The Dirtiest Players In NFL History

We all know that football is a violent sport. It's a game in which large, heavy, athletic dudes strap what is basically plastic armor all over their bodies, then fight over which direction a leather ball is going while smacking the absolute snot out of each other. It's also an emotional (see: testosterone-drenched) game, and in the heat of a crucial play, guys are known to throw caution and self-preservation to the wind and go full speed with little thought to the consequences for their bones, skulls, and internal organs. And certainly without any concern for the other guys' bones.

But throughout the history of the NFL, there have been players who take the game's hard-knock philosophy to the extreme, taking the mandate to play "physical" as a license to attempt to actually murder anyone wearing the wrong jersey. You've heard about them; they're the ones TV analysts refer to as the "most feared" players in the league, but their peers often just call them "dirty." Many of these players achieved great success, and some are even legendary, but they all have one thing in common. They are the nastiest, rule-flaunting-est, dirtiest players to ever play in the NFL.

Linebacker Bill Romanowski, who won two Super Bowls as a member of the Denver Broncos, was a guy who always seemed to be playing angry. But in his defense, it was probably all the steroids. In an interview with 60 Minutes shortly after his 2003 retirement, he admitted to using steroids and human growth hormone during his career, which explained a lot. Like the time he spit in the face of 49ers receiver J.J. Stokes during a nationally televised game. Or the time he broke the jaw of Panthers quarterback Kerry Collins with an illegal hit in a freaking preseason game. Or the time he full-on punched a teammate during practice, shattering the guy's eye socket. Or the time he kicked Cardinals fullback Larry Centers in the head, or ... well, the list just kind of goes on.

In 2011, a full decade after "Romocop" played his last down for the Broncos, the Denver Post honored with him with the top spot on its prestigious "All-Dirty Team." Romanowski was unsurprised, and in fact called it a fair assessment, qualifying it with, "When you're going 150 miles an hour on every play, for 60 minutes, 'Hey, did I cross the line? Absolutely. I was a guy who never wanted to fall below the line."

In 1984, the then-Los Angeles Raiders were coming off an impressive season, culminating in a Super Bowl win. They posted an 11-5 record, good for a return trip to the playoffs — but in a Washington Post profile of the team, they were characterized less as a defending champion and more like a street gang. Tight end Todd Christensen put it this way: "We're a halfway house for wayward players. We've had plenty of people here better suited for jail than games." As if to illustrate his point, defensive end Lyle Alzado piped up with a comment on the previous day's scrimmage, which coach Todd Flores had cut short for fear of the guys on his team killing each other. "That's the way we know we are ready," Alzado said. "What's wrong with fighting? I never knew a man I didn't want to fight."

Alzado had been traded from the Browns in 1982 because the organization was convinced he had mental problems. ("They were right," Alzado would later say.) It would come to light years later that Alzado had a steroid problem, which combined with emotional issues to make for a ball of fury who would try to take your head off on every play. He was known as "Darth Raider," a player whose rage had no "off" switch. The NFL rule prohibiting the use of a helmet as a weapon is called the "Lyle Alzado rule." On a team known for being ... well, the Raiders, he was the Raider-iest.

Offensive lineman Conrad Dobler enjoyed a ten-year career with the Cardinals, Saints, and Bills — if one can be said to have enjoyed a decade-long murderous rampage. He wasn't the biggest, strongest, or fastest, so he made up for it by being the meanest, nastiest, and dirtiest. He was known to disorient oncoming defensive linemen by spitting in their faces, then punching them in the solar plexus underneath their pads. Sports Illustrated once named him the dirtiest player in football — on its cover. He was The Conrad Dobler, an absolute menace who tried to get away with every single little infraction he could — and he got away with a lot.

Dobler was widely renowned as a biter, and he admitted as much to Esquire but said it was just once. According to Dobler, Vikings player Doug Sutherland once put his fingers into Dobler's facemask: "I don't think they were there to stroke my mustahce. So I bite one finger in my life, and I don't even chew on it. The legend grew from there." Even the scariest players of his era feared him; he kicked ferocious defensive tackle Merlin Olsen in the head, and punched Mean Joe Greene in the face. Buffalo linebacker Phil Villapiano called him "a tough, rotten, nasty guy" — and Villapiano was one of his best friends.

When your name is Incognito, you'd think the tendency to keep a low profile would be ingrained into your personality. Not so for former offensive guard Richie Incognito, who absolutely couldn't keep from drawing attention to himself with his egregiously aggressive play and his wantonly blabbing mouth. Drafted by the Rams in 2005, Incognito also played for Buffalo and Miami, where he felt the need to address his rep for being a cheap shot artist in 2013. "I'm not really concerned with what other teams think. I'm really concerned with what guys on my team think," he said. Tell that to Jonathan Martin, an offensive lineman whose two years in Miami were made a personal hell by Incognito and two others, who relentlessly bullied and harassed Martin until he left the team via trade.

Incognito would later be cited as the ringleader of the bullying in a report by NFL investigator Ted Wells, who noted that once Martin went public with his experience, Incognito responded with threats, racial slurs, and sexual taunts about Martin's mother and sisters. Incognito was suspended for conduct detrimental to the team, though he maintained his innocence, saying he never engaged in such behavior. The problem with this is that he did it in college, too, pushing around a walk-on who was just trying to make the team. A real team player, that Richie Incognito.

Among dozens of Steelers players who could be considered legendary, receiver Hines Ward is perhaps the most beloved in the eyes of fans. He was a four-time Pro Bowler, a two-time Super Bowl champion, MVP of Super Bowl XL, and for years was QB Ben Roethlisberger's single most reliable target. He also had a great personality, a million-dollar smile, and a wholly unmatched ability to block unwitting would-be tacklers from their blind sides. During one stretch in 2009, he was fined $15,000 in back-to-back weeks for blindside hits. Not getting the message, Ward followed this up by breaking the jaw of Bengals rookie Keith Rivers. Perhaps not coincidentally, Ward took home the "dirtiest player" title in that year's players' poll.

He responded to the tag with not the slightest bit of contrition. "I'm not going to change the way I play," he said, adding with no sarcasm whatsoever, "If people think I'm dirty, I apologize to them now." When Ward retired in 2012, Bengals safety Chris Crocker — who remembered that hit on Rivers all too well and claims Ward once punched him in the face on the field — wasn't too broken up about it. "Stuff like that, it's just not right," Crocker said, "And I'm not the only guy that thinks it." In a 2016 Players' Tribune conversation with Ward and Ravens great Ed Reed, this was confirmed: Said Reed, "I don't know anybody in the league who didn't wanna knock that smile off your face."