NFL 100: At No. 58, Herb Adderley was the perfect wingman, and a star cornerback all on his own
Connor Hughes Jul 29, 2021 40
Welcome to the NFL 100, The Athletic’s endeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.
Toni Adderley knew, she just didn’t know. To her, Herb was “Dad.” To her children, he was “PopPop.” She was born in 1968, Year 8 of Herb’s 12-year NFL career. So her memories of his time spent with the Packers and Cowboys aren’t of bone-crushing hits, game-sealing interceptions or Super Bowl championships. Instead, she remembers their homes, friends and family.
As she grew, Herb’s career was seldom a talking point unless someone else brought it up. There wasn’t a need to. That’s why, while Toni knew her dad played in the NFL and had earned a Hall of Fame jacket, she never truly grasped how incredible he was.
Not until he died in October 2020.
Not until condolences started coming in from people like NFL great Ronnie Lott, Packers president Mark Murphy and others.
Not until she started reading about everything her dad accomplished.
“I knew he was a great player,” Toni said. “Not until then did I know how great.”
Hall of Fame Packers linebacker Dave Robinson chuckles about it now. It’s among his favorite football stories as it pertains to his close friend Herb. The Packers played the Raiders in Super Bowl II. Green Bay won handily, 33-14. Afterward, Robinson went up to talk to Oakland quarterback Daryle Lamonica.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Dave, all week long the coaches told me not to throw it to my right. They said whatever you do, just don’t throw it at Adderley. And when we got to that fourth quarter, I hadn’t thrown any passes over there. I thought I had lulled you guys to sleep,'” Robinson recalled, laughing.
“He said, ‘So we get to the fourth quarter, and I went that way. I wanted to hit Fred (Biletnikoff). I just didn’t believe the coaches. I had to try one. I thought I could get one. So I did. I went that way.'”
Adderley picked the pass off and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown. The game wasn’t ever close, but that touchdown put it away.
“I started laughing,” Robinson said. “I told him, ‘Daryle, they were right — don’t come that way.'”
Deion Sanders is considered by many to be the greatest shutdown cornerback ever. Rod Woodson and Darrell Green are in that discussion, too. As are recent stars like Darrelle Revis and Champ Bailey. Before any of them donned a helmet and pads, though, there was Herb Adderley.
Drafted as a running back out of Michigan State in 1961, Adderley converted to cornerback as a rookie and went on to intercept 48 passes during his career (plus another five in the postseason) and return seven for touchdowns. The Philadelphia native didn’t allow a single touchdown during the 1965 regular season. During his 12-year career, Adderley went to five Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro four times. He was voted to the NFL’s All-Decade Team, the Packers’ 50th anniversary team and their all-modern era team.
He was Sanders before Sanders … Woodson before Woodson … Revis before Revis.
“No one used the term ‘shutdown’ back then,” Robinson said. “But he was a shutdown, lockdown corner.”
It’s not hard for Robinson, who grew up 30 minutes away from Adderley in Moorestown, N.J., to recall what made his good friend so special. He had perfect size (6-foot-0, 205 pounds), tremendous speed, and was so athletic. He played basketball growing up so he could “jump and hurdle” with the best of them and had great control of his body. He had 0-to-60 acceleration. He was a “ball hawk,” although no one really called it that back then. He used to play games with the opposing quarterback. He’d leave just enough room between him and the receiver to make it look like he was open. Then, once the quarterback lobbed it in, he’d break on it. It was a gamble — that was fine with Adderley. He might get beat from time to time, but more times than not, he’d win.
He was also smart. Too smart.
“You couldn’t run the same play on him twice,” Robinson said. “He was so intelligent. Herb was that kind of a guy. He could see it. If we got beat on a play by a team once, we’d go off to the sideline and figure out what happened and how to counter. Herb could just figure it out — just like that. And Herb was always right. I can’t ever remember Herb being wrong.”
It wasn’t just coverage with Adderley, though. He had no problem coming down in the box and playing the run. There was one game, Robinson remembers, where coaches warned Packers players about the opposing running back (Robinson chose not to divulge names). The book on him was that if he got going early, it was near impossible to stop him. However, if you got to him early, he tended to run a bit more timid.
Early in the game, this player broke free on a run. Coaches were worried.
Adderley was not.
On the next handoff, he came in from his corner spot and walloped him.
“Herb just crushed him — spun him on his head like a top,” Robinson said. “From that point on he ran like a baby. He was intimidated. That was Herb. He intimated the opposition — receivers, runners, quarterbacks. He knew what he was doing.
“People ask me what his best play was, but I never saw him make a bad one.”
