#39

 

CHUCK BEDNARIK

In a sport dominated by fearless warriors, Chuck Bednarik is in the team picture of the toughest guys to ever play the game . . . not only in the picture, but in the front row.

Dick Butkus, Deacon Jones, Big Daddy Lipscomb, Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Doug Atkins, Gino Marchetti, Randy White, Dan Hampton, Lawrence Taylor, Charles Haley, Ray Lewis, and Jack Youngblood make my list. Whether others should be included is open to great debate, but put all of those players mentioned in a room and let them have at it. The guess here is that Bednarik, Butkus, or Taylor would emerge.

Jim Brown, perhaps the greatest football player of all time, is a man of immense pride. When Brown issues a compliment to another athlete, it’s worth noting. “Chuck Bednarik was as great as any linebacker who has ever lived,” Brown said. “I don’t know how old he is, but I’ll bet nobody could kick his butt today.”

Bednarik was born in 1925. He was 79 when Brown made his assessment.

Bednarik played center on offense and middle linebacker on defense for the Philadelphia Eagles. He was the last of the two-way players. He was called the “60-minute man,” but that was a bit of an exaggeration. Bednarik played every snap on offense and every snap on defense, but he was on the sidelines for kickoffs. In the 1960 NFL Championship Game, he was on the field for more than 58 actual game minutes.

He is best known for two legendary plays: a knockout hit on Frank Gifford in the Eagles’ 1960 championship season and a last-second tackle of Jim Taylor that preserved Philadelphia’s win over the Green Bay Packers in that season’s title game.

The Gifford hit has reverberated around the NFL for decades. With the Eagles leading the Giants 17-10 in the fourth quarter of their 1960 battle for first place in the Eastern Conference at Yankee Stadium, New York had the ball and was driving for a possible tying touchdown. Giants quarterback George Shaw hit Gifford with a pass over the middle and before he could make a move upfield, he was met head-on by Bednarik.

The full-speed hit sent Gifford flying backwards, his head hitting the frozen turf and his arms and legs splaying backwards. The football rolled away and Gifford did not move. The great stadium went silent after hearing the hit and seeing the results. Eagles linebacker Chuck Weber fell on the ball and recovered. A Sports Illustrated photo seemed to indicate Bednarik was celebrating the damage he had done to Gifford, but he was merely reacting to his team’s recovery of the ball and the fact that it ensured victory.

“I said, ‘This game is over,’” Bednarik recalled. “I wasn’t directing it at Frank. I was just happy we won. If people think I was gloating over Frank, they couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Nevertheless, that play symbolized what Bednarik was all about and the standard that he set. The Eagles went on to win the Eastern Conference title, earning the right to meet the up-and-coming Packers and Vince Lombardi for the league championship.

Even though the game was played in Philadelphia, most experts expected the Packers to win. Green Bay had Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, and, of course, Vince Lombardi prowling the sidelines.

The Eagles had an aging Bednarik, Norm Van Brocklin playing in what turned out to be the last game of his career, and a slew of role players. The Eagles played with passion and guts and held a 17–13 lead in the closing seconds. However, Green Bay held the ball at the Philadelphia 22-yard line with time for one last play.

Starr could not find an open receiver in the end zone, so he dumped the ball off to Taylor, a concrete block of a man who lowered his head and powered his way to the 9-yard line.

Bednarik was right there to meet him. He stopped Taylor, got him to the ground, and would not get off of him until the game was over.

“Taylor was moving and squirming, trying to get up,” Bednarik recalled. “But there was no way I was getting up and letting them have another play. Taylor cursed at me and told me to get off of him and I did just that [when] the second hand hit zero. It was a great win and a great achievement because we did not have a lot of talent. I don’t know how we did it, but we won the game.”

Bednarik was not just on the delivering end when it came to pain. During his 14-year career, he missed only three games and two of those were as rookie. The force of his hitting took a toll on his own body. In particular, his hands now look like something out of a movie because none of his fingers extend straight out. They have all been bent, gnarled, and misshapen.

During a preseason game toward the end of his career, Bednarik played off a block, made a hit on a runner, and felt a searing pain in his arm. He had torn his biceps muscle and it slipped from his upper arm to his forearm.

“Chuck pushed the muscle back in its place and went to the sidelines,” Eagles’ teammate Tom Brookshier said. “He told the doctor to put some tape around it and he went back in. It was an exhibition game and he was playing like it was for the championship. That’s the way he played all the time and that’s why he became the great player he was.”

Bednarik recognizes that today’s athletes are bigger and stronger than they were during his career. But the differences in size and athleticism are not enough to make a difference as to whether at 6-foot-3, 235-pound linebacker could still have the same impact. “A reporter once asked me if I thought I could play with the guys playing today,” Bednarik said. “I told him his question was an insult. Of course I could play today. And I would be a star.”

Period. End of story.