The Associated Press sent out a wire story Wednesday officially announcing the candidates for consideration for the 2021 Class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
There were already a number of worthy candidates who came up just shy of the Hall this January, and now a few big names are joining the running, making the competition fierce again.
Peyton Manning and Charles Woodson are among 14 first-year eligible candidates for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Joining the two-time Super Bowl champion QB and the star CB/FS on the ballot are WRs Calvin Johnson and Wes Welker, RB Steven Jackson and DE Jared Allen.
Let’s not forget the guys who were finalists and didn’t make the cut this year: WRs Torry Holt and Reggie Wayne; O-linemen Tony Boselli and Alan Faneca; D-linemen Richard Seymour and Bryant Young; LBs Sam Mills and Zach Thomas; and safety John Lynch.
And that doesn’t include some guys I think have a great case for inclusion like HB Ricky Watters, HB/KR Herschel Walker, WRs Hines Ward, Chad Johnson and Rod Smith, LBs London Fletcher and Cornelius Bennett, CB Ronde Barber and special team ace Steve Tasker (yes, I said).
The total group of 130 candidates will be reduced to 25 semi-finalists in November. Then the 15 finalists will be announced in January, before the final five are chosen when the selection committee meets the Saturday before the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
So who would I pick to go in the Hall this year?
For first-year players, you can’t pass on Peyton Manning and Charles Woodson. They are just too good to make wait a year.
Peyton broke almost every passing record in the book before he retired as a two-time Super Bowl champion. His case is well known to everyone.
• Charles Woodson went to nine Pro Bowls and made three All-Pro first teams. He was the 1998 defensive rookie of the year and the 2009 defensive player of the year.
He had 65 career interceptions, good for fifth place. He also returned 11 of them for TDs, tied with Darren Sharper for second place, just behind the other Woodson, Rod, at 12.
He made 997 solo tackles, good for 14th place, forced 33 fumbles (19th) and broke up 183 passes (fourth).
So who gets my other three spots? Three defensive studs: Sam Mills, Ronde Barber and Zach Thomas — with a very close miss for London Fletcher, one of the least appreciated stars in NFL history.
• I wrote a column about Sam two years ago. The gist of that was that this is the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not just the NFL Hall. Sam had four amazing years in college, then was the second-biggest defensive star in the USFL (behind Reggie White) where he posted Madden-like numbers for three seasons.
If you don’t include his USFL years, Sam is still good for 16th place all-time in tackles. With those three years, Sam is in first place. Even if you say the USFL was low competition, so only a fraction of Sam’s performance should count, Sam would still vault into the top 5 in tackles. And that doesn’t include his impact with sacks, stuffs behind the line of scrimmage, interceptions, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries. He was the whole package.
• Ronde Barber had eight INTs, four fumbles and two blocked punt returns returned for TDs. His total of 14 non-offensive TDs is ranked fourth all-time, just ahead of Charles Woodson’s 13. The three ahead of him all spent time as kick/punt returners, which helped their totals.
Barber also accomplished feats that no other cornerback has ever done, such as he is the only one with more than 25 sacks and interceptions.
He finished with more than 1,000 solo tackles, 47 interceptions, 28 sacks, 15 forced fumbles, 12 fumble recoveries, 197 passes broken up, 88 stuffs behind the line of scrimmage, and a safety.
He showed the country that a guy could be an impact player while at nickel back.
• My last spot came down to two of the best tacklers of the past 40 years. They need to get in the Hall, if for no other reason than to rectify a horrible oversight by the Hall Committee.
The career leaders in tackles only goes back as far as players starting since 1978 (Clay Matthews being the oldest).
There are only five LBs on the whole list of 250 names (I don’t include Kevin Greene who was really a small DE).
Those five are Ray Lewis (#1 in tackles), Junior Seau (#3), Derrick Brooks (#6), Brian Urlacher (#18) and Ricky Jackson (#38). And Ricky got in because of his 128 career sacks, not his 1,180 tackles.
So that’s only four guys from the past 40 years who were the best tacklers in the league.
Zach Thomas gets my fifth Hall vote.
He earned seven Pro Bowls and five first-team All-Pro nods — even though he was playing in the same era as Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher.
Thomas had 10 seasons with at least 128 tackles. Urlacher only had two seasons that high, but got more love from the talking heads on TV. Thomas had almost 400 more tackles than Urlacher, and yet watched his contemporary go in first.
He didn’t the splashy plays with only 17 INTs, 20.5 sacks and 16 forced fumbles. However, he got the ball carrier on the ground over and over and over, which halted drives and forced punts.
• My 5(b) choice would be London Fletcher, the man who is #2 on the tackles list, ahead of Seau and Brooks and even Thomas.
He was an outstanding player for 16 years, but played on some bad teams with Buffalo and Washington, so that he only made four Pro Bowls.
I said Zach had 10 seasons with at least 128 tackles; well London had 12 seasons that good. He had 100+ tackles in 14 straight seasons, right up until he retired at age 38.
Like Zach, he didn’t create turnovers with 23 interceptions and 19 forced fumbles, but London made a living diagnosing plays and getting in the backfield, racking up 109 tackles for losses, 39 sacks and 29 QB hits. He also had two safeties. He was no slouch in coverage, either, breaking up 96 passes.
These numbers are just incredible. And he did have some team success early on. He was a member of the Rams at the start of his career during the Greatest Show on Turf days with two Super Bowl appearances.
Defense wins championships, and Woodson, Mills, Barber, Thomas and Fletcher all deserve to be recognized.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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