While Adderley finished the final three years of his career with the Cowboys (he won Super Bowl VI with them), he’s most known for his time in Green Bay. There he won five NFL championships, including Super Bowls I and II, and helped establish Green Bay as one of the league’s best defensive teams. After Adderley took over as a full-time starter in 1963, the Packers’ defenses finished second, second, first, first, third, fourth and third in points allowed. (Note: NFL and AFL statistics were kept separate until 1970.)
Robinson and Adderley were two of the biggest reasons for that. They played together for seven years, and formed a dynamic pairing on the left side of Vince Lombardi’s defense. They knew each other perfectly, which allowed them to play seamlessly. Robinson kept linemen off Adderley on run plays. Adderley knew when Robinson would let go of his underneath coverage for him to pick up — Robinson had the first 10 yards, and Adderley everything after.
They weren’t a linebacker and corner, Robinson said, but a single unit. It got to the point where it didn’t matter what the coaches said — the two knew their strengths, and played to them. If the coaches asked them to do something else, they would change on the fly. Robinson intercepted 27 passes during his career. He credits Adderley with an assist on “at least 15 of them.”
“He didn’t have to be the big star,” Robinson said. “He wanted to be your wingman. And if he needed one — you better be his or you’d be damn sure he’d let you know you weren’t.
“That’s the way we played. The left hand has to wash the right.”
The Packers of the mid-to-late ’60s were littered with talent. Robinson and Adderley were two of six Hall of Famers on the defense alone (Ray Nitschke, Willie Davis, Henry Jordan and Willie Wood the others). The offense featured Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, all coached by the legendary Lombardi.
For that reason, it’s sometimes easy to overlook Adderley’s excellence. It doesn’t help that he played in an era when throwing the ball wasn’t nearly as popular as it became in the decades to follow. It could be why his name was omitted from the NFL’s 100th anniversary All-Time Team.
That baffles Packers historian Cliff Christl. He wasn’t professionally covering the team then, but he was following it.
“It’s written that Lombardi once said that Hornung was the greatest player he ever coached,” Christl said. “But I thought Adderley played his position better than anyone else on those Packers teams.”
Some of the greats of yesteryear would undeniably struggle in today’s game. Not Adderley, who was perfectly suited for today’s NFL.
“When you talk about the game’s best corners, I think there are only a few guys who could both come up and play the run like they had to in the 1960s, but also run with the receivers in today’s NFL,” Christl said. “There aren’t many who can do that, but also match up physically with guys like Randy Moss, Calvin Johnson and other big receivers. Herb Adderley is one of those guys.
“He was the prototypical corner when he played, and he would still be the prototypical corner today. He was a perennial All-Pro when he played, and he’d be a perennial All-Pro today.”
Herb Adderley’s New Jersey condo is still intact. He moved his family back to Philadelphia, where he was born, after he retired from the Cowboys, and then to Jersey after he and his wife divorced. She knows she has to, but Toni hasn’t sold it yet. Herb’s passing is still so fresh. It still hurts so much. There are days, Toni said, she struggles. Selling the place her dad last called home? It’s a bridge she doesn’t want to cross right now.
So the condo is still very much how Herb left it, including the loft just above his living room when you walk in the door. That’s where he prominently displayed so many of the tokens and memorabilia from his playing days. Toni went through them shortly after her dad’s passing. She needed to write his obituary. Radio stations had reached out to have her speak about Herb as a player. She needed to familiarize herself — more than ever before — with what he’d accomplished.
She was there for hours. She couldn’t believe what she saw.
“I remember looking at it all and just saying, ‘Wow,'” Toni said. “I wish I had talked to him more about it.”
She found the phonebook where Herb had numbers written down for each of his former teammates — so many of them, like Bart Starr, now gone. She found his three Super Bowl rings, and the one from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where he was enshrined in 1980. There was his Hall of Fame jacket and bust, of course. There was a seemingly endless wall of photos, and even more game balls. There were autographed signs and banners. He had items from his time at Northeast High School and Michigan State — things Toni didn’t even know existed. There were helmets and jerseys — including a full Cowboys uniform on which Herb had written important dates and autographed the pants.
It’s impossible for Toni to recall everything that’s there — there’s too much.
All of it a sign of just how impactful her dad was to the game of football.
“When you talk about the great athletes out of Philadelphia — Wilt (Chamberlain) and Kobe (Bryant),” Toni said, “The thing that people have said to me is that my dad deserves to be mentioned with them. He deserves to be called out more often.”
(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; photo: Getty Images)
Boom! Glad you really enjoyed it.
Connor Hughes is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the New York Jets. He has covered the team since 2014, most recently for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com. Follow Connor on Twitter @connor_j_hughes.
