More than 70 years after his final football game, Don Hutson stands alone at the top.

Hutson is No. 1 on The 100, AL.com's list of the greatest football players with ties to the state of Alabama. The former Alabama star and Green Bay Packers legend was a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame (Class of 1951), the Pro Football Hall of Fame (1963) and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame (1968).

Hutson was an All-America end on Alabama's 1934 national championship Rose Bowl team, where he starred on the same front line as future coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant. Hutson was a nine-time All-Pro and won two league MVP trophies in 11 seasons with the Packers, and is widely considered the greatest player of the NFL's pre-World War II days.

Gil Brandt, a longtime Dallas Cowboys executive and now an analyst with NFL.com and Sirius NFL Network Radio, grew up in Wisconsin during the height of Hutson's career with the Packers. He said he saw Hutson play for Green Bay "as a very little boy," and has seen and evaluated nearly every great player since.

"He was without question one of the great players of all-time," Brandt said in an interview with AL.com. "His pass-catching, his technique of catching was totally different for his time -- he caught the ball in his hands. He didn't trap the ball.

"In those days, they played the single wing on offense. He'd play safety on defense, and he had a bunch of interceptions, too."

Still among the greatest ever

As recently as this past March, NFL.com still listed Hutson as No. 2 overall among wide receivers in pro football history. Only Jerry Rice was ahead of him.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Hutson could run the 100-yard dash in 9.7 seconds, but was also regarded as a hard worker and a very heady player. He was credited with inventing many modern pass patterns, and was probably the first player to incorporate fakes into his routes.

As Philadelphia Eagles coach Greasy Neale once told the New York Times, "Hutson is the only man I ever saw who could feint in three different directions at the same time."

When he retired in 1945, Hutson held 18 NFL single-game, single-season and career records and had more than double the number of receptions (488) as the next-closest player. He was to receivers in football in the 1930s and 40s what Babe Ruth was to home run hitters in baseball in the 1920s -- there was no one remotely close to him during the time that he played.

"Nobody knows how great Hutson was (based on) passes caught," Brandt said. "As an example (in Dallas in the 1970s), we had a fellow by the name of Drew Pearson. He had around 450 catches in his career and led the league in receptions twice with around 55 catches. Fifty-five catches (in a season) doesn't mean scratch today. People think 'well, he must not have been very good.' But we very seldom threw the ball in those days. We ran it so much more than we threw it.

"That was even more true in Hutson's time. You look today and you see completion rates are 62-to-66 percent. In those days, if teams completed 30 percent of their passes, that was good. For him to catch the number of passes he caught was a true exception."

Indeed, Hutson's career statistics stand up so many years later. Despite playing in seasons that numbered only 11 or 12 games most years (as opposed to 16 now), Hutson is still in the Top 100 in NFL history in receiving yards (7,991, 90th), receiving yards per game (68.9, 29th), yards per reception (16.4, 85th), points scored (823, 85th), touchdown receptions (99, 10th) and overall touchdowns (105, 17th).

The receiving touchdowns total deserves special mention, as it stood as the NFL record until Steve Largent broke it in 1989. Every other player now in the Top 10 in career receiving touchdowns began his career after 1984.

One of every 4.9 of Hutson's receptions went for a touchdown. Rice, by comparison, scored a touchdown on one of every 7.8 catches in his career.

In addition, Hutson was an outstanding defensive back, credited with 30 career interceptions even though interceptions were not an official statistic until his sixth NFL season. He also handled extra points and field goals for his team from time-to-time, making 94 percent of his career PATs in an era when 80 percent was considered acceptable.

From Pine Bluff to Tuscaloosa to Pasadena

Born Jan. 31, 1913, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Hutson was one of several outstanding players from that state who ventured to Alabama for college (Bryant was another). The Crimson Tide claimed its fourth national championship in 1934, Hutson's senior year.

Alabama capped that season in the Rose Bowl, and the All-America end put on a quite a show. Hutson caught touchdown passes of 50 and 59 yards as the Crimson Tide stunned Stanford 29-13 to finish a perfect 10-0.

Hutson completed his college career two years before the Heisman Trophy was first awarded, but there's a good chance he would have been Alabama's first winner had the honor then existed. In 2009, writing for the National Football Foundation newsletter, famed sports writer and college football historian Dan Jenkins awarded Hutson a "retroactive Heisman" for 1934.

There was also no NFL draft at the time, so legendary Packers coach Curly Lambeau was able to beat his opponents to the punch by clever scouting and with deep pockets. According to a 1997 New York Times story, Lambeau scaled a fence at Alabama's closed practice prior to the Rose Bowl so he could watch Hutson in action.

Lambeau's early pursuit of Hutson paid off, both for him and Hutson.

"After playing at Alabama, I had letters from maybe 10 pro clubs," Hutson told the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1985. "I ended up going to Green Bay because the Packers offered the most money -- $300 a game. That was far and above what they ever paid a player. Each week they'd give me a check for $150 from one bank and $150 from another so nobody would know how much I was getting paid."

But Hutson's signing with the Packers didn't exactly go off without a hitch.

"Don Hutson was probably responsible more than anything, for the draft," Brandt said. "Don Hutson signed two contracts, one with Green Bay and one with the (NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers). They had to determine which one he signed first, and from the postmark, he apparently signed the one with Green Bay first.

"So they said, 'starting in 1936, we're going to have a draft. We won't have anymore instances of guys signing with two different teams.'"

An immediate star in Green Bay



On the first play from scrimmage of Hutson's first NFL game, he caught an 83-yard touchdown pass against the Chicago Bears. His pro career was off and running.

"For the next 10 years, Hutson was doing that sort of thing to every club in the National Football League," legendary Bears coach George Halas once told The New York Times. "I just concede him two touchdowns a game, and I hope we can score more."

Hutson led the Packers to NFL championships in 1936, 1939 and 1944, and led the league in receptions and touchdowns eight times before retiring following the 1945 season. He then spent two years as a Packers assistant coach and later owned a successful bowling alley and a number of car dealerships in Wisconsin.

The Packers retired Hutson's No. 14 in 1951, making him the first player so honored. He also has street named after him in Green Bay, and the Packers opened the Don Hutson Center indoor practice facility in 1994.

Hutson moved to California after retiring from business, and died there on June 26, 1997, at age 84.

Here's an NFL Films video on Hutson's career, including game highlights and an interview with Hutson: