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What a great player and FUNNY! Always enjoyed watching and listening to him.

He played when the defensive players had a lot of liberty in how they defended their territory and he was one of the meanest of the bunch.
Couple it with good speed and huge size for that era and he epitomized the Monster in the Monsters of the Midway.
A real fun time to watch football.

I heard players say that Butkus was more intimidating because he used to yell and scream when he made a tackle but that Bobby Bell actually hit harder. That's not to take anything away from Butkus.

RIP.

Intimidation was a big part of the game back then. It still is part of the game today, but much less so.
Receivers used to get clotheslined just for running across the middle of the field. It was beautifully brutal in those times but it had to change for the players sake.

NorthHawk wrote:Intimidation was a big part of the game back then. It still is part of the game today, but much less so.
Receivers used to get clotheslined just for running across the middle of the field. It was beautifully brutal in those times but it had to change for the players sake.

Watching the bone jarring hits certainly had its appeal, but if the sport were to survive, it had to change. Alot of people think that boxing's demise dated back to when Bennie Paret was killed in the ring....or died a few days later.

If we were to play word association and you were to say to me "middle linebacker", my first thought would be Dick Butkus. He played during a time when I was first starting to get really interested in football.

NorthHawk wrote:Intimidation was a big part of the game back then. It still is part of the game today, but much less so.
Receivers used to get clotheslined just for running across the middle of the field. It was beautifully brutal in those times but it had to change for the players sake.

Butkus: "I wouldn't ever set out to hurt someone deliberately unless it was, you know, important...like a league game or something."