BUFFALO, N.Y. — Mark Pike, a former standout Buffalo Bills play, has died after a battle with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The Bills put out a statement about his death on its website Wednesday.
Pike spent his entire 13-year NFL career with the Bills after he was a seventh-round pick in 1986.
"He was a big man who played special teams which was a matchup nightmare for our opponents," said Bills Wall of Famer, Steve Tasker, one of his longest-tenured teammates. "He was a unique specimen. His ability to run and play special teams with his versatility was unbelievable."
Pike, who was a defensive lineman, was effective in his ability to run. He was known for busting up wedges and running through block to make plays on Buffalo's coverage units.
"Mark was really the centerpiece of our league-leading coverage units," Tasker said. "I was kind of a wide guy. I was a gunner, and I was an L-2 on the outside. I wasn't in there with the threes, fours and fives very much. Mark was. So, the physicality of special teams was his wheelhouse, and he would routinely blow people up. So, while I would draw some people out and they would have to defend my speed and my ability to keep leverage and cut the field off, he was a freaking bulldozer man. He was an absolute freight train."
Pike is still the franchise's all-time leading special teams tackler, with a total of 255 career takedowns.The total ranks second all-time in NFL history to former New England special teamer Larry Izzo (298).
"Mark certainly was a player that had to be double teamed," said Tasker. "He was, as was I, and we had that where a lot of people didn't have a big guy and a small guy."
As he battled cancer this fall, Pike recently attended the Week 4 home game against Houston to serve as the club's Crucial Catch honoree, the NFL's program to fight cancer through early detection and risk reduction.
Pike's condition was complicated by COVID-19, which was followed by pneumonia.
He is survived by his wife Sharon, their two sons, Ezekiel and Malachi, and their daughter Kramer. He was 57-years old.
