Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I am curious what people think about the Hall of the Very Good candidacy for former Packer linebacker John Anderson. Although he did not earn any All-Pro honors, he was second team all Decade linebacker for the 1980's and played at a very high level for a very long time.

Wondering what people think. Thank you.

A good player on a lot of bad Packers teams. Early injuries didnt help him but got better through the early 80s with very impressive take-away numbers. Reminds me alot of the very underrated Stan White of the Colts ...

I remember him being pretty good when I saw him... he stood out from the crowd.
But he is, as stated above, pretty weak on "honors".

As always, it would depend (for me) on who else is on the ballot.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... deJo20.htm

Halas Hall wrote:I am curious what people think about the Hall of the Very Good candidacy for former Packer linebacker John Anderson. Although he did not earn any All-Pro honors, he was second team all Decade linebacker for the 1980's and played at a very high level for a very long time.
.

All ture. I take his 2nd team all decade as a homer thing, though. he got one vote, and though it cannot be proven I suspect it was the Packer
voter who gave him that one vote.

Aside from that he was of course, good. Would have been better fit in the 1960s-70s or 1990s when 4-3 defenses ruled. He, to me, was a poor man's
Brad Van Pelt or Matt Blair - a SAM backer in the 4-3 who could cover pretty well. He was a poor, poor, poor man's Jack Ham.

But HOVG? Would never get my vote. To me is on the order of Bob Brudzinski or a Chad Greenway. Greenway did make a couple of Pro Bowls, but
he's like that IMO.

JohnTurney wrote:But HOVG? Would never get my vote. To me is on the order of Bob Brudzinski or a Chad Greenway. Greenway did make a couple of Pro Bowls, but
he's like that IMO.

Anderson had very good hands for an LB and was pretty coordinated. Not very physical. I watched the Packers trot out the same LB corps for several years...Anderson, Douglass, Cumby, Scott/Wingo. To me, Mike Douglass was clearly the only Packer LB that had any playmaking ability. I remember a play where Mike Douglass blitzed Jack Thompson, stripped him of the ball, ran back and picked up the ball, then outraced the Bucs team to the endzone. The entire time, Douglass was the only Packer player in the camera frame....very telling.

Anderson would catch the ball if you threw it to him. I watched the ILB combo of Cumby and Scott play together for like 5 years and never make a single play. Overall, those Packers defenses really weren't any good, yet the Packers seemed content to stick with the same guys year after year. Anderson getting any "all-decade" honors is farcical. It would be like Hunter Hillenmeyer getting all-2000 votes, but at least Hillenmeyer could tackle. Anderson was 'just a guy' IMO.

Anderson for a few years was the best player on a bad defense; he might have disappeared on a better squad. He was fast but undersized, hardworking but not dynamic. He fit the OLB prototype of the era, but never came close to transcending it.

I remember announcers saying that the Packers had a solid group of LBs at the time. I always thought of Wingo as the leader of the group -- likely because he was on the cover of a Packers yearbook that I had as a kid.