Mike Haffner
No. 84, 35 | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Position: | Wide receiver | ||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||
Born: | Waterloo, Iowa, U.S. | July 7, 1942||||||||
Died: | c. October 2024 (aged 82) Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. | ||||||||
Career information | |||||||||
College: | UCLA | ||||||||
Undrafted: | 1965 | ||||||||
Career history | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
|
Michael Arthur Haffner[1] (July 7, 1942 – c. October 2024) was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver for four seasons with the Denver Broncos (1968–1970)[2] and Cincinnati Bengals (1971).[3] He played college football for the UCLA Bruins. As of 2017[update]'s NFL off-season, he still held the Broncos rookie franchise record[citation needed] for yards per reception at 30.5, for a 4 reception, 122 yard performance on December 14, 1968, against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Life and career
[edit]After retirement, Haffner was a color commentator for the NFL on NBC. He is most noted for being the sideline reporter who inadvertently captured on his live microphone a two‐word expletive uttered by Terry Donahue who was voicing his disapproval over a Bruins interception being nullified due to a penalty in NBC's Christmas Day telecast of the 1978 Fiesta Bowl. Haffner and Donohue had been roommates at UCLA.[4]
It was announced on October 31, 2024, that Haffner died in Las Vegas at the age of 82.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ "Mike Haffner". pro-football-reference.com. Retrieved March 5, 2009.
- ^ "Broncos All-Time Roster" (PDF). denverbroncos.com. Retrieved March 5, 2009. [dead link]
- ^ "Bengals All-Time Roster". bengals.com. Archived from the original on February 23, 2009. Retrieved March 5, 2009.
- ^ "Two Words From the Coach With Expletives Undeleted," The Associated Press (AP), Monday, December 25, 1978. Retrieved December 7, 2020
- ^ Former Broncos WR Mike Haffner, broadcaster dies at 82
- 1942 births
- 2024 deaths
- American football wide receivers
- Cincinnati Bengals players
- Denver Broncos (AFL) players
- Denver Broncos players
- National Football League announcers
- Sportspeople from Waterloo, Iowa
- UCLA Bruins football players
- 20th-century American sportsmen
- American football wide receiver, 1940s birth stubs