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ShareThisDick Butkus
There are two schools of thought on Dick Butkus.
1) He's one of the greatest, if not the greatest, middle linebackers in NFL history. Population: Just about everyone. The Sporting News ranked him as the 9th best player in NFL history. The Associated Press put him at number five. In his prime, he was known as the most feared man in the game. Jonathon Rand, like many sports writers, named him the greatest linebacker of all-time. At the age of 36, he was (and still is) the youngest non-RB to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
2) He's the 50th best linebacker in NFL history. Population: Sean Lahman
Now, Sean Lahman is one of the smartest and most knowledgeable football historians around. So why is he alone on an island with respect to the great Dick Butkus? What exactly is Sean's argument?
It's difficult to come up with ways to measure linebackers objectively. Part of the problem is the lack of individual statistics, and part of the problem is the inability to separate the performance of an individual from the other players around them. This issue aplies to all football players, but the group it affects most is linebackers. We have to judge them in the context of the team they played for, and by that measure, it's hard to find any data to support the claims for Butkus being the clear and obvious pick for greatest linebacker of all-time.
The Bears never made the playoffs during Butkus' career, and they only finished with a winning record twice (one of which was a 7-6-1 record in 1967). They never finished as the league's top-ranked defense - either against the run, the pass, or overall. They finished in the bottom half of the NFL's defenses five out of nine seasons. They were pretty good against the run at times, but other times they got steamrolled.
When you try to find specific ways in which Butkus helped his team to win, or at least helped limit the number of yards and points the Bears gave up, it's impossible....
[People claim that] "teams didn't run on the Bears because of Butkus." That's one of those kinds of comments that is easy to throw around, but it simply wasn't true. Teams loved to run the ball against the Bears, and they did it more and more as Butkus got older.
Lahman concluded by showing that the Bears ranked 1st in rush attempts allowed in a 14-team NFL in 1965, but were below the median (and twice in the bottom two) in every season after that.
Before responding to Lahman's arguments, let's get some data. I know pro football didn't begin in 1950, but because that's as far back as the Approximate Value system goes, I often pretend that is does. As usual, my apologies to the pre-modern era players. Let's take a look at 12 of the most famous and dominant middle linebackers since '50, using AV and four team categories.
I looked at how each linebacker's defense ranked relative to league average in three key categories -- rushing yards allowed, rushing yards per carry allowed, and points allowed. For each linebacker, he was given credit for his team's rankings in his four best seasons as a starter. As an example, in 2000, the Ravens allowed 2.69 YPC, 970 rushing yards and 165 points, while the league average (excluding the Ravens) was 4.12, 1829, and 336 in those categories. Consequently, Lewis gets credit for being on a team that was 35%, 47% and 51% better than average in those three categories. I also included the winning percentage for each linebacker in his team's best four seasons.
To be clear, I'm treating each category as its own; so we could have the Bears best four seasons in wins be in different seasons than Chicago's best four seasons in YPC allowed. After giving each linebacker a score in each of the five categories, I then gave each inside linebacker 12 points for finishing first in any of the five categories, 11 points for finishing second, and so on. I've included the tally for that points system in the final column:
AV YPC RYD PA Win% points Ray Lewis 135 1.27 1.36 1.36 0.719 47 Mike Singletary 125 1.13 1.31 1.37 0.824 47 Nick Buoniconti 103 1.21 1.29 1.37 0.848 46 Jack Lambert 114 1.17 1.26 1.39 0.808 44 Bill George 132 1.16 1.23 1.32 0.746 37 Sam Huff 105 1.19 1.23 1.30 0.807 34 Ray Nitschke 102 1.09 1.15 1.43 0.848 31 Willie Lanier 99 1.12 1.28 1.36 0.759 30 Joe Schmidt 119 1.12 1.22 1.30 0.790 29 Zach Thomas 115 1.14 1.18 1.23 0.656 22 Brian Urlacher 97 1.11 1.18 1.26 0.719 14 Dick Butkus 97 1.12 1.11 1.15 0.527 9
This confirms what Lahman argued -- Butkus' Bears did not stand out in yards per carry allowed, rushing yards allowed, points allowed, or winning percentage. His eight Pro Bowls and five first-team All-Pros enabled him to achieve a respectable career AV grade of 97, but those are the only pieces of objective data (based, of course, on underlying subjective opinions) in his favor.
