 Eller in 2007 | |||||||||||||
| No. 81, 71 | |||||||||||||
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| Position | Defensive end | ||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Born | (1942-01-25)January 25, 1942 (age 83) Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) | ||||||||||||
| Weight | 247 lb (112 kg) | ||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||
| High school | Atkins (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) | ||||||||||||
| College | Minnesota (1961–1963) | ||||||||||||
| NFL draft | 1964: 1st round, 6th overall pick | ||||||||||||
| AFL draft | 1964: 1st round, 5th overall pick | ||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||
| Awards and highlights | |||||||||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||
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Carl Lee Eller (born January 25, 1942) is an American former professionalfootball player who played as adefensive end in theNational Football League (NFL) from 1964 through 1979. He was born inWinston-Salem, North Carolina and playedcollege football for theMinnesota Golden Gophers. He was elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
Eller was born on January 25, 1942, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.[1] Eller's family was poor, and his father died when Eller was young. Early in his Professional Football Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Eller acknowledges how great his parents were in his life.[2]
He attendedAtkins High School, where he excelled in football, and was inspired and given direction by his high school football coaches.[3][2] His team won the 1959 state football championship. One of his championship teammates was futureNational Basketball Association playerHappy Hairston.[4][5] He was also on the track team, indiscus andshot put.[6]
He got the nickname "Moose" while playing sandlot football around the same time.[3]
He was recruited to theUniversity of Minnesota by head coachMurrary Warmath, on the recommendation ofBobby Bell, a fellow North Carolina high school player, fromShelby.[2][7] Eller played defensive tackle from 1961-1963, and began starting in his sophomore year (1961), playing with a broken hand that year.[8][9][10] In 1961 and 1962, Eller played tackle alongside Bell, a future NFL Hall of Fame linebacker and the 1962Outland Trophy winner.[11][12][13]
As a sophomore, on January 1, 1962, Eller starred in helping lead the Golden Gophers to a 21–3Rose Bowl victory overUCLA.[14] Eller played both offensive left tackle and defensive tackle in the game, throwing keyblocks as an offensive lineman during the game.[15] The team had been divided on whether to go back to the Rose Bowl, after losing the game one year earlier,[16] but quarterback Sandy Stevens convinced the team they should go for Eller's sake, as he might never have another opportunity to play in the game.[17] In 1972, a group of writers and Rose Bowl experts included Eller at defensive tackle on their 50-year Rose Bowl team.[18]
While Eller shared the starting position at offensive tackle as a sophomore,[7] he became a full-time,two-way player as a junior and senior[19][20] and was votedAll-American in 1962[citation needed] and 1963.[21]
The 1962Naval Academy team included Eller on its all-opponent team.[22] As a junior in 1962, he was second team All-Big Ten,[23] and the following year Eller was a consensus All-American and first team All-Big Ten.[24][8] In 1963, he also won the school'sBronko Nagurski Award as the team's most valuable player.[23] As a senior (1963), Eller was the runner-up for the Outland Trophy.[9][8]
During his freshman year in college, the1960 Gophers were National Champions and Big Ten Champions, losing in the Rose Bowl; though Eller did not play on that team.[25][26][10][16] Minnesota was a losing team in the immediate prior seasons, and coach Warmath had decided to field a racially and geographically diverse team. Eller, who was on the 1960 freshman team, believed and emphasized that the ultimately successful Minnesota teams during that era were “'a major, major factor in the [Black] freedom movement.'"[17]
At theUniversity of Minnesota, Eller joined the Mu chapter of theAlpha Phi Alpha fraternity.[27]
In 1964, Eller was selected in the first round of theNFL draft by theMinnesota Vikings (6th overall). He was also selected in the first round of theAmerican Football League draft by theBuffalo Bills (5th overall), who could not sign him.[2][10][28] As the leftdefensive end in the Vikings front four, he was a major factor in the unit known as the "Purple People Eaters" (the other members beingAlan Page,Jim Marshall andGary Larsen).[19][29][30][31]
Starting in 1968, Eller's fifth campaign, Minnesota won 10 Central Division titles in the next 11 seasons.[31] The Vikings won the NFL Championship in 1969,[32] losing to the AFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs inSuper Bowl IV.[33] The Vikings also won the NFC Championships in 1973, 1974, and 1976,[34] but lost in the Super Bowl each year.[31] Eller was one of 11 Vikings to play in all four of theirSuper Bowls.[35]
He was selected to play in sixPro Bowls (1968–1971, 1973, and 1974).[1] After being traded with an eighth-round pick to Seattle Seahawks for defensive tackleSteve Niehaus,[36] Eller played his final season in 1979 with theSeattle Seahawks, where he ran his career total to 225 games. In his career, "Moose" only missed three games and started 209 out of the 225 he played.[1][37]
Eller is credited as the Vikings' all-time sack leader with 130½.[38] He also had 3 sacks with the Seahawks in 1979 for a career total of 133½. He set a career high with 15 sacks in 1969 and matched that total in 1977; he also amassed 7 seasons with 10 or more sacks.[39][1] He recovered 23 fumbles during his career.[9]
Eller was first-team All-NFL from 1968 to 1971, and again in 1973.[1] He was also second-team All-Pro in 1967[40] and 1972[41] and was named first-team All-NFC by theAP,UPI,[42] andTheSporting News[citation needed]in 1975. Including his Pro Bowls, Eller had a nine-year consecutive streak of post-season honors which began in 1967 with his second-team All-Pro selection and ended in 1975 with his All-NFC honors. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 1970s All-Decade Team.[43]
He was voted the winner of theGeorge Halas Trophy in 1971 as the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year as awarded by theNewspaper Enterprise Association.[44]
In 2004, Eller was elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame.[44] He was elected to theCollege Football Hall of Fame in 2006.[8] In 2000, Eller was named to the Vikings' 40th Anniversary Team and in 2010, he was named to the Vikings' 50th Anniversary team. Beginning in 1984, following each football season, the Carl Eller Award is given to the University of Minnesota's Defensive Player of the Year.[23] In 1992, he was inducted into the University of Minnesota's M Club Hall of Fame.[9]
In 2003, he was named to theProfessional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's inaugural HOVG class.[45]
As a licensed drug and alcohol counselor, Eller founded a group of substance-abuse clinics in the Twin Cities called Triumph Life Centers in 1986.He obtained a college degree in Human Services fromMetropolitan State University in 1994 and went on to work for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, addressing issues of health disparities between white people and people of color.[46]
Eller was arrested in 2006 fordriving under the influence and pleaded guilty.[47] He was arrested in 2008 for fourth-degree assault of apolice officer and second-degree refusal to submit to chemical testing, bothgross misdemeanors.[48] He was sentenced and served 60 days in the county workhouse.[49]
Eller later served as president of the NFL Retired Players Association. In 2020, he joined the Halberd Corporation, a research-based publicly traded company that helps discover and develop medical treatments for diseases, as a consultant.[50]
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