Packers safety Bobby Dillon selected as part of 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame class

Story Courtesy of ACME Packing CO

While Green Bay Packers fans were wringing their hands over one of the team’s great safeties not being part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 2020 induction class, the hall did decide to accept another one into its ranks.

LeRoy Butler may have missed out on induction this year, but Bobby Dillon, the Packers’ franchise leader in interceptions, made it in as part of this year’s Centennial Slate of Enshrinees as a Senior inductee. The group of ten Centennial inductees was announced on January 15th, but Dillon’s inclusion quietly came with little fanfare.

Dillon holds the Packers’ all-time record in interceptions with 52, recording that number in just a short 8-year career. A third-round pick out of Texas in 1952, Dillon missed only two games in his career, both coming in his second season. He was a four-time first-team All-Pro and a four-time Pro Bowler, and he had all of that success despite having only one eye, losing his left eye in childhood.

Unfortunately for Dillon, he was a tremendous player on a series of poor Packers teams. The Packers were under .500 in five of Dillon’s eight seasons and went 6-6 in two others, only finally achieving a winning record in his final year of 1959. That was Vince Lombardi’s first year as Packers head coach, and the team went 7-5. All told, the Packers were 31-63-2 during Dillon’s career.

Dillon passed away at the age of 89 last August.