RIP Bill Bergey

Bengals and Eagles linebacker, probably the only Eagle from 1970-1976 who could play football at all, multiple All-Pro. Dead at 79. Fuck cancer.

 

Loved the commercial they had in Philadelphia shortly after Jaworski was acquired to a lot of fanfare. It was for some fast-food place, and at the end of it Jaws swipes Bergey's burger and takes a bite out of it.

Bergey gives him a mean look and says, "You better be good."

 

A borderline hall of fame guy who if he played on better teams in that era would probably be in.

had he played another year or two his case would have been a lot better. He has the five year peak and if he hadn’t fallen two votes shy on dpoy that might have put him over the top

 

How Bill Bergey wound up at Arkansas State in the 1960s (it's a little more prominent now but not much) will remain lost to history. ASU at the time was in the small college division of the NCAA, probably FCS today (they were a member of the Southland from 1964 until moving to FBS in the late 1980s). No Southern school of that size was combing the Northeast for talent in that time.

 

I read somewhere that it took Randy Gradishar so long to reach the Hall of Fame because there was a Bergey faction of voters and a Gradishar faction that split the vote.

Gradishar and Bergey had similar careers, but Gradishar did win a DPOY and I think Gradishar was helped by playing with one, generally better team, and is considered the best defensive player of the Orange Crush era.

 

NFL Films loved Bergey. Easily forgotten that those Bengals teams he played on were really good, but couldn’t break through.

 

Madden told a story about how a young Bergey was giving Jim Otto fits. During a pileup, Bergey yelled to Madden that an old man like Otto was no match for him. Madden looked at Otto who didn’t say anything.

Rest of the game, no tackles for Bergey. Years later, Madden shared the story on air. Bergey later filled him in that Otto nailed him helmet to helmet like a missle on the next series and Bergey got a concussion. He played the rest of the game in a daze.

Also, pretty sure Bergey’s knee injury happened on the wonderful turf at the Vet.