40 COMMENTS
Add a comment...
Connor Hughes Jul 29, 2021 40
Welcome to the NFL 100, The Athletic’s endeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.
Toni Adderley knew, she just didn’t know. To her, Herb was “Dad.” To her children, he was “PopPop.” She was born in 1968, Year 8 of Herb’s 12-year NFL career. So her memories of his time spent with the Packers and Cowboys aren’t of bone-crushing hits, game-sealing interceptions or Super Bowl championships. Instead, she remembers their homes, friends and family.
As she grew, Herb’s career was seldom a talking point unless someone else brought it up. There wasn’t a need to. That’s why, while Toni knew her dad played in the NFL and had earned a Hall of Fame jacket, she never truly grasped how incredible he was.
Not until he died in October 2020.
Not until condolences started coming in from people like NFL great Ronnie Lott, Packers president Mark Murphy and others.
Not until she started reading about everything her dad accomplished.
“I knew he was a great player,” Toni said. “Not until then did I know how great.”
Hall of Fame Packers linebacker Dave Robinson chuckles about it now. It’s among his favorite football stories as it pertains to his close friend Herb. The Packers played the Raiders in Super Bowl II. Green Bay won handily, 33-14. Afterward, Robinson went up to talk to Oakland quarterback Daryle Lamonica.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Dave, all week long the coaches told me not to throw it to my right. They said whatever you do, just don’t throw it at Adderley. And when we got to that fourth quarter, I hadn’t thrown any passes over there. I thought I had lulled you guys to sleep,'” Robinson recalled, laughing.
“He said, ‘So we get to the fourth quarter, and I went that way. I wanted to hit Fred (Biletnikoff). I just didn’t believe the coaches. I had to try one. I thought I could get one. So I did. I went that way.'”
Adderley picked the pass off and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown. The game wasn’t ever close, but that touchdown put it away.
“I started laughing,” Robinson said. “I told him, ‘Daryle, they were right — don’t come that way.'”
Deion Sanders is considered by many to be the greatest shutdown cornerback ever. Rod Woodson and Darrell Green are in that discussion, too. As are recent stars like Darrelle Revis and Champ Bailey. Before any of them donned a helmet and pads, though, there was Herb Adderley.
Drafted as a running back out of Michigan State in 1961, Adderley converted to cornerback as a rookie and went on to intercept 48 passes during his career (plus another five in the postseason) and return seven for touchdowns. The Philadelphia native didn’t allow a single touchdown during the 1965 regular season. During his 12-year career, Adderley went to five Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro four times. He was voted to the NFL’s All-Decade Team, the Packers’ 50th anniversary team and their all-modern era team.
He was Sanders before Sanders … Woodson before Woodson … Revis before Revis.
“No one used the term ‘shutdown’ back then,” Robinson said. “But he was a shutdown, lockdown corner.”
It’s not hard for Robinson, who grew up 30 minutes away from Adderley in Moorestown, N.J., to recall what made his good friend so special. He had perfect size (6-foot-0, 205 pounds), tremendous speed, and was so athletic. He played basketball growing up so he could “jump and hurdle” with the best of them and had great control of his body. He had 0-to-60 acceleration. He was a “ball hawk,” although no one really called it that back then. He used to play games with the opposing quarterback. He’d leave just enough room between him and the receiver to make it look like he was open. Then, once the quarterback lobbed it in, he’d break on it. It was a gamble — that was fine with Adderley. He might get beat from time to time, but more times than not, he’d win.
He was also smart. Too smart.
“You couldn’t run the same play on him twice,” Robinson said. “He was so intelligent. Herb was that kind of a guy. He could see it. If we got beat on a play by a team once, we’d go off to the sideline and figure out what happened and how to counter. Herb could just figure it out — just like that. And Herb was always right. I can’t ever remember Herb being wrong.”
It wasn’t just coverage with Adderley, though. He had no problem coming down in the box and playing the run. There was one game, Robinson remembers, where coaches warned Packers players about the opposing running back (Robinson chose not to divulge names). The book on him was that if he got going early, it was near impossible to stop him. However, if you got to him early, he tended to run a bit more timid.
Early in the game, this player broke free on a run. Coaches were worried.
Adderley was not.
On the next handoff, he came in from his corner spot and walloped him.
“Herb just crushed him — spun him on his head like a top,” Robinson said. “From that point on he ran like a baby. He was intimidated. That was Herb. He intimated the opposition — receivers, runners, quarterbacks. He knew what he was doing.
“People ask me what his best play was, but I never saw him make a bad one.”
