EMQB Interview: Andre Tippett

Photo courtesy Pro Football Hall of Fame

Blogcasting the National Football League, Blogcasting the NFL

Former New England Patriots linebacker Andre Tippett was a five-time All-Pro, the 1985 AFC Defensive Player-of-the-Year (where he led the Pats to Super Bowl XX), and a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1980s. Andre was one of the most feared pass rushers of his era and at the time of his retirement, he held team marks for career sacks, sacks in a season, and opponent’s fumbles recovered. On August 2, he will deservingly be inducted as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2008. I spoke with Andre on a national conference call today and asked him a few questions.

DAVID: I know you were very emotional when you got the news of becoming a member of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2008. How victorious was that feeling compared to the feeling of winning football games?
ANDRE: It’s probably a little bit greater, but on the same path of winning that major game — that game that gets you to the next level. It was overwhelming. I didn’t think it would happen like that, but after I got the word and right then, one of the reporters wanted to talk about it, and it hit me all at once, and, wow, I’m glad it happened now versus August 2.

DAVID: When you think how elite the group of Hall of Famers is, Andre — and now your name is among the greatest linebackers to ever play the game like Butkus, Nitschke, Singletary, Lambert to name a few — and now the name Tippett is alongside those names. What a sense of fulfillment you must have.
ANDRE: I do. And you know, it’s funny. You see the list and you pretty much have grown up watching a lot of those guys that are on that list play, some that I considered my contemporaries. So it is awesome and it’s a very exclusive list, and I am proud to be part of that list.

DAVID: How important was it to you to spend your entire career with the Patriots? You rarely see that anymore. How special is that to you?
ANDRE: I wear it as a badge of honor. Toward the end of my career, probably around ‘90, I talked to guys, and guys would say to me, “You know, how do you stay there, all of the things that are going on, and why don’t you do something to get out of there?” And to me, it wasn’t my manner. It wasn’t my personality or my makeup to be that type of person. I was committed to the organization. The organization had been committed to me throughout my time as a player. I had a contract, and I honored that contract. As a result of that, I finished up my career here with the Patriots and I couldn’t see myself going anywhere else. I know some guys have walked around the league a few times and ended up in the right places and got on some Super Bowl teams, and I sort of had that idea in the back of my head. Well, no one has a crystal ball, so you can’t judge that. But for me, I was committed to the organization and the organization stayed committed to me. So I was very honored. It definitely is a badge of honor.

DAVID: Did you think you’d be where you are now — as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame — when you retired from the NFL?
ANDRE: You know, you think about it, it starts coming to you about that fifth year of being retired, the eligibility. You sort of know some of the requirements. You make some All‑Pro teams and some Pro Bowls and you meet the criterias, and all of a sudden you get word that you’re part of the 300 or so names that are being considered for the Hall of Fame; and that happened. All of a sudden you kind of get it and it’s like, wow, I didn’t realize that. And I think a lot of guys don’t realize it, and it’s not something that you come into the league saying, you know, I want to play so great that someday I’ll end up in the Hall of Fame. I think what you try to do is emulate the great guys that have played the game, the great ones. And you try to emulate that level that they have played at and you try to emulate them as close as you can from a what‑you‑do‑on‑the‑field standpoint. That’s all I can do. And before you know it, you’ve set the standard, you’ve set a new standard and you try to follow suit by what everybody else has done.