championship games in the early 1960s with his outstanding pass-catching and blocking, but who found considerably less success coaching the N.F.L.’s other New York team, the Jets, for most of the 1980s, died on Sunday in Englewood, Fla.
Robert Morris University in Moon Township, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh, announced his death, but did not provide a cause.
At 6 feet and 200 pounds, Walton was undersized for his position, tight end.
Except for the Jets’ stunning 1968 season, which was capped by their upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III behind their star quarterback, Joe Namath — who like Walton was a native of Beaver Falls, Pa.
He took them to the playoffs in 1985, but they lost to the New England Patriots in an American Football Conference wild-card game.
A penalty for roughing the passer called on Mark Gastineau over a late hit on the Browns’ quarterback Bernie Kosar, leading to a touchdown drive, proved a crushing blow.
players’ strike in 1987, when the defensive linemen Gastineau, Joe Klecko and Marty Lyons and the center Joe Fields, their captain, took the field alongside the replacement players who filled out rosters for two games before the walkout ended.
“I’ve admitted I probably didn’t handle it very well,” he was quoted as saying by Gerald Eskenazi of The New York Times in “Gang Green” , an account of the Jets’ misadventures over the years.
In December 1989, “Joe must go” chants from the stands of Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, where the Jets played their home games, reverberated as the Jets lost to the Buffalo Bills, 37-0, to finish at 4-12.
There he led teams that won or tied for Northeast Conference championships six times in his 20 seasons as coach, compiling a record of 114-92-1.
His father preceded him as a football player at Beaver Falls High School, Pitt and Washington and was also an assistant coach in the N.F.L.
Joe Walton starred for Pitt teams that faced Georgia Tech in the Sugar Bowl and the Gator Bowl, losing both times.
His survivors include his wife, Patty Sheehan Walton; two daughters, Jodi and Stacy, and a son, Joe, from his marriage to his first wife, Ginger, who died in 2007; and six grandchildren.