The Green Bay Packers’ No. 59 has a clear headliner, and it comes with a Hall of Fame twist.
When you look at everyone who has worn that number for the Packers, the list includes linebackers, a couple of long snappers, and a few names that gave Green Bay useful snaps along the way. Wayne Simmons deserves a nod for spending four and a half seasons in Green Bay and helping the team win the Super Bowl at the end of the 1996 season. Na'il Diggs also made his mark, starting 80 games from 2000 to 2005 and piling up 390 total tackles, 7.0 sacks, and four interceptions.
But the best Packers player to wear No. 59 is John Anderson.
Anderson’s football résumé already stood out before he ever got to Green Bay. He was a two-time First-Team All-Big Ten selection at Michigan and earned First-Team All-American honors in his final season with the Wolverines in 1977.
The Packers then took him in the first round of the 1978 NFL Draft with the 26th overall pick, and he wasted no time showing up. As a rookie, he played in 13 games, picked off five passes, added three sacks, and made the All-Rookie Team.
The early part of his career was interrupted by injuries, which limited him to half the team’s games over the next two seasons. After that, though, Anderson became a fixture.
From 1981 through the end of the 1989 season, the Wisconsin native appeared in 117 regular-season games and started every one of them. By the time he retired, his 146 games ranked third among Packers defensive players in franchise history, behind only Ray Nitschke and Dave Hanner.
Team success was hard to come by during Anderson’s run. In his 12-year career, Green Bay reached the playoffs only once, in the strike-shortened 1982 season.
The Packers beat the then-St. Louis Cardinals 41-16 in the first round, then fell to the Dallas Cowboys in the next round.
Even without much postseason success, Anderson was one of the Packers’ brightest defensive pieces. He finished with 24.5 sacks and 25 interceptions, and that interception total tied Nitschke for the most by a linebacker in franchise history.
What makes his case even more striking is what never came his way. Anderson never made a Pro Bowl and never received an All-Pro selection. Still, when the Pro Football Hall of Fame put together its 1980s All-Decade Team, he was the only Packers defensive player chosen, earning Second-Team honors.
That’s enough to make John Anderson the top Packers player to wear No. 59, and the only Packers Hall of Fame member on the list.
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