MSU Legend, NFL HoF'er Adderley Was Part of the Last Championship 3-Peat

The Kansas City Chiefs are on the cusp of three-straight Super Bowl wins as they take on the Philadelphia Eagles in New Orleans.

The Green Bay Packers were the last team to achieve the feat, winning the NFL championship in 1966 and Super Bowls I and II the following years. A key member of those teams was Michigan State legend Herb Adderley, who was the premier cornerback of the era.

Adderley was part of all five of Vince Lombardi's championship teams -- the famed coach is, of course, the namesake for the NFL's holy grail. There is still a case for Lombardi as the greatest coach in NFL history.

Adderley, a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee in 1980, was the first player to ever record a pick-six and score a defensive touchdown in the Super Bowl, doing it against the Oakland Raiders in the second iteration of the contest. After leaving Green Bay, Adderley would appear in the big game twice more with Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys, winning Super Bowl VI over the Miami Dolphins.

Adderley retired as a seven-time All-Pro (first- or second-team, five first-team selections) and five-time Pro Bowl selection with 48 career interceptions. He finished with a total of six rings -- three Super Bowl championships and three NFL championships.

Only one player in NFL history has been on more championship teams -- Tom Brady.

Ultimately, Adderley was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame's All-Decade team for the 1960s.

The 12th overall pick in the 1961 AFL Draft, Adderley was a standout running back for Michigan State and legendary coach Duffy Daugherty. Lombardi made him transition to defensive back, however. It proved to be the right move.

"I was too stubborn to switch him to defense until I had to,” Lombardi once said. “Now when I think of what Adderley means to our defense, it scares me to think of how I almost mishandled him.”

Hall-of-Fame Packers quarterback Bart Starr once said that Adderley was "the greatest cornerback to ever play the game.”

Tommy McDonald, a Hall-of-Fame wide receiver, once spoke of the challenge that Adderley posed.

"Herb Adderley simply wouldn’t let me get to the outside,” McDonald said. “He’d just beat me up, force me to turn underneath routes all the time. ... Other guys tried the same tactic, but he was the only one tough enough and fast enough to get it done.”

In 2010, Adderley was named as one of the NFL's 100 greatest players list presented by the NFL Network, slotting in at No. 64.

Adderley died in 2020 at 81 years old.

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