Gold Jacket Spotlight: Chris Hanburger Played Above His Weight

When an interviewer asked Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Chris Hanburger to recall a favorite moment from his professional playing career, he didn’t single out any of the five defensive touchdowns he scored.

He didn’t mention his still-standing Washington franchise-record of nine Pro Bowl appearances.

He didn’t say it was helping his team reach Super Bowl VII with the second of his four All-Pro seasons and arguably best of his 14-year career.

“My favorite moment was when the games were over,” Chris said. “I wasn’t a big guy and didn’t like getting all beat up out there.”

Chris rarely tipped the scales much above 215 pounds, but plenty of opposing quarterbacks, running backs and receivers will testify he fought and hit well above his weight.

The career of the Class of 2011 enshrinee is revisited this week in the Gold Jacket Spotlight.

Chris cited quickness and speed as his best physical attributes on the football field.

“I certainly didn’t have a lot of size or anything like that,” he said. “I went to training camp weighing 215, 218. By the end of the season, I was down to 200, 205.”

He said he often went to team weigh-ins wearing a baggy sweatshirt, allowing him to hide weight plates tied around his waist.

“They always thought I was heavier than I was,” he said.

Because of his size relative to others on the field, Chris adapted his tackling style. He soon earned the nickname “The Hangman” for his above-the-collar attacks.

“He would go a whole game and not make a tackle below the jaw line,” Steve Sabol of NFL Films said. “That was a legal move in the late 1960s and early 1970s. … He would come in on a blitz and get you right around the throat.”

Those kinds of hits might leave a player lighter in the wallet these days, but Chris – and everyone else – quickly noted he always played well within the rules, even if the goal was to knock an opponent out of the game.

“If you can eliminate a guy and do it legally, then your day should be easier because whoever replaces him shouldn’t be as good as he is,” Chris said. “It was easier for me to come into somebody high because I had a little more leverage.

“My philosophy was if you don’t hit anybody, you can play forever because you’re never going to get hurt. I just tried to take ankles away from people, and I didn’t get nailed head-on if I could avoid it.”

Plenty of times Chris saw what could happen to much bigger linebackers who led with a shoulder or their helmet, with a game against the Steelers one of the more vivid reminders. In delivering one of his ferocious hits targeting the torso of a running back, Sam Huff – Chris’ teammate and a future Hall of Famer – got the worst of the contact and was forced out of the game.

“Sam, that’s why I tackle high,” Chris said he told Huff.

The technique preserved his body.

Chris played 187 games overall, with a streak of 135 consecutive starts that ended only because he needed his appendix removed.

“I just wanted to go off that field with a victory. That was the most important thing,” Chris said. “I didn’t care how we did it.”

How “The Hangman” did it earned him a home in Canton forever and his place in the Gold Jacket Spotlight this week.