Pro Football Hall announces 2010 finalists

LeBeau was a shutdown corner in his day. The ESPN-ization of history, as in, nothing happened before 1980, creates this bullshit dynamic where anything that happened before 1980 has to be justified by standards created after it.

 

He's thinking of Vaughn Dunbar, a first-round pick (and Heisman finalist) who flamed out badly.

 

The obvious problem with the limit in football is that with so many positions on the field, there are a lot more candidates to choose from. That's the reason for such a backlog where a ballot like this comes up and just about everyone would probably get in if there wasn't a limit, a la baseball.

I mean, the guys who didn't make the final 15 from the semifinal list of 25 included

Cliff Branch, WR – 1972-1985 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Terrell Davis, RB – 1995-2001 Denver Broncos
Chris Doleman, DE/LB – 1985-1993, 1999 Minnesota Vikings, 1994-95 Atlanta Falcons, 1996-98 San Francisco 49ers
Kevin Greene, LB/DE – 1985-1992 Los Angeles Rams, 1993-95 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1996, 1998-99 Carolina Panthers, 1997 San Francisco 49ers
Ray Guy, P – 1973-1986 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Lester Hayes, CB – 1977-1986 Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders
Steve Tasker, Special Teams/WR – 1985-86 Houston Oilers, 1986-1997 Buffalo Bills
Aeneas Williams, CB/S – 1991-2000 Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals, 2001-04 St. Louis Rams


And check out the prelim lit of guys who didn't even make the first cut: http://www.profootballhof.com/enshrinement/2009/9/19/2010-preliminary-nominees---by-position/

 

The variety of opinions on Tasker is always fun to listen to. I saw something on NFL Network where they talked about him and some were in favor, insisting that he was the best ever at what he did, and others think it is completely ridiculous to even consider a special teams guy for the Hall of Fame.

I certainly can't see putting him in now when there seems to be a glut of highly-qualified candidates who actually managed to earn starting jobs in the NFL.

 

The Sabols, from that preliminary list, deserve to be in there someday.

 

yup. when i wrote same first name, i was going to say same thing except one was a medicore RB. then i looked up his stats and he wasn't even medicore. i thought he had a couple good seasons before fading, but he just had a couple not good seasons.

 

The poor man's Anthony Thompson.

 

How is Ray Guy left off the final 15 list? Insane.

 

Some of the voters won't even consider a punter. Let's face it, nobody pays attention. did you know that Shane Lechler came close to breaking Sammy Baugh's record for single-season average yards per punt this year? I didn't until I looked it up. Lechler finished at 51.1. Baugh's record is 51.4.

That is the other problem for Guy. If you look only at the statistics, you could argue that he isn't even the best punter in Raiders history any more. He never averaged more than 45.3 yards per punt. Lechler's average only only dipped that low once in 10 NFL seasons, and you can see the large gap between his best season and Guy's.

Lechler is the NFL's all-time leader in career average per punt at 47.3 yards. Guy's career average of 42.4 yards per punt ties him for 67th all-time with such immortals as John Jett and Matt Turk.

Sure, there is more to it than that one statistic can measure. Was Guy great at pinning teams inside their 20? I don't even know. Did he really have that much better of hang time than Lechler? I sincerely doubt it.

Of course, these are guys from different eras and things such the special balls for kickers certainly help modern punters, but it definitely hurts Guy's cause that his numbers really don't hold up to the top punters in the game right now. That career-best single-seasn average of 45.3 yards per punt would have only been good for 10th in the NFL this season.

 

Not sure it's fair to compare Guy's stats to Lechler's when judging whether or not Guy is HOF worthy. A lot of people think that's why Art Monk took so long to get into the HOF. Monk retired with the most receptions in NFL history. It shouldn't be held against him that Rice came through later and broke it.

 

Guy's hang time was legendary. I believe Guy was the inspiration for coining the term "hang time" in the first place and for coaches and others beginning to measure hang time.

Guy kicked the ball so high that in 1977, Oilers coach Bum Phillips had a ball taken out of the game after a punt and had it tested for helium at Rice University. The test found only air.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19771114&id=tRMRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LuADAAAAIBAJ&pg=3881,3624849

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30F15FF3D5A167493C7A8178AD95F438785F9