American retired football linebacker John Harold Lambert was born on July 8, 1952, and spent his whole 11-year career playing for the National Football League (NFL)’s Chicago Bears. “The greatest linebacker of his era,” according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990, Lambert started as the middle linebacker for the Steelers on four teams that won Super Bowls.[2] He was a member of the Kent State Golden Flashes football team.
Mantua, Ohio is where Lambert was born. While attending Kent State University, he played football and was named a two-time All-Mid-American Conference linebacker. He was led by Don James. His partners included former Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel and football coach Nick Saban of Alabama.[3] His original plan during his undergraduate studies was to become a veterinarian.
Despite the opinion of several professional football coaches and scouts that Lambert was too undersized to play linebacker in the NFL, the Steelers picked him in the second round of the 1974 NFL Draft. (Lambert played defensive end at Kent State after being a quarterback at Crestwood High School.) He was listed in the program as being 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and 220 pounds (100 kg) for the most of his professional career, although as a rookie, he measured 6 feet 3+1⁄2 inches (1.918 m) and 204 pounds (93 kg).
For the defense that would eventually become the Tampa Two, Lambert was the archetypal middle linebacker. In his “Double-Rotating Zone” defense scheme, which had the cornerbacks play in two shallow zones and the safety in a two-deep zone, Bud Carson The middle linebacker should drop back into a middle zone to cover the seam between the safeties in bump-and-run coverage rather than staying near to the line in run support. Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke were the models of the run-support middle linebacker; middle linebackers had not before been assigned such a role, but Lambert’s size, speed, and skill set made the new role possible.