Dick Butkus Days Until Chicago Bears Season Opener

We had so much fun doing our Countdown to Kickoff series last season that we decided to do it again.  In case you’re new to the series, we’ll do a roster preview as we count down the days until the Chicago Bears September 7th season opener against the Buffalo Bills.

51 days. That’s how many days we have until the season starts. “The Season.” All other sports are side dishes to the main course of professional football.

I have the honor of writing about one of football’s all-time greats, Dick Butkus.

Want to be sure your kid is tough? Name him Dick Butkus. Or name him Sue if you don’t like Dick.

This guy was a beast. He made opposing teams fearful. It was going to be a long day for anyone that had to face him.

I asked my wife what she knew about Dick. She grew up a Cowboys fan by default (her father,) followed by a Redskins fan-ship, (first husband.) Now she’s a full-fledged Bears fan.

She only knew he was a very scary guy. I informed her that he was an expert at stripping the football, and, subsequently recovering those balls.

She told me that she did not know that Dick was so good at ripping balls.

OK, I couldn’t help myself. This video pretty much says it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XavMnJDfavo

What else can I say? He is 1/4th of the great history of Chicago Bears middle linebackers, Bill George, Butkus, Mike Singletary, and Brian Urlacher.

He is a HOFmer and rightly so. Dick Butkus has been active in television and commentating since retiring. He also started the Butkus foundation, which has a program for drug free athletics.

An interesting side note, as a big Rocky fan I always knew that he had a dog named Butkus. I didn’t know that he was named after Dick Butkus and he was really Sylvester Stallone’s dog.

Here is a cool story about it.

I was just thinking of Rocky the other day when I hung a heavy bag and a speed bag in my attic. This “Butkus” post just really ties the room together.