2024 – Jalon Walker, Georgia 2023 – Payton Wilson, NC State 2022 – Jack Campbell, Iowa 2021 – Nakobe Dean, Georgia 2020 – Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Notre Dame 2019 – Isaiah Simmons ...

"To play this game -- and I've always said this -- you have to have a Neanderthal gene. Butkus had two," says former Chicago Bears teammate Doug Buffone on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series.

It is possible that Dick Butkus was the meanest, nastiest, fiercest linebacker to ever put on a helmet. More than a quarter of a century after his retirement, there remains the Butkus image ...