It should go without saying that I don't think Nick Buoniconti is the third best middle linebacker ever. And while Pro Bowls are far from the only (or perfect) measure of talent, let's take a look at the average number of Pro Bowlers at the other ten defensive positions for the above linebackers in the seasons in question:
5.00 Jack Lambert 4.06 Willie Lanier 3.38 Ray Nitschke 3.38 Joe Schmidt 3.31 Nick Buoniconti 3.06 Bill George 2.75 Ray Lewis 2.75 Mike Singletary 2.63 Sam Huff 2.25 Zach Thomas 1.94 Brian Urlacher 1.00 Dick Butkus
From 1965 to 1973, fifteen Bears defenders made the Pro Bowl. Eight of them were Dick Butkus. The only other multiple Pro Bowl defender was Richie Petitbon, who earned those distinctions in '66 and '67.
So what can we conclude? As usual, not too much. If nothing else, it's that not even the best middle linebacker can be professional football's version of an alchemist, turning junk into gold. Butkus' resume, from an objective standpoint, is weak. There's no doubt about that. The reason for Butkus' weak resume is just as clear -- and is fully exculpatory. From 1966 to 1972, he didn't play behind a single Pro Bowl defensive lineman. In seven of his nine seasons, at least one major source named him to its All-NFL team.
We can do one final, in-depth review of each player's teammates. Linebackers peak from ages 27-30. Therefore, we would assume that an all-time great MLB would have led some pretty good defenses during those years. Eleven of our 12 linebackers were starters in all four of those seasons of their careers. Ray Lewis was injured during his age 27 and 30 seasons, so we will use his age 26 and 31 seasons as substitutes. Remember the Great DL/LB/DB playing together posts? I used the same Peak AV and Age grade curves to get estimated values on the strength of the 10 teammates for our 12 great players during their four prime years of their careers. Below is the average AV grades per season of their 10 defensive teammates in the starting lineup during those four years:
Ray Nitschke 117 Mike Singletary 112 Joe Schmidt 103 Jack Lambert 99 Ray Lewis 99 Zach Thomas 98 Sam Huff 98 Willie Lanier 93 Bill George 89 Brian Urlacher 72 Dick Butkus 67 Nick Buoniconti 63
Don't believe the bottom of the list. Buoniconti has the AFL AV issue -- AV is very harsh on AFL players, and we're looking at the AFL from 1967 to 1970 with him. The other outlier, Urlacher has a timing issue -- my formula does not work well for active players, since many of Urlacher's teammates are still active and reaching their primes. Therefore, they're certainly undervalued. That leaves just Butkus, and it's clear that his teammates were far inferior to those of the other great nine linebackers (excluding Buoniconti and Urlacher) in this post. While other pre-merger players like Joe Schmidt, Sam Huff and Ray Nitschke were playing with stars, Butkus was a one man terror. And while the Bears defense wasn't very good, that's not an indictment on Butkus. It's hard to imagine any MLB leading top defenses with those caliber teammates. And while that doesn't make him the greatest MLB of all-time, neither do his poor team stats prevent him from being so named.
Lahman's book -- The Pro Football Historical Abstract -- is my most indispensable hard copy resource on the NFL. I hope I haven't dissuaded anyone from purchasing the book, especially those who think Lahman is certifiable for his ranking of Butkus. If nothing else, his willingness to go far out on the edge, in lieu of playing things safe, makes me respect him even more. On this issue, though, I'll stand with the majority. What's much more valuable to me than any conclusion is that he opened my eyes to a possibility that I had never considered before, and that allowed me to try and use some of our fun tools to answer that question.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 10:04 am and is filed under Approximate Value, Great Historical Players. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Dick Butkus was great.
Also, the sun rose in the east today.
Key quote I remember hearing attributed to Butkus:
I never intentionally tried to hurt anyone unless it was important. You know, like a league game or something.
I would be curious to see an analysis of "great" defensive players who rarely played on great defenses.
In other words - is it possible to truly be a great defensive player if you never/rarely played on great defenses - or are truly great players able to make the difference for a defense?
#s make it easier to evaluate guys who've played lately, but I think ultimately the tape tells the tale (and I think you could argue tape as being objective if the people watching know how to play football). Not that the people reminiscing about decades past can't be impartial (I've always thought talking heads who control the perception of football in the media unfairly favor older players), but I think the tape does put Butkus among the best LB ever, and not as the 50th best.
Out of curiosity, what does PFR consider to be the "modern era". This term gets thrown around a lot when separating players in to different buckets and I don't think that the modern era started anywhere close to the 1950's.
