General
Abdul Salaam, Quiet Member of the Jets’ ‘Sack Exchange,’ Dies at 71
A defensive tackle, he teamed with Joe Klecko, Mark Gastineau and Marty Lyons in the 1980s on a line that terrorized quarterbacks.
Abdul Salaam, an unassuming but important member of the ferocious Jets defensive line, known as the New York Sack Exchange, that preyed on quarterbacks in the 1980s, died on Tuesday in Cincinnati. He was 71.
His wife, Debbie, said he died in a hospital from multiple illnesses.
The Sack Exchange represented a high point in the Jets’ fraught history. Mark Gastineau and Joe Klecko, terrifying edge rushers who chased down and tackled quarterbacks behind the line of scrimmage, were the stars of the foursome. Salaam and Marty Lyons were the run stoppers.
“The unsung heroes — me and Marty Lyons, the defensive tackles,” Salaam told The New York Times in 1983. “But the whole team realizes what we’re doing.”
Gastineau and Klecko “were battling to see who had the most sacks,” Lyons recalled in an interview, “and I was fortunate to be wedged between Abdul to my left and Joe to my right. Running was our responsibility. Take care of the run first and, on any passing situation, we had to tie up three guys in the middle so they couldn’t double-team Mark or Joe.”
In 1982, Salaam told Sports Illustrated that his success on the Jets’ defensive line increased “when the coaches took me out of the guard-center gap and put me head-up on the guard. I’d been in a read-and-react situation before, but now I could work on beating my man and putting pressure on the passer. Instead of survival, my game was now domination.”
In 1981, the Sack Exchange’s peak season, Klecko led the team with 20.5 sacks, followed by Gastineau’s 20.0, Salaam’s 7.0 and Lyons’s 6.5. During that season, they rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
