Bill Bergey

[ChrisBabcock]

I’ve got a question about Bill Bergey’s interception totals. I am the editor of the newsletter for the Allegany State Park Historical Society here in western New York. Someone submitted an article listing various famous people who have camped in the park with short bios for each. Bill Bergey is listed, and in his description I see the phrase... “set the record for most interceptions by a linebacker”. I highly doubted that was correct so I started digging. His Wikipedia page has the same claim... “set the record for most interceptions by a linebacker”. What??? Off to pro-football-reference I go. A quick search gives me this....

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... by=def_int

It looks like he ranked 7th for interceptions by a linebacker at the time of his retirement. So what interception record did he set? If any? It definitely wasn’t a single season record. It wasn’t the Eagles career record. That belongs to Concrete Charlie. Does anyone have any ideas or insight on this? I’d like to quantify the “set the interceptions record by a linebacker” statement, if it is at all true.

[Mark Durr]

When he was named to the Hall of Very Good for the 2012 class, this was included in his bio in the Coffin Corner (volume 35, number 1):

He had 233 tackles one year and for a time held the record for interceptions in a season by a linebacker, with five.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, that was in 1974, so I'm guessing that's what the writer intended.

MD

[Jay Z]

When he was named to the Hall of Very Good for the 2012 class, this was included in his bio in the Coffin Corner (volume 35, number 1):

He had 233 tackles one year and for a time held the record for interceptions in a season by a linebacker, with five.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, that was in 1974, so I'm guessing that's what the writer intended.

MD

Dozens of linebackers before 1974 had at least 5 interceptions in a season. It doesn't apply to MLBs either. About the only way that statement can be right is that Bergey had the most INT for a MLB in 1974. For all LB, he was tied with Ted Hendricks and Jack Ham.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

I suspect the record (such as it was) was most interceptions in a game by a linebacker. He had 2 twice, but over the last ten years or so a few LBs have had games with 3. PFR doesn't have an easy search by position by game before 1999, so I can't say for sure if there was another LB before him that had 3.

[Jay Z]

I suspect the record (such as it was) was most interceptions in a game by a linebacker. He had 2 twice, but over the last ten years or so a few LBs have had games with 3. PFR doesn't have an easy search by position by game before 1999, so I can't say for sure if there was another LB before him that had 3.

No, that's not it. Lee Roy Jordan had 3 in a game in 1973. Many LBs had 2 in a game. First LB to have two in a game twice for teams in different conferences? That is really stretching the concept of "record."

[ChrisBabcock]

That is really stretching the concept of "record."

Yeah. Thanks for the input everyone. I think whoever updated the wikipedia page just threw a lie in there for the heck of it, and nobody's noticed or edited it since then.