KEVIN GREENE
“I wasn’t the biggest [and] I wasn’t fastest. But as long as you have a motor, you have heart…that will overcome any physical limitations.”
“I figured out how to pass rush. I figured out how to put a guy, an offensive tackle three to four inches taller, 80 pounds heavier, put him in a position of failure, and I did that.”
“I believed in my heart that I was unblockable.”
— Kevin Greene
A three-time First-team All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowl selection, Hall of Fame linebacker Kevin Greene finished his NFL career third on the all-time sack list with 160, behind defensive ends Bruce Smith (200) and Reggie White (198).
That would make Greene #1 in career sacks for a linebacker, many more than Terrell Suggs (139); Lawrence Taylor (132.5); and Rickey Jackson (128).
He also had 23 forced fumbles and five interceptions and was one of four players (Smith, White, and Julius Peppers, the others) to record ten or more sacks in at least 10 different seasons.
He averaged over ten sacks a year for 15 seasons and logged the most double-digit sack seasons in NFL history (ten times in his fifteen year-career).
Not bad for an army brat who began playing football on military bases and spent three years in Mannheim, Germany as a youngster.
Or for the kid who attempted to walk-on at Auburn as a punter in 1980 but didn’t make the team until 1983.
He played intramural football in the interim.
It all turned around in 1984.
“I figured out…”
I figured it out.
Isn’t that what it’s all about?
Hard to do.
Figuring it out.
Algebra.
Geometry.
Puzzles.
Jumbles.
Crosswords…
In 1984 Greene won the Zeke Smith Award as Auburn’s Defensive Player of the Year and was named the SEC’s Defensive Player of the Year as well.
He had 69 career tackles and 11 sacks in his senior season, tops in the SEC.
Remarked longtime Auburn coach Pat Dye, “He had the physical tools and ability, and he came with a vengeance. But the thing that set him apart is what he had inside him. He played the game with every molecule in his body.”
With a degree in criminal justice and ROTC training completed, Greene was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Alabama National Guard and went on to earn the rank of captain.
He completed airborne training at Fort Benning to become a paratrooper; the military and football were inextricably linked and his love for each was obvious.
Essentially he played one year of meaningful college football but that was enough; he was selected by the Birmingham Stallions in the 1985 USFL Territorial Draft and later was chosen by the Los Angeles Rams in the fifth round (113th overall) of the 1985 NFL Draft.
His HOF career (’85 thru 1999) took him from the Rams to the Steelers to Carolina and then to the 49ers, before a swan song return to the Panthers, and Greene was voted to the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team.
Greene also coached linebackers (OLB) with Green Bay from 2009–2013 — winning a Super Bowl ring against his Steelers in the XLV extravaganza — and then with the Jets (2017–2018).
Said former Steelers coach Bill Cowher of Greene, “He was an awesome force on the field and as a person. When you coached him, he gave you everything he had. He was a man of tremendous energy, passion and respect.”
Dom Capers — defensive coordinator with Pittsburgh and head coach of the Panthers — agreed wholeheartedly, observing, “If you were going to play against Kevin, it was going to be a full day’s work. He’d get sacks late in a down by outworking the other guy. He had that extra something, that ‘it,’ you were looking for.”
Seems like a common thread.
That Eveready motor.
Capers wasn’t through.
“He had an infectious personality. He influenced everybody that he was around. Everyone had a tremendous amount of respect for him because he not only produced as a player, but because as good of a player as he was, he was an even better person.”
Greene registered 16.5 sacks in both 1988 and 1989, then 13 more in 1990 while playing for the Rams.
But he did not lead the league until 1994, when he had 14 with Pittsburgh and 1996, when he totaled 14.5 with Carolina.
In 1998, his penultimate season, he added 15 more.
For Greene, sacking a quarterback brought him joy, but also a measure of relief.
“My teammates depended on me to do that. I contributed. I didn’t want to let my teammates down.
I did something to stop that drive. Either I hit the quarterback at the right time and caused a fumble we recovered, or we got an interception.
A sack was different than making a tackle for a loss, or a tackle at the line of scrimmage. It was just me making a contribution and not letting my brothers down.”
As a reflection of his charisma, inexhaustible energy and no diffidence toward the spotlight, late in his football career Greene answered the call from professional wrestling.
Ring timekeeper — “TIMEKEEPER AT THE BELL” — Sy Coco, and the Captain, Lou Albano would have been proud.
He wrestled for the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) circuit, most notably teaming with Rowdy Roddy Piper and Ric Flair (“Wooooo!!”) to win a match at the Slamboree in 1997.
Being a celebrity wrestler was nice, but it wasn’t really Greene.
“It’s hard to replace sacking Joe Montana and the next week going to Denver and knocking around John Elway and Dan Marino the following week. [As a player] you’re in the flame and you get burned and you feel that. [As a coach] you’re standing next to the fire and you feel its warmth. It feels good.”
Kevin Greene died on December 21 at his home in Destin, FL.
He was 58.
No cause of death has been given.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in December 2020.]