Here is my criteria for the modern era:
1) Players can make a good living with their football salary and don't have to hold down other jobs in the offseason.
2) The league is fully integrated.
3) All players know about PEDs and PEDs are widely available.
With this criteria in mind the league really isn't modern until the mid to late 70's.
I think the 50th greatest linebacker ever is a ridiculous statement for Butkus. However, I think the best linebacker ever is stretch as well.
As I have said in other threads, if you are playing in an era where the NFL Champion is beat or tied by college all-stars 1/3 of the time (which was the case when the college all-stars last won in 1963 against Ray Nitschke's Packers), the game is just too different to compare and I would be hard pressed to call it modern.
I always considered modern starting around 1978 but maybe thats a QB-centric view...
I think Butkus is possibly one of the more overrated figures in NFL history. Purely because many believe him to be the unanimous #1 MLB or even LB to play the game.
And while I am not a huge believer in AV (Pro-Bowls that include fan voting are about as useless as teats on a bull) to simply write off a difference of 30 points in AV (Between Butkus and what would be 8th overall) as a matter of lack of teammates to me is putting too much weight on the ability of a team on the performance of an individual.
I think it comes down to what you mean by "great." If you want to define that based on talent, then I think you can make a case for Butkus as one of the all-time great LBs. But talent is subjective, and my evaluation was based on actual on-the-field production. By that measure, Butkus was good but clearly not the best of all-time. As Chase points out, much of that was due to the lousy cast around him. The knee injuries that shortened Butkus' career were a result of opponents blowing past the Bears' defensive line to chop block him.
If you want to use raw talent as the measure of greatness, then you have to be fair and use that for everyone.
Just looking thru the team data from 1965 thru 1973 can be quite instructive. After the 1965 season, Butkus rookie year, the Bears had one of the most consistently abysmal passing attacks in the NFL. The TD to int. ratio is particularly bad. I would say this contributed mightily to the bad records experienced by the Bears with Butkus as MLB. The trend with the defense seems to be that as past stars got older and gone (Joe Fortunato-OLB; Doug Atkins--DE) and were replaced with lesser lights, the defense stats went downhill too. Particularly notable was the list of no-names that came and went on the DL from 1968-1973. Only one player stands out in that period as being beter than average--Doug Buffone at OLB.
But lastly, in Butkus last year, playing basically on one leg due to knee injuries, the Bears were 25th against the run. In the first year of his replacement (Rives), the Bears jumped to 9th. Perhaps by 1973, Butkus was "shot"--could not pursue and was just basically a hitter and intimidator. As a recollection though, I remember in a MNF game Fran Tarkenton ran thru a Butkus tackle--ran thru the tackle! I figured then Butkus needed to be off the field.
What's a starting QB worth?
"I came up with an empirical answer of 2.3 points per game ... which comes out to 0.6 wins per season".
Well, wouldn't a starting linebacker be worth somewhat less? In fact, probably a good deal less?
In which case, isn't judging Butkus by team results...
~~
"The Bears never made the playoffs during Butkus’ career, and they only finished with a winning record twice (one of which was a 7-6-1 record in 1967). They never finished as the league’s top-ranked defense..."
~~~
... kind of, well, dim?
"Butkus’ resume, from an objective standpoint, is weak."
Butkus's resume, objectively, is not team stats that reflect a singke LB's play only extremely indirectly -- it is game film analysis of Butkus's own play.
Who are the people who saw and analyzed Butkus on game film on a regular basis? (not to metion seeing him live?). The coaches and players and writers who voted him to the All-Pro team year after year, ahead of all the other MLBs they also saw on game film.
I'm all for statistical analysis of sports, but it's important to remember that it can be pursued far past diminishing returns into negative returns.
That's fine, Jim. But then you have to do that for everyone, not just Butkus. And that means everyone from Dan Marino to Lynn Swann to Ray Lewis to Roy Williams (the safety) to Art Shell.
I'm with Jim on this one. The macro #'s of team statistics can help to a certain degree of assessing a player's value/worth as a player. But the data that is most likely to be valid is the actual behavioral evaluation based on direct observation. One of the lost data areas for football is the assessment of assistant coaches and how they view the players they coach and the one's they coach against. But that is a moot point because it does not exist as a data set aside from anecdotal recordings in books and magazine/newspaper articles.
