choose one hall of famer(to be?) for your team (1 Viewer)

[dutch]

You are starting a team and you get first choice in the special teams category; who do you choose?  For sake of the question assume the careers play out as they did.

 

[zftcg]

I'm sure there's a quantitative answer in terms of expected points added or something, but intuitively, it feels like Hester would be the most valuable in that he can provide both field position as well as scoring.

 

[Shankopotamus]

Adam Vinatieri

 

[dutch]

General question is about which speciality you value more.  Other candidates:

Adam vinateri

Brian Mitchell

Steve tasker

Sean landetta

Etc.

 

[dutch]

For me it's kicker.  Punters have the least value based on opportunity and actual individual impact. They don't score and have to have help to for filed position to mean something.

Returners have limited oops and while the can score they do so so randomly and seldomly that that impact itself is muted.

Kickers offer field position opportunities as well as consistent scoring oops.  I'd rather have a top 10 kicker than a top return man or punter. 

 

[zftcg]

For me it's kicker.  Punters have the least value based on opportunity and actual individual impact. They don't score and have to have help to for filed position to mean something.

Returners have limited oops and while the can score they do so so randomly and seldomly that that impact itself is muted.

Kickers offer field position opportunities as well as consistent scoring oops.  I'd rather have a top 10 kicker than a top return man or punter. 

Question with kickers is how much value do they provide above replacement? What did Andersen (or Vinaiteri or Gostkowski) contribute to their teams that they wouldn't have gotten from a league-average kicker? (That's not a rhetorical question; there's likely a quantitative answer).

With Hester, it's pretty clear that he was consistently the best returner in the league by a wide margin. So then the question is over the relative importance of returners vs. kickers. I'd be really curious to know the answer.

 

[Warhogs]

Hester for me pretty easily. Guy was a fine punter but as others were saying his effect is more field position and not scoring and I don't think he would be as tough to replace with another decent punter. Anderson was a fine kicker for a long time but I don't feel he would be tough to replace with another good kicker. Not only did Hester score on many returns but he changed field position dramatically. I remember in his prime teams willing to kick the ball out of bounds and give up the field position just to keep the ball out of his hands.

 

[Tau837]

With Hester, it's pretty clear that he was consistently the best returner in the league by a wide margin.

IMO this is overstated. He was in the top 10 in average yards per kick return 3 times and in average yards per punt return 4 times.

Plus, many returners actually make stronger contributions on offense or defense. For example, I'll take a player like Sproles over Hester any day, since he was close to Hester as a returner while also making a very strong contribution to several top 5 offenses.

 

[Tau837]

Here is their Approximate Value from PFR:

1. Andersen: 97 career AV, top season 7 AV, top 5 seasons 29 AV, 24/25 seasons with positive AV - I'm not sure if PKs are given credit for being strong at kickoffs in AV; not sure where to confirm that, but Andersen was very strong at that
   
2. Hester: 57 career AV, top season 14 AV, top 5 seasons 42 AV, 9/11 seasons with positive AV
   
3. Guy: 44 career AV, top season 4 AV, top 5 seasons 20 AV, 14/14 seasons with positive AV
   

Hester had the strongest peak, but Andersen delivered positive value for nearly 3 times as long. Different people will judge that differently; I think Andersen clearly delivered more value.

All that said, IMO none of them belong in the HOF under current voting rules, since by definition Andersen and Guy got in instead of other players who made much more impact on the game and may never get in. If they want to include specialists, they should make a category for it, like they did for contributors, so that voting in a specialist is not at the expense of players who made much more impact on the game on offense or defense.

I assume the purpose of this thread is to promote the idea that Hester is HOF worthy. In addition to the Sproles example I gave previously, there are many examples of players who may never get in despite making much larger impacts on the game. Just a few examples at WR, the position Hester played on offense (in no particular order):

• Reggie Wayne
  
• Andre Johnson
  
• Steve Smith
  
• Jimmy Smith
  
• Rod Smith
  
• Hines Ward
  
• Anquan Boldin
  
• Henry Ellard
  
• Joey Galloway
  
• Irving Fryar
  

 

[dutch]

The purpose of the thread was to highlight how wrong headed it is to promote part time special teams players as hof worthy when compared to and judged contemporaneously with offensive and defensive players.  I also wanted to find out how this board judged the different specialties and turns out no one as of yet considers punters as valuable as either returners or kickers so basically bottom of the totem pole kind of guys.

 

[dutch]

No, Hester is nowhere near hof worthy, imo.  But then again I thought that of Guy as well.

 

[strong]

Here is their Approximate Value from PFR:

1. Andersen: 97 career AV, top season 7 AV, top 5 seasons 29 AV, 24/25 seasons with positive AV - I'm not sure if PKs are given credit for being strong at kickoffs in AV; not sure where to confirm that, but Andersen was very strong at that
   
2. Hester: 57 career AV, top season 14 AV, top 5 seasons 42 AV, 9/11 seasons with positive AV
   
3. Guy: 44 career AV, top season 4 AV, top 5 seasons 20 AV, 14/14 seasons with positive AV
   

Hester had the strongest peak, but Andersen delivered positive value for nearly 3 times as long. Different people will judge that differently; I think Andersen clearly delivered more value.

i'd take the 5 hester seasons over andersen's career, imo.