Former NFL player Joe Campbell dead at 68 after going on Florida hike

Former Raider defensive end Joe Campbell, a member of the 1980 team that won Super Bowl XV, was found dead at 68 after going on a hike Sunday in Florida

Campbell likely suffered a cardiac incident, his brother Patrick told Delaware Online.

He was a standout at Salesianum School in Delaware, helping the 1972 team win the state title.

“Everybody looked up to him,” longtime friend and former Sallies teammate Dennis Kelly told the outlet. “Everybody loves a winner, and Joe crossed that threshold into being a pro athlete.”

Campbell played college football at Maryland and was an All-American.

“Great football player and he was a great guy, too,” Cowboys legend Randy White, a teammate of Campbell’s at Maryland, told Delaware Online. “You get news like this, it sets you back. … I’ll remember him as a long, lean guy from Delaware who came in there and dominated at that defensive end position.”

Campbell was selected seventh overall in the 1977 NFL Draft by the Saints.

He played for the Saints, Raiders and Buccaneers in his five-year career but it’s the 1980 Raiders team he’s most remembered for.

That Raiders squad became the first wild card team to win the Super Bowl, finishing the run with a 27-10 victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl XV.

“The thoughts and prayers of the entire Raider Nation are with the Campbell family at this time,” the Raiders said in a statement Wednesday.

Rep. Burgess Owens, a former Raider, tweeted “A teammate I was blessed to play and win with. Joe, RIP brother.”

Campbell survived a 2007 collision with a pick-up truck when he was bicycling but suffered a fractured skull and was in a coma for six months.

In 2016, he told Delaware Online, “I’m enjoying life, yes I am.”

Despite losing some of his memory, Campbell remembered the championship season.

“I got traded from New Orleans to Oakland and I get to come back to New Orleans to play in the Super Bowl against the Eagles,” Campbell said in 2016. “I guess it was meant to be. I played against the team I grew up with. That’s the best memory I have of the Super Bowl – This was supposed to happen. I got traded from New Orleans, I came back to New Orleans and I played against the team I grew up with. I’m happy to have just been in the Super Bowl, to be part of that history.”

Campbell is survived by two daughters, a brother and three grandchildren.