The Chicago Bears, one of the legendary franchises in the National Football League and some of the iconic names in the history of this game have played for this team. When you think of the Chicago Bears, you automatically think of Gale Sayers, Mike Ditka better know as “Da Coach”, Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, William Perry, we can’t forget “Sweetness” of course and then, there’s Brian Urlacher, a guy that just came to the field to handle business and play each and every game. On his first year of eligibility for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he got the vote and will be enshrined with all the greats in August and he’ll join a fellow middle linebacker in Ray Lewis to help headline a pretty star-studded class of 2018.
When I think of a blue-collar guy that played the game hard and left everything on the field along with giving 110 percent on every play, that’s Brian Urlacher to the T. Chicago is a city with many blue-collar people and he fit in perfectly and the city of Chicago loved him back. Having lived here for many years, I still see people to this day wearing number 54 jerseys. There are two types of leaders in the world. You have a vocal leader meaning they lead with their voice and you have the people that lead by example meaning they wanted their actions to speak louder than their words and that’s exactly who Brian was, a guy that led by example and he showed that each and every Sunday. Having watched him play for many years, the one thing I always noticed about him was how smart he was. He always had his eyes on the quarterback or running back and there were times when he knew what play the offense would run before they ran it. He was one of the fastest guys on the field. Whether he was stopping the run, dropping back in coverage to defend a tight end or make a tackle in the open field and he had the speed to come in on a blitz and get to the quarterback. He was the guy that imposed his will and made people think twice about coming over the middle.
He’s one of the greatest Bears ever and he’s still a popular player who’s impacted the city of Chicago and still has been one of the more popular players in recent memory. He finished his career with 1,353 tackles and 41.5 sacks.
