N/S Butkus & Jones (1 Viewer)

[HoustonSaint68]

Love the way Butkus turns into a runner at 3:55



Deacon Jones…14th Round draft choice …



I wonder what these two guys thought about Bountygate.

 

[VPCajun]

"He was a very large baby, weighing 13 pounds 6 ounces (6.1 kg) at birth"

Dick Butkus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(Rumor was that he tackled the doctor upon delivery...)

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I got to see Butkus in his last year in the league playing against the Saints in Tulane Stadium. (October 7th, 1973)

One highlight was little Howard Stevens putting his helmet into Butkus' chest as he was going through the line, and knocking him back a step then Butkus swallowed him up.

(This was near the endzone that I was watching from.)

Note about Stevens: "He was one of the smallest players [5-5, 165lb] to play in the NFL and was the smallest during his 5 years in the league."

Howard Stevens - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Note about Butkus: He was 6 ft 3 in and weighed 245 lb.

 

[SystemShock]

Love the way Butkus turns into a runner at 3:55



I wonder what these two guys thought about Bountygate.

I never watched Butkus play, but when I look at the highlights, as supposedly feared as he was, it seems he was a textbook tackler. He surely dished a good lick here and there, but most of the time was just plain overpowering the man in front of him or wrapping the RB/QB for the tackle.

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

Perhaps we should call Illinois Linebacker U because Ray Nitschke went there about seven years before Butkus.

Butkus was so violent his high school coach limited his practice time because he feared for the safety of his other players.

And Chicago picked Butkus and Gale Sayers in the same draft. Chicago finished a close third in the Western Conference in their rookie season, 1965, because of a slow start, but by November Chicago was the best team in the NFL.

And that season, when Green Bay and Baltimore played, the head coaches were Vince Lombardi and Don Shula, and Green Bay had 11 future Hall of Fame players (Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Horning, Forest Gregg, Jerry Kramer, Willie Davis, Henry Jordan, Willie Wood, Herb Adderly, Ray Nitschke, Dave Robinson) and Baltimore had 5, all on offense (John Unitas, Lenny Moore, Jim Parker, John Mackey, Ray Berry), though it also had a terrific defense.

And for the record, that season Chicago had 6 future HOF players (Sayers. Butkus, Stan Jones, Mike Ditka, Doug Atkins and Bill George).

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

Butkus played in a rage. He had for his era great size--he was as big as many offensive linemen--and great instincts. But he said that in the pre-game warm-ups, if he saw opposing players laughing, he would tell himself that they were laughing at him.

That era had remarkable middle linebackers--Butkus, Nitschke, Bill George in Chicago, Bill Pellington (known as the Hangman because of his clothes-line tackles--he retired from Baltimore in 1964 and was replaced by Mike Curtis), and Joe Schmidt in Detriot.

There was a game between Chicago and Baltimore near the end of the 1960 that was so physical that neither team won a game after it was played. It was obviously hyperbole, but it was telling that Colt DT Art Donovan, who served in the Pacific, later said the game was worse than Iwo Jima.

 

[LordPoopington]

Love the way Butkus turns into a runner at 3:55



Deacon Jones…14th Round draft choice …



I wonder what these two guys thought about Bountygate.

Really glad they went back and compiled sack stats for seasons where it hadn't become an official stat yet. Looking back on Deacon Jones' sack totals for 14 game seasons is mindblowing (over 20 sacks 3 times despite the shorter seasons)

 

[broccoli60]

Butkus said his intent was to end the career of the opponent on every play. For his time he was an athletic freak.

I was a Rams fan before we had the Saints because of Deacon Jones and Jack Snow. @LordPoopington , he got all those sacks in shortened seasons and a league where teams mostly only threw when they had to.

 

[SpeckKillerII]

When you look at the highlights when Butkus and Jones played, both men would be banned for life by Goodell if they played now. To play QB in the NFL back then you had to be one tough SOB because the refs did no favors for QB’s. The game we are watching today is nothing like the game that was played then. I wish football was still played that way. The people making the rules now are killing the game! They are ever so slowly turning the sport into a non-contact sport. It is becoming nothing more than Flag Football! Back then you had to have run stuffing LB’s in the middle. Middle LB’s now are nothing more than large FS’s. In todays NFL the running game is slowly being phased out. It’s really basically 7 on 7 football that we are seeing now. I wish the game could still be the way it was in Butkus’s era.

 

[onanygivensunday]

I was born and raised in the Chicago area and grew up a Bears fan.

Butkus and Sayers were rookies when I was 16 y/o. What fun watching them live.

 

[onanygivensunday]

A few more tidbits from my Chicago area youth.

My HS sophomore and junior year Spanish teacher was Miss Butkus. As it turns out, she was Dick's cousin. I asked. Strange thing was she wasn't a football fan but rather she was an avid hockey fan with season tickets to all the Blackhawks home games. Her seats were directly behind the visitor's goal. I was so jealous.

If you weren't aware, Bobby Hull, the Golden Jet, passed away yesterday... one of my favorite players on the mid-to-late1960s era Blackhawks teams along with Stan Makita and Pierre Pilote (perennial All Stars).

I didn't get to go to many Blackhawk games but the one that I remember best is Bobby Hull scoring a hat trick... three goals in one game... a fantastic feat. But what made it so rememberable was Bobby's hat trick was what they called a "pure hat trick" because his three goals were scored consecutively. The crowd went wild and showered the ice with hats.

RIP, brother. You deserve it.