1969.

Professional career

Kunz was selected in the 1st Round of the 1969 NFL/AFL draft by the Falcons with the 2nd overall selection. He was a bulwark of the Atlanta offense, playing right tackle, a key part of a line that limited Falcons opponents to just 31 sacks in 1971.

Right tackle George Kunz (75) helping to keep quarterback Bob Berry upright was the featured image of the 1972 Atlanta Falcons media guide.

In January 1975, Kunz was traded to the Baltimore Colts as part of a pick-flip with the Falcons in the 1975 NFL draft. The Colts, who held the top overall pick in the draft swapped it to the Falcons for Kunz plus Atlanta's first pick, number 3 overall. In addition, the Colts gave Atlanta a sixth-round pick in the deal. The Falcons used the number 1 overall pick to select quarterback Steve Bartkowski.

Kunz suffered a back injury in the first game of the 1978 season that knocked him out not just for the rest of that year, but for the entire 1979 Colts campaign. Kunz managed to return in 1980, seeing action in 9 games with 6 starts, before calling it a career.

Kunz established himself as one of the premier offensive linemen of his generation, being named to the Pro Bowl team 7 times (1969, 1971–73. 1975–77) in a 9-year span. In addition, Kunz was named All-Pro in 1972, 1973 and 1975, 2nd Team All-Pro in 1976 & 1977. Kunz was also All-Conference in 1973, 1975, 1976, and 1977 and 2nd team All-Conference in 1972 and 1974.

He was named as the Seagram's Seven Crowns of Sports Offensive Lineman of the Year in both 1976 and 1977 and was selected as the AFC choice for the NFLPA/Coca-Cola Offensive Lineman of the Year Award in 1976.

The Professional Football Researchers Association named Kunz to the PRFA Hall of Very Good Class of 2014.

Life after football

In 2007, at the urging of his wife Mary Sue, the 59-year old Kunz went back to school, enrolling in the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Kunz, a former Academic All-American at Notre Dame, found the transition difficult but achievable, later telling a journalist: "My fist day in class I had to ask another student how to turn on my computer — I was the oldest one there. Once I got back into the flow of it, it got a little easier but football killed a lot of brain cells. The bottom line is, I wasn't at the top of my class, but I wasn't at the bottom, either."

Kunz graduated in 2010 and subsequently passed the Nevada state bar exam. He opened a legal practice in Las Vegas dealing with matters of family law, adoption, and personal injury.