Daniel Douglas Jilek (December 3, 1953 – March 6, 2002) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player. He played professional football as a

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

for the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

from 1976 to 1979. He was drafted by the Bills in the fourth round, as the 109th overall pick in the 1976 NFL Draft. As a rookie in 1976, he started 14 games for the Bills, intercepted two passes, recovered three fumbles and was the Bills' rookie of the year. Jilek starred as a high school football, basketball and baseball player for Utica Stevenson in Michigan from 1969 to 1972 and college football for the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

from 1972 to 1975. He was selected as an All-Big Ten Conference player in both 1974 and 1975. He was also selected as an Academic All-American. After retiring from football, Jilek operated an insurance company A 5k fun/run is held each fall to honor Dan Jilek's memory and to support his commitment to improve youth via athletics.

Notes

External links

Pro-Football reference
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jilek, Dan 1953 births Buffalo Bills players Sportspeople from Cedar Rapids, Iowa Michigan Wolverines football players 2002 deaths