FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - It was much tougher for Andre Tippett to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame than into an opponent's backfield.

Tippett had to wait until his 10th year of eligibility to be voted in. The linebacker he often was compared with, Lawrence Taylor, made it on his first chance.

On Saturday, though, the greatest pass rusher in New England Patriots history finally joins one of the greatest pass rushers in the history of the NFL in the game's shrine in Canton, Ohio.

"I took the attitude that, you know what, if it happens this year, I'm excited. If it doesn't, then next year,'' Tippett said. "The year before, I had gotten to the final and so it was getting closer. To say that I expected it, no.''

It's an honor he can put with another one he cherishes: spending his entire career with one team even though the Patriots were horrible in his last five seasons, with a total of 19 wins.

"I wear it as a badge of honor,'' Tippett said. "Toward the end of my career, probably around '90, I talked to guys, and guys would say to me, `You know, how do you stay there, all of the things that are going on, and why don't you do something to get out of there?'

"And to me, it wasn't my manner. It wasn't my personality or my makeup to be that type of person.''

So he finished his career with the Patriots and has spent much of the time since then in the front office, currently as executive director of community affairs.

On the field, he had 100 sacks from 1982-93, missing the 1989 season with a shoulder injury. Taylor started a year earlier with the New York Giants and also retired after the 1993 season, finishing with 132 1/2 sacks.

Both were strong, speedy and nonstop workers — Tippett in the AFC, Taylor in the NFC.

But Taylor was a more flamboyant personality who played in the New York media spotlight and was on two Super Bowl winners. The quieter Tippett, a black belt in karate, started playing for the Patriots when they were two decades away from dominating the NFL with three titles in four years.

"I think they were in the same class'' as players, said quarterback Steve Grogan, Tippett's teammate from 1982-90. "I don't think he got the attention because he wasn't media friendly like Taylor was and we weren't winning championships like Taylor was.

"So I don't think people really gave him the attention he probably deserved, until now.''

Tippett, a star at Iowa, was drafted in the second round, 41st overall, in 1982 and played mostly on special teams as a rookie. Taylor was the second player drafted in 1981 and made the Pro Bowl as a rookie.

Tippett started 12 games in 1983, then piled up 18 1/2 and 16 1/2 sacks the next two seasons, the two highest single-season totals in Patriots history.

He had 9 1/2 in 1986, Marv Levy's first as coach of the Buffalo Bills, who played New England twice each season.

"I never remember him taking a play off,'' Levy said. "Most of the great ones have a great motor and that is what I remember most about him.''

Grogan saw that in practice.

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