Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I know Atkins left on somewhat bad terms with Papa Bear, but pretty much anyone who left the team in that era did, but the guy is a slam dunk HOF'er, played for the team for over a decade, and Played on a Championship winning team that was led by Defense. Any ideas? Heck George Conner wore the number as well before Doug did.

NWebster wrote:I know Atkins left on somewhat bad terms with Papa Bear, but pretty much anyone who left the team in that era did, but the guy is a slam dunk HOF'er, played for the team for over a decade, and Played on a Championship winning team that was led by Defense. Any ideas? Heck George Conner wore the number as well before Doug did.

When speaking of Doug Atkins, Halas would say something like "When he wanted to be, he was the best defensive end who ever played the game." As this implies, the rap on Doug Atkins was he was he made many phenomenal (NFL Films put on some great highlights of him) plays but was very inconsistent. It took him several years to get into the HOF. I don't know if this had anything to do with Atkins' number not being retired.

SixtiesFan wrote:. I don't know if this had anything to do with Atkins' number not being retired.

Maybe, it likely was the fued between he and Halas. But also, some teams had guidelines that a player had to have not played fro anyone else. Obviously not all teams and later teams who did that changed it.

One example was Dickerson. Rams wouldn't retire his jersey but he talked enough and in the 1990s they changed the policy. That policy is why Van Brockin's number was not retired and Waterfield's was.

Maybe Bears had that rule at some time. I don't know one way or another