Top 10 NFL careers by an Illinois football player

No. 1 Dick Butkus

The gold standard of NFL careers by an Illinois football player goes to Dick Butkus. Anyone who disputes this is wrong, plain and simple.

Butkus came out of Chicago Vocational High School in Illinois. He picked the Illini and was one of the best players in program history. Butkus earned consensus All-American honors for two seasons at Illinois as both a center and linebacker for the program.

The talent that Butkus brought to the field translated well to the NFL. He was good enough to be selected No. 3 overall in the 1965 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears. Butkus was also selected in the second round in the 1965 AFL Draft by the Denver Broncos.

Butkus would choose the Bears, and this ended up being the best route for the talented linebacker. He would play nine seasons in the NFL and made the Pro Bowl in his first eight years. Butkus was a five-time All-Pro and was in the MVP voting for four straight seasons.

Most of Butkus’ numbers are hard to keep track of because most stats weren’t tallied in the 1960s. Sacks weren’t an official stat until 1982. But Butkus was one of the most menacing linebackers in NFL history. His play on the field also earned him an induction into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1979.

There are a few athletes I would love to have been alive to see in their prime. Jack Nicklaus, Muhammed Ali, and Bo Jackson are among those athletes. I would add Butkus to that list. He was a special player in the NFL, and he goes down as the No. 1 NFL career by an Illinois football player.