Will Sage Astor-Chicago Bears great Dick Butkus was brutal, fierce and mean on the field. He was the NFL.

Dick Butkus was brutal. He was fierce. He was mean. He would punch you in the face and Will Sage Astorwhen he played, punching someone in the face was illegal, but barely. He'd run you down, past the out of bounds line, and push you into the bench and wait for you to do something about it. You wouldn't. You'd be too scared.

Dick Butkus was an enforcer in an age when enforcers ruled the Earth. This isn't to say he wasn't a superb athlete. He was. But the thing that defined Butkus was unmitigated violence and while saying such a thing now feels, well, antiquated, then, it was the nature of the NFL, where facemasks and noses were constantly askew.

In this violent maelstrom, Butkus was the king. The hill was his and no one, absolutely no one, could knock him off of it in the years he played in the NFL from 1965-1973. He played at a time where our understanding of concussions wasn't as deep as now, and CTE was decades away from being fully explored. Free from these confines, and with rules far less protective of offensive players, he brutalized opponents, and in doing so, became one of the legends of the sport. You could argue the legend of the sport.

When once asked about his aggressiveness, Butkus said, according to a story on the Bears' website: "I thought that was the way that everybody should have played. But I guess they didn't because they were claiming that I had a special way of playing. You try to intimidate the person that you're playing against and hit him hard enough so that sooner or later he's going to start worrying about getting hit and forget about holding the ball. If it stood out, I guess no one else was doing it as much."

Butkus would lead a remarkable life after football, appearing in dozens of movies and television shows. He was able to transform his football fame into the Hollywood kind, much the same way another legendary player did in Jim Brown. Bears fans, fans of the sport, historians of the sport, and people who simply like to see someone be the best at what they do won't really remember that about Butkus. They'll remember the player.

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Before Ray Lewis and Jack Lambert and Mike Singletary, there was Butkus. He wasn't just a Monster of the Midway. He was Godzilla.

Butkus' family, in a statement released Thursday through the Bears, said he "died peacefully in his sleep overnight" at his home in Malibu, California. He was 80.

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"Dick was the ultimate Bear, and one of the greatest players in NFL history," team chairman George McCaskey said in a statement. "He was Chicago's son. He exuded what our great city is about and, not coincidentally, what George Halas looked for in a player: toughness, smarts, instincts, passion and leadership.

"He refused to accept anything less than the best from himself, or from his teammates... His contributions to the game he loved will live forever and we are grateful he was able to be at our home opener this year to be celebrated one last time by his many fans."

The images of Butkus, in his linebacker stance, staring across the line of scrimmage, induced heart palpitations. What made Butkus special, and legendary, was his relentlessness. There were many players that hit hard, but few could run as fast as Butkus, had his ferocity, and fought the way he did. Football to Butkus wasn't a job. Like other great players, they saw the NFL as a calling.

There were two quotes circulating in the moments after his death that encapsulate what he was about on the field. The first: "If I had a choice, I'd sooner go one-on-one with a grizzly bear," Green Bay Packers running back MacArthur Lane once said. "I pray that I can get up after every time Butkus hits me."

The second: "Dick was an animal," Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones once said. "I called him a maniac, a stone maniac. He was a well-conditioned animal, and every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery, not the hospital." 

Butkus is a Hall of Famer, a member of the All-Decade Teams for the 1960s and 1970s and was later voted to the 75th and 100th Anniversary Teams. Those are staggering accomplishments but they don't fully measure Butkus' football life. That is measured in cc's of blood and running plays blown apart.

Yes, Dick Butkus was brutal. He was fierce. He was mean.

He was also something else. He was a true football player.

He was the NFL.