I am going on too long here but as I stated in my post #9, Butkus was hampered by mostly mediocre teammates on defense and an abysmal passing game offense which effected team outcomes. Was he over-rated? Perhaps. He was ferocious tackler, had decent to good pursuit, could fend off or knock off blockers, and did a fair job at times in pass coverage. He apparently was a good leader, at least by his dedication to excellence which may have inspired his teammates.
Little late on getting to this post.
It'd be interesting to see the reverse of this, which players played on great defenses without much talent around them. As in are there any Dick Butkus' (great player with little to no supporting casts) whose defenses were highly ranked?
NCE,
Rolland Lawrence on the '77 Falcons is the first guy that comes to mind.
I played linebacker in college and I can't really talk about guys that played before I was born.
My father is a NCAA coach and was friends with Bob Carroll, who recently passed away. He was friendly with other football writers too. Whenever they talked about the greatest middle linebacker of all time they never, ever had an argument about who was number 1.
(PS they talked about crap like this all the time)
Butkus was always the unanimous man decision for the number 1 slot. They had their biggest debates over number 2. For some guys it was Lanier and other guys it was Lambert.
I asked about Urlacher and they said he was a fantastic player but couldn't shine Butkus, Lanier or Lambert's shoes. Which I think is old man speak for that they were waaaaay better than Urlacher.
They all had tremendous respect for Ray Lewis and I don't exactly remember but I think they all placed him at 4 or 5.
To sn0mm1s, my father told me that the Pro teams who played the "college all-stars", typically got tanked the night before, took it easy on the "kids", and frankly didn't care about the game.
It's like when your old man lets you win at something when you are five.
Your term for what is "modern football" does not match the definition of the NFL HOF which I think means you needed to be playing after 1950. For most professional writers, experts and historians, it means all players from 1966 on.
I've heard it called "modern era" and also "Super Bowl era"
To avoid confusion you should use the commonly accepted defintion otherwise people will not know what you're talking about.
I am just a young guy who play NCAA div 1 ball and did not get drafted to the NFL, but I know the game. I only saw a little bit of film of some of these guys, but there's no doubt that Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Jim Brown would be kicking butt and taking numbers in today's game.
fully endorse jim glass's astute observations about how opposing players and coaches judged their peers. to see just how great butkus was, check out some of the youtube clips on him -- as one of the nfl films expressed it, he was like "moby dick in a goldfish bowl".
Doug Atkins was the most feared man on the Bears and in the NFL. Just listen to any of the Hall of Famers ....including Butkus.....and they all said ...no one changed a game the way he did.......
Sorry for coming to this so late, but just wanted to point out that wouldn't judging Butkus based on the team be the same as judging Sayers based on the team? They had the same rookie year. The only thing is for that time we have stats for RBs but not LBs. The limited amount of stats we do have show Butkus getting a few picks and recovered fumbles each year, so that might be a clue as to how good he was.
And just noticed Ditka was playing at that time, too. I think this just goes to show how important the position of QB is to a team. Having a weak DL and secondary probably didn't help, either.
Butkus was a great player. His teams were terrible. If he was on the Rams, Cowboys, or Vikings during his career, I'm sure those metrics would be different. However, I would say that Nobis, Lanier, Nitschke, Huff, and Schmidt were all great players. I saw them all play. I's say Butkus and Lanier hit the hardest. The others were mobile and smart players.
I agree with Howard about Butkus and Lanier! I have Dick Butkus in my top 10 players of all time! Dick Butkus and Gayle Sayers were among the greatest players even though their teams were horrible! George Halas was coming to the end of his coaching rein and when he aged so did the talent on his teams after he won the 63 championship! Plus they played a more hard-hitting game back then, especially in the Black and Blue division. The teams were more physical and they played in all kinds of weather including snow, rain, and anything that you can think of. This is what you call real football not the poo-poo game we see today where you can't even hit the Quarterback too hard without worrying about being fined!
I'm very late but there is one recent post so ...
If you are a HOF LB on a lousy team, that means you are losing more games. And at the end of games the winning team runs the ball more, that's Football 101. So to put out the stat "run attempts against" without adjusting for this is 100% bogus and very unfair to Butkus.
I'm not against the attempts here to apply baseball-type stat analysis to pro football. It is both entertaining and enlightening. But it is much harder to separate individual performance in football from the team and we will never get the statistical precision in football we can get in baseball. I am with Jim Glass and IowaLinebacker, we need to give significant weight to peer evaluations of players.