Don’t fret when you see Dick Butkus trending on Twitter — the legendary linebacker is still alive and kicking, with the emphasis heavy on “kicking.”
Butkus, named by the NFL Network as the most feared tackler of all time, finally got verified on Twitter this morning and immediately proceeded to take a shot at Aaron Rodgers. Not the kind of shot he used to take — Butkus once allegedly bit the leg of an offensive opponent — but it’s a delight to see that he’s still chasing down quarterbacks as he approaches 80.
After he joined Twitter in October, Butkus has been on a mission to get verified (#getbuktusverified), supported by his growing number of followers as people realized that, despite the lack of a blue check, it was, in fact, the real 2x-DPOY tweeting absolute gems such as “thank you everyone who sends notes saying how your dad loved me dont need to hear how your grandpa loved me im not that old damnit” and, on December 25, “Merry Christmas to my 20 loyal followers who know this is the REAL Dick Butkus!”
The 79-year-old Chicago native is now up to nearly 24,000 followers, and tweeted that he was “doing a late brunch to celebrate” getting verified, following that up with “also who picks up the tab on my meals now that i have the blue mark.”
Not to be the person who references “Gen Z humor,” because even I, as a member of Gen Z, find that distinction annoying, but Butkus’ Twitter has the Gen Z vibe. Maybe he’s so old that we’ve come full circle. He keeps tweeting at the “basement dwellers” and “mutts living in your mom’s basements.” He also tweeted at Rodgers last week to “help me get verified or more than your toe will be hurting.” You love to see it.
The fiercest, most ferocious linebacker of all time, Butkus played for the Bears between 1965 and 1973. He lives in California now, but tweeted that he is disappointed in the pizza options out there (a true Chicagoan). A man who apparently once hit a metal sled in practice so hard that it crumpled, he’s now entertaining the masses with even more great tweets including “fantasy football was what guys played after I hit them.”
And finally, this gem was what really got him trending today:
This account was Twitter’s best-kept secret for the past few months, but I have a feeling that we’re going to get some incredible content from here on out. Maybe he has an octogenarian career ahead of him in stand-up comedy. We can only hope.
This account was Twitter’s best-kept secret for the past few months, but I have a feeling that we’re going to get some incredible content from here on out. Maybe he has an octogenarian career ahead of him in stand-up comedy. We can only hope.
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