George "Tarzan" Christensen is one of the foundational figures in the history of the Detroit Lions and National Football League. A towering presence on the field and key contributor to the Lions’ first championship, he produced a legacy so decorated with accomplishments that you'd think the Pro Football Hall of Fame would notice.
But then you'd be wrong.
Christensen has never advanced to the preliminary stage as a modern-era or seniors' candidate, and that's more than puzzling. It's downright unfair. He deserves a shot as a finalist. And, while that may never happen, it should.
A tackle on a Lions' team that set offensive and defensive records, Christensen was a six-time All-Pro (including four first-team selections), league champion and member of the 1930s' all-decade team - a resume that, at the very least, should draw the Hall's attention.
It did his peers.
"On our club," said Hall-of-Fame teammate Dutch Clark in the book, "The NFL's 60-Minute Men: All-Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era, 1920-1945, "was a tackle who I think should be in the Hall of Fame. His name is George Christensen, and he was as good a tackle as I ever saw on a pro team. Most of the men who played with him or against him would say the same thing."
Christensen’s pro career began in 1931 with the Portsmouth Spartans, a team that soon became the Detroit Lions. At 6-feet-2 and approximately 240 pounds -- a significant size for the time, hence the "Tarzan" nickname -- the tackle quickly established himself as a force.
Over his eight-year NFL career (1931–1938), Christensen appeared in 95 games and played a key role on a Lions' offensive line that helped produce an NFL record that stands today -- 426 rushing yards in one game, a feat that happened in a 40-7 defeat of the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) on Nov. 4, 1934.
That same year, he anchored a formidable defensive front for a Lions' team that kicked off the 1934 season with an NFL-record seven consecutive shutouts. Over the course of the year, Detroit's defense allowed a league-low 59 points, cementing its status as the top defensive unit.
The 1936 Detroit Lions squad established an NFL record for rushing prowess, too, racking up 2,885 rushing yards in a 12-game season -- a benchmark that stood unbroken until the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins surpassed it ... in 14 games. Once again, the big tackle was right in the middle of it, throwing blocks for Clark and other Lions' legends like Ace Gutowsky, Ernie Caddel and Glenn Presnell.
All of these accomplishments are why "Tarzan" was voted to the 1930s' all-decade team and first-or-second team All-NFL in 1931 (Green Bay Press-Gazette), 1932 (UP, Official NFL), 1933 (consensus -- made all the major teams), 1934-1936 (UP, Official NFL among others) ... basically, every year for his first six seasons.
"Good tackles were numerous," wrote Green Bay Press-Gazette voter George W. Calhoun when picking his All-Pro tackles for 1933, "with Christensen of Portsmouth the best of the lot. This husky Spartan was a demon on the attack, while on the defense, he raised havoc with every club Potsy Clark’s hirelings bumped into this past season."
But there was more. He was considered one of the best punt blockers of that era, too, and recovered a blocked punt in the 1935 title game to lead the Lions to a 26-7 win over the New York Giants. In other words, there was almost nothing George Christensen could not do.
Yet, despite his accolades, team successes, championship ring and role as a team captain, he's never registered with Hall-of-Fame voters, a snub that historian Chris Willis -- who served as Head of the Research Library at NFL Films and is an author of eight books on the formative years of the NFL -- considers an injustice.
In his latest contribution, "The NFL's 60-Minute Men: All-Time Greats of the Two-Way Player Era, 1920-1945", Willis argues that Christensen’s contributions have been unjustly ignored, particularly by Hall voters. And he's not alone. Jim Steen, a teammate of Christensen's, offered further praise, possibly coining a term commonly used today when he described Christensen's extraordinary size.
"George Christensen was the biggest man on the team at 238 pounds, and we used to consider him a freak," Willis quoted Steen as saying in 1974. "But I’ll tell you: He was one of the fastest men we had."
Big. Fast. Captain. Champion. All-Pro. Those are all things that shout "Canton." Yet "Tarzan" still waits. Maybe that changes some day. Maybe it doesn't. All I know is that it should.