Tag: Charles Tillman

Anthony ‘Spice’ Adams makes his case for Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs to make the Hall of Fame

Anthony Adams discussed Charles Tillman’s and Lance Briggs’ Hall of Fame candidacy and how he might pitch the committee on each player.

When it comes to describing how dominant Chicago Bears cornerback Charles Tillman and linebacker Lance Briggs were during their careers, not many people are as qualified as their former teammate Anthony “Spice” Adams.

Adams, who played defensive tackle for the Bears from 2007-11, sat down with Bears Wire to talk about a number of topics, from the current team’s inability to run the ball, to grilling for Thanksgiving with Kingsford pellets. The former Penn State standout also discussed Tillman’s and Briggs’ Hall of Fame candidacy and how he might pitch the committee on each player.

Tillman and Briggs each played for the Bears from 2003 to 2014. Briggs retired after 2014 and Tillman played one season with the Carolina Panthers before calling it a career. Between the two of them, they combined for nine pro bowls, two first-team all-pro selections and two second-team all-pro selections. Briggs is in his second year of eligibility while Tillman is entering his first.

Adams, playing with both of them for five seasons, had no issue explaining why both players should get a gold jacket, despite the news that neither player was included as a Modern-Era Player Semifinalist this year for the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection in February.

Adams on Charles Tillman:

“Oh that’s easy. If you’re a wide receiver and you catch the ball, you want to know where he is at all times. That right there is a game changer. Look at the Tennessee Titans game (in 2012), the guy forced four fumbles. Anytime you’re around him and you look around and don’t see him, you’re like ‘oh my gosh he must be right behind me’ or something like that. You want to know where he is at all times. That’s what he does, he punches the ball out. I’ve seen him do it in the lunchroom with your food, in the hallways with the playbook. I’ve seen him do it when you’re getting your laundry, the guy is knocking out your socks. His mind is always on punching the ball out. A guy like that definitely changed the game. He should definitely be in the Hall of Fame.”

Tillman truly did change the game of football, as every football that is punched out of the ball carrier’s hands is now commonly referred as the “Peanut Punch” across the country.

Tillman specialized in ripping away the football, but he was still a dominant cornerback all the way around. In addition to his 44 forced fumbles, a record for a defensive back, Tillman picked off 38 passes and had 925 tackles over his career, including 100 in one season back in 2011.

Adams on Lance Briggs:

“You talk about a guy who probably averaged over 100 tackles every year that he’s been healthy. Multiple touchdowns, multiple interceptions. The guy is all over the place every year. The most consistent – I think he had seven or eight pro bowls in a 13 year career? I can’t say enough about Lance Briggs. You think about all of the great linebackers in Chicago Bears history and Lance Briggs is definitely one of those, for sure.”

Briggs was one of the most consistent players in the 2000s, going to seven-straight Pro Bowls during the height of the Bears defense. He and Hall of Fame linebacker Brian Urlacher formed one of the greatest linebacking duos in NFL history and Briggs clearly stands out in the minds of his former teammates. In 12 season, he amassed 1,181 tackles, including 97 for a loss.

While Tillman and Briggs will have to wait another year to see if they can become a semifinalist for the Hall of Fame, many around the league, including Adams, believe they’re deserving to have their bust enshrined in Canton, OH.

Fans can re-live Bears’ miraculous ’06 comeback vs. Cardinals

The Bears rallied from a 23-3 deficit by scoring two defensive TDs and one on special teams to beat the Cardinals in a 24-23 victory.

What better way to spend Monday night than with a rewatch of a Chicago Bears’ classic Monday Night Football game?

Bears fans can watch a rebroadcast of the Bears’ comeback victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 16, 2006. The Bears’ YouTube Channel will premiere the game in its entirety from 7-9:15 p.m. CT, and the official website will also have it available on demand starting at 7 p.m. CT.

Everyone remembers this classic. While the Bears’ comeback itself was memorable, it was then-Cardinals head coach Denny Green’s postgame press conference that will live on in infamy.

“The Bears are who we thought they were and we let them off the hook!”

https://youtu.be/gz3Stx1N14Y

As for the game itself, the Bears overcame a 23-3 deficit which was ignited late in the third quarter. The Bears rallied from behind scoring two defensive touchdowns and one on special teams to escape the desert with a 24-23 victory.

