Remembering Jeff Van Note, a Falcons icon whose likes we may never see again

Dick Butkus, the legendarily ferocious Chicago Bears linebacker, recognized in Jeff Van Note a peer, saying after a Falcons-Bears game in 1970 that “he’ll just about tear your head off.”

Decades later, long after his playing days were complete, the same head-shearing Falcons center went above and beyond to cut through red tape for a former teammate who was seeking financial assistance from the NFL and the NFL Players Association (of which Van Note had once been president) to cover medical expenses for disabilities likely incurred from the game’s brutality.

“Jeff was very instrumental in saying, basically, ‘Come on, we know what this is,’” Jim Miller, a Falcons teammate of Van Note’s, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “’Let’s help this man.’ And they did.”

That was the legacy of Jeff Van Note, who died Sept. 28, per his daughter-in-law, at the age of 80. The Falcons Ring of Honor inductee will forever be one of the greatest to wear the uniform. But he was also a person whose character merits equal tribute.

“Great teammate, better friend,” Mike Kenn, like Van Note a member of the Falcons Ring of Honor, told the AJC.

Put another way, “He is a true legend, for sure,” said Miller, who played with Van Note on the offensive line for three seasons in the 70s.

The concise summary of his football greatness — six Pro Bowl selections and 246 games played in an 18-year career, all with the Falcons — leaves out a lot.

In those 18 seasons, the Falcons finished with a losing record 11 times. They reached the playoffs but three times.

Personal excellence required a player dedicated to his profession and unwilling to bend to a losing culture.

“It was not an environment that was conducive to productivity,” said Kim McQuilken, a Falcons quarterback in the mid-70s. “It was rough. Those were rough years.”

For Van Note to be named as a Pro Bowler confirmed his exceptionality. First, Pro Bowl selections typically go to players from winning teams. Second, as an offensive lineman, he had no statistics to bolster his case. Third, the job of an offensive lineman on a losing team is more difficult because teams behind on the scoreboard normally become more pass-oriented and predictable.

Van Note didn’t have much in his favor and still made his six Pro Bowls, four times from losing teams.

“For a guy to make six Pro Bowls on (lousy) football teams, you’ve got to be good,” said Kenn, who himself made five in his 17-year Falcons career.

Van Note’s first Pro Bowl was in 1974. That year, the Falcons were 3-11 and scored the fewest points in the NFL. There was nothing to recommend him except his standout performance.

Not the biggest at his position — he was listed at 6-foot-2, 247 pounds — Van Note played with smarts, quickness, technique and the ferocity noted by Butkus. (“Hitting is what got me here,” Van Note told The Atlanta Journal in 1974. “I’ve never shied away from hitting anybody, and I don’t intend to.”)

“First thing was no mistakes,” said Miller, Van Note’s offensive linemate. “He never made a mistake. If there was a mistake made, it was typically you.”

“His first step off centering that ball was very quick,” McQuilken said. “And I think that really gave him an advantage.”

He was beyond durable and the epitome of toughness. He set a Falcons record with 155 consecutive games played, a mark that stood for 37 years until it was broken by left tackle Jake Matthews in 2023.

Van Note played in 246 games, starting 225, all in a Falcons uniform. At the time, the game total was a club record (later broken by Kenn) and tied for fifth most in NFL history. His 18 seasons in a Falcons uniform remain a franchise record.

“A lot of guys come and go,” said Miller, his linemate. “He came and stayed. That’s really a tribute to him.”

While the Falcons were incapable of anything more than sporadic success, he was consistently excellent.

“Jeff was a pro’s pro in every sense of the phrase,” Falcons quarterback and fellow Ring of Honor inductee Steve Bartkowski wrote in a text message. “He showed up each week totally prepared and ready to battle to the end on every play.”

Moreover, Van Note’s was a career that really shouldn’t have been. He was an 11th-round pick out of Kentucky in 1969. A college defensive end who was drafted to play linebacker, coach Norm Van Brocklin switched him to center — a position he had never played before — on his first day of training camp.

He then was cut early in his rookie season and played for a minor-league team in Huntsville, Alabama, that was affiliated with the Falcons. Van Note won the starting job in 1970 and kept it for 16 years.

Considering his humble start, how unlikely was the career Van Note accomplished?

From 1964 through 1992 — the final year the draft included an 11th round — only one other player drafted in the 11th round or later made as many Pro Bowls as Van Note, according to Stathead. (Six-time Pro Bowler Karl Mecklenburg, taken in the 12th round by Denver in 1983.)

“Does Jeff deserve to be in (the Pro Football Hall of Fame)?” asked Kenn. “Yeah, absolutely.”

That, though, was only one element of Van Note’s greatness.

“He was like the guy next door,” said longtime Falcons trainer Jerry Rhea. “And he was not impressed with himself.”

“He was just a really good friend,” said Paul Ryczek, for many years Van Note’s backup at center who remained in close friendship with him as dementia closed his world. “He was very genuine and sincere. He had no bravado or anything like that.”

He wasn’t above busting teammates’ chops. He liked to boast about his height to Ryczek, who was practically level with Van Note, that “I could eat soup off your head.”

Kenn remembered how he and Van Note had to stop being roommates at training camp and road trips because “we both snored like bears.” Kenn also recalled Van Note — who answered to “Noter” or “Note” — used to hitchhike from his home in Louisville, Kentucky, to the team’s offseason minicamp.

“He had some quirks about him,” Kenn said.

It was that personality, along with his football smarts, that enabled him to be a successful color analyst on radio broadcasts for the Falcons, Georgia Tech and Kentucky, his alma mater. When Falcons fans met Ryczek and learned he was friends with Van Note, they often told him that he came across on the radio like a friend.

“I said, ‘That’s what he is,’” Ryczek said. “’He’s like a friend to anybody.’ And he would be that way.”

Kenn and his wife Joanie thought enough of Van Note and his now-deceased wife Dee (parents to sons Beau, Ben and Blaine) they made them godparents to their eldest daughter Lisa.

“He was a solid individual,” Kenn said. “He had a very giving personality. He didn’t try to look for angles to get around something. He faced things dead on like you’re supposed to.”