"There are some good linebackers here, but it is clear to me that Chuck Bednarik is the very best. He is one of the best linebackers who ever played for any team in this league. He is one of the all-time, all-time great players. He played center and he played linebacker, and he was great at both, but I think most people will tell you that he was a better defensive player than he was an offensive player in his younger days, at the height of his career.

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"He was 6-feet-3, 235 pounds at a time when no linebackers were that size. He could play middle linebacker today, really. He was very unusual in terms of his size. But he wasn't just a big guy. He had range and great instinct and he was a ferocious competitor.

"Teams didn't throw the ball as much as they do now, but Bednarik had pass-coverage responsibilities. There were no 'situation-substitution linebackers' like there are now, so he was in coverage. Chuck finished his career with 20 interceptions, and when you watch old footage of him, you see that he had great hands and knew what to do with the ball. He was one of a kind. Chuck was the best linebacker in the 1950s among a class that was great, including Sam Huff.

"I don't want to diminish the rest of this group, though, because there are other very good players here. Bill Bergey and Jeremiah Trotter are certainly deserving to be on this list. Bill was really good, but he played his best years when he was surrounded by mediocre, or worse, defensive personnel. When the Eagles were becoming good, he had gotten injured and, while he was still effective, he wasn't the same player as he was before. Jeremiah has had the benefit of playing most of his career on a good team and in a system that really suits him.

"Jeremiah has some unique physical abilities in terms of his strength and his ability to run blitz, and Jim Johnson has sort of built his scheme around Jeremiah, to a degree. Bill played for a variety of coaches and in different schemes and he still played very well.

"Most people think of Tim Rossovich is the wild hair, the Rasputin stare, the stories about setting himself on fire and of eating glass – all of which are true, by the way – but what gets lost in all of that is that he was a good player. When the Eagles moved him from defensive end to middle linebacker, he really fit the position. He was a first-round draft pick as a defensive end out of Southern California and he played well as a rookie. But head coach Jerry Williams experimented with moving Rossovich, and you could see it was a great fit right away. Tim was able to run around and make plays. He had a fiery, wild personality that lent itself to that position. He became a catalyst for a defense that was pretty good.

"A contract dispute shortened his career with the Eagles, which was a shame. We got the feeling there was more good football ahead for him.

"Byron Evans got lost in the star-studded lineup of those Buddy Ryan's defenses. To make it all work in that scheme, you needed a middle linebacker who could cover because the safeties were up at the line of scrimmage so much. Evans did that for Buddy, similar to what Mike Singletary did for the Bears 46 defense. The injury Byron suffered was devastating. He could have played a lot longer had he not torn up his knee.

"Dave Lloyd was a pro's pro. He was acquired in a trade from Detroit and had played a bunch of positions. He was a big, tough, old-school kind of linebacker who played regardless. The Eagles teams were poor teams when Lloyd arrived, but he gave a professional effort every time out. He was a good, all-around player and he even stepped in and did a good job in the kicking game."