Philadelphia Eagles legend and Hall of Fame safety Brian Dawkins spoke with FanSided’s Stacking The Box podcast about Barry Sanders’ greatness.
Few players are more accomplished throughout NFL history than Brian Dawkins.
Dawkins, 49, earned nine Pro Bowl berths throughout his illustrious 16-year career, spending 14 campaigns with the Philadelphia Eagles before finishing up with the Denver Broncos.
On Thursday morning, Dawkins spoke with FanSided national NFL reporter Matt Verderame on the Stacking The Box Podcast. The five-time All-Pro, speaking on behalf of Novo Nordisk and the fight to educate people against Type 2 diabetes, talked about his career and why two famous running backs were the hardest men for him to tackle.
Brian Dawkins tells FanSided who was hardest for him to tackle
“There are some guys, it was a fight to the finish to tackle,” Dawkins said. “Beast Mode (Marshawn Lynch) was one of those dudes. When you’re watching film with him, from a physical standpoint, you’re literally saying ‘when I go in to make the tackle, y’all got to help me. You’ve got to come quick,’ because he’s not going down with one person. We knew that. It has to be a gang-tackling day for that.
“The other guy from an elusive standpoint would be Barry Sanders. We would literally watch him on film, and he would run to the line of scrimmage and we would pause the tape, and say ‘who is actually going to make the tackle?’ And it usually wouldn’t be any of the people right in front of him. It would be somebody way on the back side because he’s reversed field.”
In 2018, Dawkins was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He’s also part of the Eagles’ 75th Anniversary Team and the 2000s NFL’s All-Decade Team.