The Bears got touchdowns from safety Mike Brown (a fumble forced by defensive end Mark Anderson), cornerback Charles Tillman (another fumble forced by linebacker Brian Urlacher) and a punt return touchdown by kick returner Devin Hester that gave Chicago a 24-23 lead in the final three minutes that they wouldn’t relinquish.

The win helped the Bears improve to 6-0 during a magical season that ended with a Super Bowl XLI appearance.

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Relax, everyone, Peanut Tillman is very much alive

Bears fans got the scare of their lives with a simple tweet that felt like an “in memoriam” for former Bears CB Charles “Peanut” Tillman.

Bears fans got the scare of their lives Wednesday with a simple tweet that, at first glance, felt like an “in memoriam” for former Bears cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman.

The “in memoriam” tweet was a nod to the death of Planters mascot Mr. Peanut. The wording of the tweet wasn’t the best — the whole “thanks for the memories” and “Peanut” mentioned in the same sentence. And, as you’d expect, Bears fans reacted in the moment.

The Bears Twitter account clarified that their tweet was in fact not about Peanut Tillman.

It didn’t take long for Peanut Tillman to assure fans that he was in fact very much alive.

Bears fans can breathe a sigh of relief that Peanut Tillman is alive and well.

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The other Mr. Peanut: Charles ‘Peanut’ Tillman is doing just fine…and thanks for asking

Charles ‘Peanut’ Tillman is doing just fine…and thanks for asking

Planters’ newest Super Bowl commercial teaser took a tragic turn—off a cliff, to be exact—when Mr. Peanut made the ultimate sacrifice: himself.

It’s a tough loss, no doubt, and the news of such magnitude caused quite a stir on the internet. By midday, the hashtag #RIPeanut was trending. And that’s great for Planters, and really, great for fans of Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes, too (assuming that branch doesn’t break).

But—as social media can often do—the news wasn’t all well and good, especially for Bears and Panthers fans, and one Mr. Charles Tillman. The former cornerback, who is known as “Peanut,” had to take to the social airwaves and explain that, just because there was a trending hashtag from a reliable news source such as Twitter, it didn’t necessarily mean he was deceased. (I like to call this the Betty White Effect.)

 

Wrong ‘Peanut.’ Right ‘Peanut.’ Not since the days of Charles Schulz have we seen such legume-pop culture hysteria.

And that, folks, is what you call a win–win! 

(Unfortunately, this news hasn’t erased the fact that the Bears drafted Mitch Trubisky instead of Patrick Mahomes.)

4 Bears that could be next in line for Pro Football Hall of Fame

Jim Covert and Ed Sprinkle are the latest Bears to be named to the Hall of Fame. But who will be the next? We take a look.

The Chicago Bears have a rich history of talent in their 100-year history, which is epitomized by their NFL-most 28 Hall of Famers. That number increased to 30 following the additions of two more Bears to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Offensive lineman Jim Covert and defensive end/linebacker Ed Sprinkle will be the latest Bears inducted into the Hall of Fame, as they were voted to the 2020 centennial class as part of the senior inductees.

But who will be the next Bears inducted into the Hall of Fame?

Here are four Bears players that could be the next to be enshrined:

1. Devin Hester

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

When you’re the best to ever play your position, that should be an automatic bid to the Hall of Fame. Devin Hester was the best kick returner to ever play the game. Not only does he have the stats, he affected the game in a significant way.

Hester, who was a three-time first-team All Pro and four-time Pro Bowler, has an impressive resume. He has more punt returns (14) than anyone in NFL history with 14; his 20 total non-offensive touchdowns are also the most in league history; and he has the highest average yards per punt return among those with at least 300 returns in NFL history.

The only problem is special teamers rarely get inducted into the Hall of Fame. In fact, there are only three: kickers Morten Andersen and Jan Stenerud and punter Ray Guy.

Will Hester be one of the exceptions? Guess we’ll have to wait and see starting as early as 2022, when Hester is first eligible for the Hall of Fame.

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Ron Rivera leaves behind a respectable legacy in Carolina

That said, Rivera’s true impact on the Panthers was as a human being.

As nuanced as the game of football is and continues to become, any old-fashioned talk of the importance in establishing a certain “culture” may likely be met with an “ok, Boomer.” But—while it is possible for numerous methods of thought to co-exist—there’s certainly something to be said about instilling accountability, discipline and unity within an organization. That’s why you can’t dismiss what Ron Rivera has left behind in his nine-year tenure with the Carolina Panthers.

