Ken Anderson: Hall of Famer?

Moderators and members,
As Solomon Wilcots said - Ken Anderson wasn't just the first guy to run the West Coast Offense successfully.
He was the first to set and break records doing it.
Anderson occupies some important place in NF:L history and I believe he will eventually be enshrined.
Your thoughts, moderators and members?

 

I don't think being the first to master Bill Walsh's West Coast is reason enough to enshrine, but ...

... he's got some good numbers. And he certainly stands out in his time for his efficiency, obviously the West Coast had a lot to do with it.

I think the knock against him is that his Bengals never really got over the hump. Some of their 70s teams pushed the Steelers to the limit in the AFC Central, but they could never get over the top.

And the one Super Bowl he did get to is sadly perceived as fluky because the Chargers -- rightly or wrongly perceived to be the better team -- had to play the 1981 AFC Championship in perhaps the worst conditions of all-time.

Which is, admittedly, a stupid knock given that Anderson did manage to not only play in those conditions but win in them. Looking at the box score, Anderson completed 14 of 22 passes for 181 yards and 2 TD in minus-6 degree, 24-mile-per-hour gusty conditions. Pretty outstanding.

The Chargers, though, seem to get a pass for that game more so than the Bengals get any credit.

On pro-football-reference.com, of the top 10 QB's whose career Anderson's most closely resembles, seven are Hall of Famers.

He's a legit case study.

 

Essentially, end of debate. Nailed it.

Anderson should be in, but it will have to be through the old-timers process. The voters have gotten a better in recent years about looking for defensive players, guys who weren't on multiple Super Bowl winners or big-name stars.

 

What's the argument against him?

He didn't win the one big game in a team sport that pivots on winning the one big game. In a sport that cares little for individual numbers, he failed to capture anyone's imagination, then and now.

 

Anderson went to the playoffs four times and his team won two games.
Bradshaw went to the playoffs eight times and his team won 13 games.

Anderson went to the Super Bowl once and his team lost.
Bradshaw went to the Super Bowl four times and won four. He could have easily been the MVP in three of them.

Anderson never led the league in TD passes.
Bradshaw led the league in TD passes twice.

You can let Anderson in the HOF, but calling him better than Bradshaw, especially when you look at Bradshaw's 13-5 playoff record, is, to me, insane.

 

Azrael,

The knock from what I always gathered was thus:

1. He was a system quarterback who didn't call his own plays at a time when all the good quarterbacks called their own plays. The line of reasoning was "Who cares if Joe Namath was being intercepted half the time, he was a man who called his own plays unlike Anderson."
2. Ergo his great numbers were an illusion.
3. When Walsh (who was feeding him the plays) left, Anderson tanked for about two years.
4. When Walsh won with Montana in the 1980s using a system, two things happened. One, writers and other coaches began to see the merits of the qbs not calling plays. Soon most teams were using a system. Two, it was reasoned that Anderson should have been winning Super Bowls in a system because Montana did it. Ergo, Anderson was not a hall of fame quarterback.

It is some of the strangest reasoning for keeping a guy out of the Hall of Fame I have ever heard ( and yes, I am the guy who doesn't like Terrell Owens). The only other legitimate thing I have is Anderson had an awesome Burt Reynold mustache late in his career and seduced a lot of writers' wives.

 

Bradshaw doesn't make this play, which he called, then the Cowboys are considered the greatest NFL franchise. But he did make the play with a throw that 99 percent of NFL QBs can only dream of making with their God given talent. That ball went 65 yards, on a frozen rope, hitting Swann in perfect stride, while sidestepping a defender then getting knocked the hell out by another a split second after he released the ball.

If there is any air under that ball, it gets batted away. If it is six feet in front of Swann, he cannot get it. Three feet behind him, it is batted away. Three feet short, it is incomplete. Six feet long, it is incomplete.

I highly doubt the Steelers can show off six trophies with Anderson as their QB.

 

No one is saying that Bradshaw wasn't more talented than Anderson..he was. Bradshaw had a cannon arm and was a great runner in his prime, which people forget. The problem he played for a coach who didn't give a shit about him/or at least perceived not to give a shit. Anderson would have put up similar numbers as Bradshaw and still won Super Bowls with the Steelers' defense. Would he have won four with them? Who knows. Would Bradshaw have won four Super Bowls if he had been in Cincy or Cleveland or Houston? No. Would he have won a Super Bowl? Likely not.

Now, if the question was , which guy lost his starting job to a worse backup with a better nickname--- Joe "Jefferson Street" Gilliam or Jack "The Throwing Samoan" Thompson? Now, that I can't even begin to answer.

 

Baseball Hall of Fame, statistical.

Football Hall of Fame, mythological.

Anderson? Insufficiently mythological

 

I would say he is the Bobby Grich of football, but he was better than Grich.