{"id":737379,"date":"2026-02-08T05:36:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737379\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T05:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T05:36:45","slug":"former-kansas-city-chiefs-super-bowl-champion-frank-pitts-dies-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/737379\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl champion Frank Pitts dies at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the heros of Super Bowl IV has died. <\/p>\n

Former Kansas City Chiefs receiver Frank Pitts, who also played for the Browns and Raiders in his pro football career, recently died in Louisiana. He was 82 years old.<\/p>\n

Pitts played for the Chiefs from 1965-70 and had a critical role in Kansas City\u2019s win over the Vikings in Super Bowl IV.<\/p>\n

In that game, the receiver ran for 37 yards on three end-around plays and caught three passes as the Chiefs upset Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though few people today may think of Pitts when they recall the great plays from the franchise\u2019s first Super Bowl title, it was Pitts who baffled the Minnesota defense most of the game,\u201d the Chiefs official website said<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Prior to beginning his pro football career, Frank Pitts attended Southern University. He was drafted by the Chiefs in the fourth round of the 1965 AFL Draft and by the Bears in the 16th round of that year\u2019s NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

After spending six years in Kansas City, Pitts was traded to the Cleveland Browns in 1971. He was then sent to the Raiders in a trade in 1974.<\/p>\n

For his career, Pitts appeared in 127 games across 10 pro seasons. He caught 175 passes for 2,897 yards and 27 touchdowns. He also rushed for 257 yards and a score.<\/p>\n

Pitts\u2019 best season came in 1968 with Kansas City when he caught 30 passes for 655 yards and 6 touchdowns. He added a career-high 107 rushing yards that year.<\/p>\n

He also had an excellent year with the Browns in 1972, catching 36 passes for 620 yards and 8 touchdowns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the heros of Super Bowl IV has died. Former Kansas City Chiefs receiver Frank Pitts, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2063],"tags":[346,7,118,110,2438,2437,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-737379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-chiefs","8":"tag-chiefs","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascitychiefs","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116033394200103607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}