The SEC has an established history of elevating its brightest stars to the NFL, which might make the next sentence somewhat surprising. Of the 29 former NFL linebackers inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, only one played his college career in the SEC: former Alabama linebacker Derrick Thomas.

Does this make Derrick Thomas the greatest SEC linebacker ever? Not necessarily. After all, college football has its own Hall of Fame, so the Pro Football Hall does not care much about what a player achieved during his college years. The SEC record books feel the same about a player’s pro career.

But what that statement above does mean is Thomas is the SEC’s best pro linebacker ever. Many of the SEC’s best professional linebackers played college ball during the BCS era and are either still in the league or not far enough removed from their playing days to qualify for the Hall of Fame.

Nevertheless, no SEC linebacker has achieved more at the NFL level than Thomas did during his 11-season career with the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989-99.

His 642 career tackles are nice, but also amount to an average of fewer than 60 per season, which is rather pedestrian when considering the NFL plays a 16-game regular season. His one career interception doesn’t warrant mass hysteria either.

But his 126.5 career sacks, which rank 15h in league history, are how Thomas made a name for himself in the NFL.

Of course, he began writing that legacy in college at Alabama, where he remains the NCAA’s record-holder for sacks in a season (27 during his 1988 All-American season) and sacks in a career (52).

His NFL tenure proved to be more of the same. Thomas averaged double-digit sacks per season during his career, never amassing fewer than 7 in any one season in addition to posting 12 or more sacks five times during his 11-year run.

In fact, not only did he never register fewer than seven sacks in a single season, but the seven he recorded against Seattle in a game in 1990 remain a single game record. The only other player to record even six in one game since is, you guessed it, Thomas again, who logged a half-dozen sacks in the Chiefs’ 1998 season opener against the Oakland Raiders.

He is the best pass-rusher in NFL history to not play with a hand in the ground pre-snap, taking the wrinkle of applying pressure from the edges and transforming it into a staple of modern NFL defenses today. The recent trend of 3-4 defenses throughout the league and the practice of converting college defensive ends to NFL outside linebackers is not credited directly to Thomas, but it’d be naive to expect he didn’t have at least something to do with it all.

His sacks allowed him to create plays in other ways as well. Thomas’ 41 NFL forced fumbles created numerous opportunities for the Chiefs teams of the 1990s, especially the eight he recorded in 1992 when he recorded the second-highest single season sack total of his career with 14.5.

He was named to the Pro Bowl at the conclusion of each of his first nine NFL seasons, and was named an All-Pro six times between 1990-96. In his heyday, he was the single most unstoppable player in professional football at any position, and his stats and accolades reflect that.

Thomas is the obvious choice as the SEC’s best NFL linebacker, but he’s not alone in the discussion. Current linebackers like Patrick Willis, Brandon Spikes, C.J. Mosley and Jarvis Jones may have a say in the matter when their careers come to an end, as might players like Takeo Spikes and DeMeco Ryans.

Kevin Greene, who sits third on the NFL’s all-time sack list with 160 in 15 seasons, might qualify as well had he not moved to defensive end upon graduating from Auburn.

But those players, the ones with a legacy still left to write, that is, have their work cut out for them if they hope to top Thomas’ achievements. The sack numbers are incredible, and the number of plays blown up by Thomas’ teammates just because the sack artist was drawing a double or triple team are innumerable.

He impacted games simply by stepping between the white lines, and any star who can do that is obviously a special talent.

Thomas was indeed special during his playing days, and his career numbers might have been even more astounding had he not died in a car accident in 2000 at the age of 33.

But even in the short time he enjoyed on Earth, Thomas made a massive impact on the game of football at both the college and professional levels, representing himself and the Crimson Tide with dignity on football’s biggest stages.

Thomas was posthumously named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009 and to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2014.