Dukes of Awesome

Mitch Frerotte has passed away at age 43, the first member of the Bills Super Bowl team(s) to die. Are we that old?

Frerotte, aside from being a good player, was quite a character.

Former Buffalo News sports reporter Vic Carucci, in a 1990 profile on the colorful Frerotte, wrote that on game day, Frerotte looked like a professional wrestler who had gotten lost on his way to the arena.

“There’s the long blond hair,” he wrote. “There’s the goatee. And, of course, there’s the paint. The black paint that goes around his right eye, juts down his cheek and forms a point just above his jaw…”

“Frerotte considers it war paint,” he added.

In that profile, Frerotte explained the on-field image he had cultivated.

“In this game, I can be as free-spirited as I want,” Frerotte said. “Guys who are doctors, lawyers, businessmen, whatever, they can’t be that way. They have to have a certain kind of image. But in football, it’s a matter of who’s sicker out on the field on Sunday. And I have the opportunity to just be crazy and nuts.

“I’ll worry about having a straighter image when I get a real job,” he added.

Rest in peace.