Brian Urlacher Calls it A CAreer

After spending the last 13 years intimidating opposing players around the NFL, Brian Urlacher has decided to finally hang up the pads and call it a career. In 182 appearances with Chicago, Urlacher started nearly all of them, while recording 41.5 sacks, 22 interceptions, 11 fumbles forced, 16 fumble recoveries, and a team-record 1,779 tackles. Urlacher  was an eight time Pro Bowler, a five time All-Pro  he won the AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year (2005), Football Digest Defensive Player of the Year (2001) NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year (2000) NFC Player of the Month (December 2010, January 2011) NFL Rookie Defensive Player of the Month (10/2000) NFL 2000s All-Decade Team Chicago Bears season tackles record (153, 2002) Chicago Bears career tackles record (1,192) Consensus All-American (1999) UNM Male Athlete of the Year (1999) UNM season record for most tackles (1999).

The numbers he put up during his career only tell part of the story. What also made him so special was the intimidation factor. Brian Urlacher was one of the more intimidating middle linebackers in football. The physical style of play is what defined the playing career of Brian Urlacher. So now that he has called it a career, it brings about the debate of where does he rank among the all time greats at the middle linebacker position.

Well there are two ways to look at it, where does he rank in the modern era and where does he rank all time. In the modern era there is only one other middle linebacker I would consider taking over Brian Urlacher, and that would be the also recently retired Ray Lewis. As far as all time consideration goes, I would put Urlacher in my top five of the greatest ever. Ahead of him is a pretty good class which includes Ray Lewis, Jack Lambert, Mike Singeltary and Dick Butkus. Now this is just based on the position of middle linebacker alone. If you want to include outside linebackers as well, then Urlacher may be just outside my top ten, but he is by far one of the two best middle linebackers to play in my lifetime.

Brian Urlacher may be a lock for the pro football hall of fame in Canton Ohio