Right before that run was the 2010 season, where the team would have just one more win than they did players named Hilee. Rivera’s predecessor, John Fox led Carolina to a league-worst 2-14 record, finishing dead-last in point differential, second-to-last in yardage differential and a distant last in almost any category that involved putting the ball in the end zone or through the uprights.

The lowest moment of that dreadful campaign came in Week 11, in perhaps the most literal example of grabbing a guy off his couch to play. Stay-at-home dad Brian St. Pierre, who’d thrown just five passes in his seven years of bouncing in and out of practice squads, was summoned to start at quarterback against the Baltimore Ravens. It went about as well as you’d expect.

On Jan. 11 2011, 11 days after choosing not to renew Fox’s contract, Rivera entered the picture. The well-regarded defensive coordinator of the San Diego Chargers and, before that, the leader of the best defense the Chicago Bears had seen since their Super Bowl shuffle days was named the fourth head coach in franchise history.

Rivera delivered right from the start, tripling the team’s win total from the year prior to an earnest 6-10 mark. He’d also get the most out of rookie quarterback Cam Newton, who won AP Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in a record-breaking blaze while catapulting Carolina from the 32nd-ranked offense to No. 7.

Two seasons later, with some growing pains and seven victories sprinkled in-between in 2012, Rivera finally made a breakthrough. Following a 1-3 start to 2013, the Panthers refused to quit and wrapped up winning 11 of their final 12 games en route to their first NFC South title in five years and Rivera’s first of two AP Head Coach of the Year awards.

A similar hint of magic then appeared in 2014, when they’d again laugh in the face of an often fatal bad start. This time, they left behind a 3-8-1 stretch, strung together four straight victories and snuck into the postseason with a second division crown in as many seasons at 7-8-1.

Then, in 2015, the four years of rebuilding under Rivera paid off, culminating in the greatest season in franchise history. The Panthers ripped (and dabbed) through their opposition in an utterly dominant 15-win regular season campaign, heralding six First-team All-Pro selections as well as the team’s first league MVP in Newton.

Unfortunately, they’d succumb to the Denver Broncos and their generational defense in the team’s second trip to the Super Bowl. Rivera would never come close to that success, again.

Over his next three and three-quarter seasons at the helm, the Panthers went a combined 29-31. They clinched a wildcard berth after going 11-5 in 2017, their only playoff ticket since that Super Bowl appearance, and lost a heart-breaking battle to the division rival New Orleans Saints in the postseason’s first round.

While he couldn’t quite lift Carolina out of its roller coaster of mediocrity – let alone win a Lombardi Trophy – Rivera did help lead a regularly overlooked franchise to a burst of recognition it had never seen before. Highlighted by that majestic 2015 season, the Panthers achieved a small, but appreciable taste of sustained success.

Even with the 7-8-1 finish in 2014, they became the first team since the division’s current alignment to win three consecutive NFC South titles. But, just like the stark reminder that the Saints are fresh off matching that very feat here in 2019, it’s been the team’s recent and disappointing performance under Rivera that’s ultimately been his undoing.

Considering the level of talent Rivera had at his disposal, mainly Cam Newton and Luke Kuechly – the team’s record in recent years is a tough pill to swallow. That advantage may have been squandered for the next coach, too. We don’t know if Newton will get back to himself again after Rivera’s mismanagement of his shoulder and foot injuries.

Those missteps cannot be ignored.

That said, Rivera’s true impact on the Panthers was as a human being. On top of inspiring that aforementioned old-school, disciplined, never-quit mentality in his players, the son of 32-year U.S. Army veteran has been a beloved and unquestioned commander of sorts—the personification of a player’s coach.

He’s also helped foster some of the game’s well-noted humanitarians. His support for the respective off-field initiatives of Newton, Greg Olsen, Thomas Davis, Julius Peppers and Charles Tillman has, in part, developed another type of culture within the organization—one that promotes a close connection to community.

He wasn’t the slickest football mind out there, nor the most progressive coach. In fact, he’s about as stubborn as they come between the headsets. But through all the peaks and valleys, Rivera had nearly a decade as head coach of the Carolina Panthers to earn his place both as a man and a leader of men. And that is one opportunity he certainly didn’t miss.

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