While Adderley finished the final three years of his career with the Cowboys (he won Super Bowl VI with them), he’s most known for his time in Green Bay. There he won five NFL championships, including Super Bowls I and II, and helped establish Green Bay as one of the league’s best defensive teams. After Adderley took over as a full-time starter in 1963, the Packers’ defenses finished second, second, first, first, third, fourth and third in points allowed. (Note: NFL and AFL statistics were kept separate until 1970.)
Robinson and Adderley were two of the biggest reasons for that. They played together for seven years, and formed a dynamic pairing on the left side of Vince Lombardi’s defense. They knew each other perfectly, which allowed them to play seamlessly. Robinson kept linemen off Adderley on run plays. Adderley knew when Robinson would let go of his underneath coverage for him to pick up — Robinson had the first 10 yards, and Adderley everything after.
They weren’t a linebacker and corner, Robinson said, but a single unit. It got to the point where it didn’t matter what the coaches said — the two knew their strengths, and played to them. If the coaches asked them to do something else, they would change on the fly. Robinson intercepted 27 passes during his career. He credits Adderley with an assist on “at least 15 of them.”
“He didn’t have to be the big star,” Robinson said. “He wanted to be your wingman. And if he needed one — you better be his or you’d be damn sure he’d let you know you weren’t.
“That’s the way we played. The left hand has to wash the right.”
The Packers of the mid-to-late ’60s were littered with talent. Robinson and Adderley were two of six Hall of Famers on the defense alone (Ray Nitschke, Willie Davis, Henry Jordan and Willie Wood the others). The offense featured Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, all coached by the legendary Lombardi.
For that reason, it’s sometimes easy to overlook Adderley’s excellence. It doesn’t help that he played in an era when throwing the ball wasn’t nearly as popular as it became in the decades to follow. It could be why his name was omitted from the NFL’s 100th anniversary All-Time Team.
That baffles Packers historian Cliff Christl. He wasn’t professionally covering the team then, but he was following it.
“It’s written that Lombardi once said that Hornung was the greatest player he ever coached,” Christl said. “But I thought Adderley played his position better than anyone else on those Packers teams.”
Some of the greats of yesteryear would undeniably struggle in today’s game. Not Adderley, who was perfectly suited for today’s NFL.
“When you talk about the game’s best corners, I think there are only a few guys who could both come up and play the run like they had to in the 1960s, but also run with the receivers in today’s NFL,” Christl said. “There aren’t many who can do that, but also match up physically with guys like Randy Moss, Calvin Johnson and other big receivers. Herb Adderley is one of those guys.
“He was the prototypical corner when he played, and he would still be the prototypical corner today. He was a perennial All-Pro when he played, and he’d be a perennial All-Pro today.”
Herb Adderley’s New Jersey condo is still intact. He moved his family back to Philadelphia, where he was born, after he retired from the Cowboys, and then to Jersey after he and his wife divorced. She knows she has to, but Toni hasn’t sold it yet. Herb’s passing is still so fresh. It still hurts so much. There are days, Toni said, she struggles. Selling the place her dad last called home? It’s a bridge she doesn’t want to cross right now.
So the condo is still very much how Herb left it, including the loft just above his living room when you walk in the door. That’s where he prominently displayed so many of the tokens and memorabilia from his playing days. Toni went through them shortly after her dad’s passing. She needed to write his obituary. Radio stations had reached out to have her speak about Herb as a player. She needed to familiarize herself — more than ever before — with what he’d accomplished.
She was there for hours. She couldn’t believe what she saw.
“I remember looking at it all and just saying, ‘Wow,'” Toni said. “I wish I had talked to him more about it.”
She found the phonebook where Herb had numbers written down for each of his former teammates — so many of them, like Bart Starr, now gone. She found his three Super Bowl rings, and the one from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where he was enshrined in 1980. There was his Hall of Fame jacket and bust, of course. There was a seemingly endless wall of photos, and even more game balls. There were autographed signs and banners. He had items from his time at Northeast High School and Michigan State — things Toni didn’t even know existed. There were helmets and jerseys — including a full Cowboys uniform on which Herb had written important dates and autographed the pants.
It’s impossible for Toni to recall everything that’s there — there’s too much.
All of it a sign of just how impactful her dad was to the game of football.
“When you talk about the great athletes out of Philadelphia — Wilt (Chamberlain) and Kobe (Bryant),” Toni said, “The thing that people have said to me is that my dad deserves to be mentioned with them. He deserves to be called out more often.”
(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; photo: Getty Images)
Boom! Glad you really enjoyed it.
Connor Hughes is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the New York Jets. He has covered the team since 2014, most recently for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com. Follow Connor on Twitter @connor_j_hughes.
40 COMMENTS
Add a comment...
