Andre Tippett was a basket case. It comes with the territory.

The five-time Pro Bowl linebacker of the Patriots and former AFC Defensive Player of the Year had been burning the midnight oil for days, toiling over words on a piece of paper. That’s not what earned him his place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where he was inducted Aug. 2 along with Darrell Green, Art Monk, Gary Zimmerman, Fred Dean and Emmitt Thomas, but it was consuming him in the final days leading up to his induction.

Words were now important. When you end up in a place you never thought you’d be, they’re the way you explain what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Ex-Patriot Andre Tippett during playing days

Although considered the best 3-4 strong-side linebacker to ever play, Tippett knew his induction was a long shot not because of his many achievements, but because he didn’t fit the mold. In 12 years with the Patriots, his teams never won a Super Bowl, and they reached the playoffs only three times. In many years the franchise operated like a circus, creating problems no single player, regardless of his skill, could overcome.

The odds of anyone reaching Canton are so long they are difficult to fathom. However, with over 70 percent of the inductees having played on a world championship team, the difficulties for someone like Tippett are magnified even though he had 100 sacks and averaged less than half a tackle and two-thirds of a sack per game less than his longtime rival and perhaps the game’s greatest outside linebacker, Lawrence Taylor.

L.T. and A.T. have long been joined at the hip, in large part because they were the two most feared pass rushers of their time. But Taylor played in New York on two Super Bowl-winning teams while Tippett struggled in Foxborough, Mass., which in those days was the football wilderness.

“I think that debate is finally over,’’ said Tippett. “We’re both in the same place now. You go to the Hall of Fame and you’ll see him, and you go there and you’ll see me. No one can take Lawrence’s greatness away, but it’s a badge of honor for me that I played the strong side in New England before many people knew where that was and I still got here.’’

Born in poverty in Birmingham, Ala., Tippett found his way to the University of Iowa and led the Hawkeyes to their first Rose Bowl appearance in over two decades before arriving in New England in 1982 as a second-round draft choice. He was thinking about many things then, but not the Hall of Fame.

“It’s not something that’s on your definite career goals,’’ Tippett said of his induction. “It doesn’t go down like that. There are only 17 linebackers. There have been 18,000, 19,000 guys to play in the NFL, and there’s only 247 players who ever got into the Hall.

“That percentage will stun you when you look at it. It really hit me as I was preparing to go out to Canton. I’m heading to the Hall. To know the number of guys in there compared to the number of guys who ever played, you realize how special it is.

“On the other hand, you realize there are guys like Jerry Kramer — a guy who was on the all-time NFL team for the 50th anniversary — not in there. Now that I’m on the inside looking out, I understand how hard it is to get in. I could have easily not made it this year, and if I didn’t, who knows where I might have ended up?’’

The pressure is searing for a player who reaches the final 15 and then must wait for hours the day before the Super Bowl to learn if he has made it through those final three rounds that finally produce that year’s class of inductees. Few players talk about it, but Tippett admitted that when he failed to make the final cut two years ago, he was glad he was home alone.

“When I learned I didn’t make it, I was devastated,’’ Tippett said. “Not that I thought I deserved it more than someone else. It’s just that you’re finally in the room. You make it to the finals and then you don’t get through that last door.

“You realize you were touching greatness but you didn’t quite get there. For a guy like Art (Monk) to have that happen six times must have been so hard. I appreciate that they’re not just letting anyone in. It shows the committee does all it can to protect the integrity of the Hall.

“The first year I was on the list, it was like I was gone in a puff of air. When my name finally got into the room, it was an honor to be there. If they finally call your name, you forget any disappointment you felt because now there is nothing else left for you to accomplish as a player. There’s nothing else after this honor. I just die.

“No one can take it from me. My great, great grandchildren can go to Canton and see my bust, and they know maybe I did something back in the day.’’

More than 20 years ago, Tippett was a regular Pro Bowl selectee who used to stand on the field and watch older men in Hawaiian shirts walk onto the field. Each was a member of the upcoming class. They were men Tippett would smile at but not fully see as peers.

“You’d see these guys on the sidelines in their Hawaiian shirts and a lei and go over and shake hands, but it never enters your mind one day it might be you,’’ Tippett said. “I’m just a player in the league. It’s cool to see, but it’s not saying anything to me.

“That’s when it really hit me this year. At the Pro Bowl. Now I’m in the Hawaiian shirt and Lofa Tatupu runs up and hugs me. I played with his dad (Mosi). I remembered when he was my son’s age, playing with my helmet. Now there I am.’’

Yes, there he is. A member of the most exclusive society in sports and a guy searching for words to say thanks to everyone who helped him open a very small door.

Longtime Boston Globe football columnist Ron Borges now writes for Pro Football Weekly, ESPN.com and his own Web site, www.ronborges.com.