|
|
3. Dick Butkus | His goal, the true Monster of the Midway once admitted, was to hit the ballcarrier so hard that his head came off. If the mayhem he wrought in nine NFL seasons did not include any beheadings, it wasn't for lack of effort. Butkus had range and brains, but the thing that made him an archetype -- the best middle linebacker in football history -- was his toughness, his Old Testament malevolence, his wet-your-pants intensity. "What I miss," he said softly a few years ago, "is the violence." |
Photograph by John G. Zimmerman
| |
