Brian Urlacher admits to using his hair as a disguise

If you saw former Bears star Brian Urlacher on the street, you might not recognize him.

During his glory days with the Bears, Urlacher’s head was smooth like a bowling ball, but now, he said, his newfound hair gives him an entirely different look.

“The best thing is, people don’t recognize me,” Urlacher said in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated. “If I don’t wear a hat, people are like, ‘I don’t think that’s him’ … So it’s actually pretty nice. It’s a nice disguise.”

Urlacher, 39, also joked that people talk about his hair more than his football career.

“Everyone talks about the hair. If you’re driving through Chicago, you can’t miss the damn billboards everywhere. It’s unbelievable,” Urlacher said. “Now when I see a picture of myself bald, I’m like … [groans]. I’m so used to seeing myself with hair now, I don’t know. You just get used to something and that’s the way it is.”

So where in the world did all this hair on Urlacher’s head come from last year? The former Bears linebacker and first-ballot Hall of Fame candidate weighed in.

“I had a buddy who went and got the procedure done. He was bald, and he was trying to hang onto it,” he said. “See, I was fine being bald, because I have a good-shaped head. But he was like, Dude, you should try it out. But I didn’t want a scar on my head. He said ‘There’s no scars.’

“So I went and got it done. And luckily my wife was like, it looks pretty good. When your wife says yeah, you’ve got to do it, right? If it makes her happy, then I’m happy. So I went ahead and stuck with it.”

Urlacher was the ninth overall pick in 2000, and was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year after recording 123 tackles and eight sacks in his first season with the Bears. The eight-time Pro Bowler retired with 41.5 sacks and 22 interceptions in 13 seasons. He helped lead the Bears to four division titles and a berth in Super Bowl XLI.

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