It’s difficult to overstate the importance of former NFL kicker Tom Dempsey, who died April 4 of the coronavirus, in the lore of the city of New Orleans.

Dempsey, who was born with no toes and no fingers on his right foot and hand, respectively, is famous for the 63-yard field goal he kicked in Tulane Stadium to win a 1970 game for the woebegone New Orleans Saints over the playoff-bound Detroit Lions. The kick set the NFL record by an astonishing seven yards, breaking a mark that had held for 17 years. Except for one 64-yarder in the much thinner air of the Mile High City’s stadium in Denver in 2013, nobody yet has made a longer kick in the 49 seasons since.