Eddie Edwards is a former American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 defensive end

Defensive end

Defensive end is the name of a defensive position in the sport of American and Canadian football.This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formations have substantially changed how the position is played over the years...

 in the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

.

Edwards was born in Sumter, South Carolina

Sumter, South Carolina

-Demographics:, there were 59,180 people, 34,717 households, and 4,049 families living in the city. The population density was 4,469.5 people per square mile . There were 416,032 housing units at an average density of 603.0 per square mile...

 and raised in Fort Pierce, Florida

Fort Pierce, Florida

Fort Pierce, also spelled Ft. Pierce, is a city in St. Lucie County, Florida, USA. It is known as The Sunrise City. The population was 37,959 at the 2004 census. As of 2008, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 41,000. It is the county seat of St. Lucie County.Fort Pierce is part...

. He played high school football at Fort Pierce Central High School. He attended the University of Miami

University of Miami

The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

, where he was a consensus All-American defensive end. In 1976, he was awwarded the Jack Harding Memorial Award as the most valuable player for the Hurricanes, as selected by coaches vote.

Edwards was drafted in the first round of the 1977 NFL Draft

1977 NFL Draft

The 1977 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 3–4, 1977...

, the third overall selection, by the Cincinnati Bengals

Cincinnati Bengals

The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional football team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the AFC's North Division in the National Football League . The Bengals began play in 1968 as an expansion team in the American Football League , and joined the NFL in 1970 in the AFL-NFL...

. He played for the Bengals for 12 seasons from 1977 until his retirement in 1988. During that time, he recovered 17 fumbles and set a franchise record with 83.5 sacks

Quarterback sack

In American football and Canadian football, a sack occurs when the quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage before he can throw a forward pass, or when the quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage in the "pocket" and the intent of what he was going to do is unclear...

. However, only 47.5 of those sacks are "official", as the NFL did not consider sacks an official statistic until 1982.

Edwards was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.

External links

• University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame Inductees