FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Houston Antwine, one of the Patriots’ top defensive players in their early years, and his wife, Evelyn, have died, the team said Tuesday.

Antwine, 72, died Monday in Memphis, Tenn., of heart failure, and his wife died Tuesday of lung cancer, the team said.

A member of the Patriots’ 50th Anniversary Team, Antwine played from 1961-71 with the franchise before spending the 1972 season with the Philadelphia Eagles. In 142 regular-season games for the Patriots, he had 39 sacks, leading the team in that category during the 1967, 1968, and 1969 seasons, although sacks were not an official statistic then.

“For those of us who grew up watching the Boston Patriots, this is a really sad day,” Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. “In the 1960s, the defensive tackle tandem of ‘Twine’ and Jim Lee Hunt were as good as any in the league and helped propel the Patriots to the franchise’s first division championship in 1963.

“I loved hearing Houston’s stories about those early days in Boston. It was such a thrill for me, personally, to spend time with the players from that era.

“I am saddened to learn of the deaths of both Houston and Evelyn and want to express my deepest sympathies to the Antwine’s daughter, Regina, and all who mourn her losses. Let us all cherish life and remind loved ones how we feel about them daily.”

Antwine attended Southern Illinois, where he became a multiple sport athlete, a defensive tackle and an NAIA wrestling champion.

At 6-foot, 270 pounds, he was drafted by the Houston Oilers in the eighth round (64th overall) in 1961, then traded to the Patriots before ever playing a game for the Oilers. Antwine became a defensive catalyst for the Patriots, making the all-star team from 1963-1968.

In addition to making the Patriots 1960s All-Decade team, he was chosen to the all-time All-AFL team.

Services and burial information were not yet available.

Read More: Logan Mankins (G – NEP), New England Patriots

Logan Mankins isn’t going anywhere for a long time. Mankins has reportedly signed a six-year deal to remain with the New England Patriots on Wednesday afternoon, according to a report from Adam Schefter of ESPN.

Earlier in the day, Patriots owner Robert Kraft had hinted that the team was close to resigning Mankins and that he hoped to have Mankins retire as a Patriot. This extension is not a foregone conclusion, as Mankins held out for half of the season last year, and at was ultimately not expected to resign with the team.

Mankins has played with the Patriots since he was drafted No. 32 overall in the 2005 NFL Draft.

For more New England Patriots coverage, visit our team page and blog, Pats Pulpit.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP)—The New England Patriots are honoring the memory of
Myra Kraft by wearing her initials on their uniforms during every game this
season.

The wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft died July 20 after a battle with
cancer. She was 68.

The team announced Tuesday that to recognize Myra Kraft’s charitable efforts
a patch with the initials MHK will be placed on the upper left chest of its
uniforms starting with Thursday’s preseason opener against the Jacksonville
Jaguars.

She managed the Robert and Myra Kraft Family Foundation and was president of
the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation, which contributed millions of
dollars to area charities.

The organization will honor her with a moment of silence before the
regular-season home opener on Sept. 18 against the San Diego Chargers.

APNFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith looks on at left as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, second from right, is hugged by Jeff Saturday of the Indianapolis Colt during a news conference at the NFL Players Association in Washington, Monday, July 25, 2011, after the NFL Players Association executive board and 32 team reps voted unanimously Monday to approve the terms of a deal with owners to the end the 4½-month lockout. From left are, Smith, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, Kraft and Saturday.

Winners and losers are still to be determined.

But the lockout – at last – has a hero.

That would be Robert Kraft, the soft-spoken, silver-haired Patriots owner who fought back tears and nearly disappeared while wrapped up in that memorable hug from XXL-sized player rep Jeff Saturday.

“A special thanks to Myra Kraft, who even in her weakest moment allowed Mr. Kraft to come and fight this out,” Saturday, who plays for AFC rival Indianapolis, said moments earlier.

“Without him, this deal does not get done. .¤.¤. He’s a man who helped us save football.”

Kraft is hardly the only guy who deserves credit for ending our long National (Football League) nightmare. But there was a reason his was the name people on both sides of the labor divide kept coming back to while the TV cameras rolled. Kraft’s brief turn in front of the microphones had barely begun Monday when it became apparent why.

“I’d like to apologize to the fans, that for the last five, six months we’ve been talking about the business of football, not what goes on on the field,” he said.

From that thoughtful first note, what followed was mostly standard fare. Kraft said the league would flourish, current players would be better protected, and the retirees who built the league’s foundation would not be forgotten. He praised Commissioner Roger Goodell, players association chief DeMaurice Smith and player reps Domonique Foxworth and Saturday for not losing sight of “what was good for the game.” About the only contribution Kraft didn’t get around to mentioning was his own.

Last Friday, he buried Myra, his wife of 48 years, after a months-long battle with cancer. For much of that time, Kraft had been shuttling back and forth between her hospital bed and the bargaining table, largely because he was one of the few owners the players felt they could trust. There was good reason for that, too.

Kraft has riled fellow owners before, and more than a few guys who played – and still play – for his Patriots. He likes to win and makes few bones about it. That explains why he didn’t flinch when he forced Bill Parcells out of New England and handing over day-to-day control of the entire operation to his cold-hearted coach, Bill Belichick.

But it was also Kraft who stepped up and took responsibility when Belichick – remember Spygate? – got caught wanting to win by any means necessary. Though few people remember it now, he also relinquished the draft rights to Christian Peter, a fifth-round pick from Nebraska, in 1996 because of a checkered past involving violence against women. What even fewer people knew is that Kraft made the move because of Myra’s persistent intervention.

Yet nearly everyone involved in the talks knew something about his wife, and grew to understand what the Krafts meant to each other. That’s why so many of the bargaining sessions were held in the Northeast corridor – close to Kraft’s base in Boston – but also why Kraft’s presence at most of them strengthened the resolve on both sides to get a deal done.

It didn’t hurt, of course, that Kraft already had a reputation as one of the few owners willing to speak his mind. And his quip, “We need to get the lawyers out of the way,” probably did more to bring about a resumption of face-to-face talks between a select group of owners and players than all the threats of legal action. So it came as little surprise that Smith, the NFLPA’s executive director, felt it necessary to echo what Saturday had said only moments earlier.

“We couldn’t have done this,” he told Kraft, “without you.”

“Grace” is a term we throw around in sports with little more thought than some of the lazy spirals that will be arcing over practice fields in 32 towns when training camps open later this week. Remember that when footballs start filling up the air again.

Getting a labor agreement, considering how much Kraft, his fellow owners, his players and everybody else connected to the NFL will profit, hardly qualifies as an unselfish act. But make no mistake: at a time when he had much more important things tugging at his heart, just by showing up, Kraft taught everyone else sitting around the table that some sacrifices are worth making.