Greatest Players of All-Time WHO ARE NOT YET in the Hall of Fame (1 Viewer)

[RC94]

I don't have a list of specific players off the top of my head, but offensive line is the most under-represented position in the HOF.  I'm sure there's a lot of deserving o-linemen who aren't in and won't be getting in because the HOF voters focus so much on stats.

 

[tombonneau]

Way to stay on top of things. He was inducted 13 years ago. 

God I'm old. I just recall what seems like decades of people debating if Art Monk belonged in the Hall or note. I feel Peter King has spent 80,000 words writing about it.

 

[Ruffrodys05]

Christine Michael

He's in my fantasy league HOF, inducted last year. Rostered on more fantasy teams and never started than any other candidate. 

 

[Foosball God]

Hester had 14 punt return TD in 11 seasons. That's 1.27 TD a year on average. He scored 37 total career TD in 156 games . . . an average of 3.3 per season. Is that really HOF worthy?

Put another way, there are any number of players at other positions that scored twice as many TD as Hester did overall who will likely merit very little HOF conversation. Similarly, Hester ranks 46th in all purpose yards and there are a bunch of players ranked higher than him that won't get much HOF consideration. For example, Brian Mitchell ranks 2nd all time in all purpose yards . . . where are the people campaigning for him to be inducted? Here is one such person . . . LINK

Imo you can't just look at total td's and say that's the metric.  How did he affect the game?  Hester tilted the field, he had teams specifically kicking away from him.  Special teams scores can be back breaking.  Now if you don't think he affected the game then that's OK, I'm just saying that looking at TDs only isn't a very good indicator of how good a player is.

 

[Anarchy99]

Imo you can't just look at total td's and say that's the metric.  How did he affect the game?  Hester tilted the field, he had teams specifically kicking away from him.  Special teams scores can be back breaking.  Now if you don't think he affected the game then that's OK, I'm just saying that looking at TDs only isn't a very good indicator of how good a player is.

Sure, Hester impacted some games . . . but so have plenty of players. Randy Moss saw double and triple coverage on every play. JJ Watt and Sam Darnold get double teamed on every play. Teams never threw at Deion Sanders' side of the field on every play. Adrian Peterson faced 8 men in the box most of his career on every play. Peyton Manning faced nickel coverage on every play.

Hester was in position to have an impact on a HANDFUL of plays a game. Kicking away from returners isn't exactly a new thing, and ones teams kicked away from him or punted out of bounds, his value as a returner pretty much evaporated. If people want to say he was a game changer and best returner in history, so be it. Is that HOF worthy? Who knows? But Brian Mitchell has almost 8,000 more return yards than Hester does. In fact, Hester ranks 9th in career return yardage (there are some players ranked above him that are far from household names). If enough voters want to vote for him based on the wow factor, the excitement factor, the must see tv factor, maybe he can drum up enough votes to get elected.

For my money, inducting someone like Hester takes away a spot for someone like Cliff Branch. Branch was a deep threat in an era where passing wasn't anywhere near as prevalent as today. But he was a 3 time first team All Pro in the 70s for a Raiders team that went to 6 conference championships and won 2 Super Bowls. He had 1111 receiving yards on 46 catches and scored 12 times the year the Raiders went 16-1. He was the biggest deep threat of the 70's . . . certainly as much as Hester was a threat to return a kick. That being said, I might not even put Branch in . . . but my point was Branch played a big role on a winning team and was a threat on every offensive snap. Hester was a threat on maybe 5 plays a game.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

Calvin Johnson

 

[Anarchy99]

Calvin Johnson

He's already in. Well, I guess technically he still needs to have his ceremony. But he was voted in earlier this year.

 

[Tau837]

Imo you can't just look at total td's and say that's the metric.  How did he affect the game?  Hester tilted the field, he had teams specifically kicking away from him.  Special teams scores can be back breaking.  Now if you don't think he affected the game then that's OK, I'm just saying that looking at TDs only isn't a very good indicator of how good a player is.

Put some numbers to it. "Tilted the field" means what, exactly? How many yards per game did his team gain with him as its returner rather than a league average returner?

Now compare that number of yards to the number of yards fringe HOF players contributed to their teams (e.g., Reggie Wayne, Tiki Barber). Or compare that number of yards to the yards gained by teams due to the above average play of offensive linemen, through quality pass blocking and/or run blocking... guys who will not have a shot at HOF were more impactful. Or compare that number of yards to the yards not gained by oppoents due to quality play by defensive players... guys who will not have a shot at HOF were more impactful.

 

[Foosball God]

Put some numbers to it. "Tilted the field" means what, exactly? How many yards per game did his team gain with him as its returner rather than a league average returner?

Now compare that number of yards to the number of yards fringe HOF players contributed to their teams (e.g., Reggie Wayne, Tiki Barber). Or compare that number of yards to the yards gained by teams due to the above average play of offensive linemen, through quality pass blocking and/or run blocking... guys who will not have a shot at HOF were more impactful. Or compare that number of yards to the yards not gained by oppoents due to quality play by defensive players... guys who will not have a shot at HOF were more impactful.

I really haven't crunch any numbers to know if Hester should be in the HOF, I don't really care if he gets in or not, all I'm saying is that just saying he only had X number of TDs compared to Y WR doesn't really look at the whole picture.  Clearly he was more impactful then the scores of guys that have the same time of raw numbers because no one even remembers those guys.

 

[JetMaxx]

I may be in the minority (maybe, maybe not) in that I am not a huge fan of special teamers having great chances at becoming HOFers. The best special teamers are generally players that were not good enough to be regular players on offense or defense (let alone top producers on offense or defense).

Another issue is that special teamers only play a handful of snaps a game and the huge majority of the time the results of a play are not noteworthy. As a for instance, if a player did a great job downing a kick at the one yard line, how many times might that happen in a year? Three? But that would only save 57 yards over the course of a season.

The same can be said about most kick returners, A couple of guys will break a long return for a TD or two, but without those 2-3 long returns, their return numbers would be similar to any number of returners in the league. Last year, Andre Roberts led the league with a 30 yard kickoff return average. With most kickoffs going into the end zone these days, teams get 25 yards plus where the kicker received the ball for free (since touchbacks start at the 25 yard line). Fielding a kickoff halfway into the end zone and running it to the 25 yard line would net the same field position as just taking the touchback (without risking a fumble). Based on that, is there really a huge difference in field position when maybe a couple of kickoff returns per year amount to something substantial?

A case could also be made that there really isn't a ton of difference between place kickers. As a for instance, in 2020, there were 32 kickers that attempted at least 10 FG attempts. The #10 kicker based on percentage of kicks made converted 92.3% of his attempts. Would having the best kicker last year in terms of accuracy vs. the 10th best kicker have made that much difference?

Let's use recently retired and NFL all-time leading scorer Adam Vinatieri as another example. The man scored 2,673 points from 1996-2019. I mean, what a legend! But if you had the choice of taking Adam V's point total in that time or the summation of the 15th leading scorer from each individual season in that time added together, who would you pick? Vinatieri would win that comparison . . . BARELY. Vinatieri scored 2,673 points in that time. The 15th best kicker in scoring each year added all together would have scored 2,633 points. Sure, we all remember a handful of clutch kicks he made in his early years with NE, but Vinatieri across his career was about average in terms of scoring points for a kicker . . . he just did it for a very long time . . . and 24 years played got him enough longevity to amass a ton of points scored.

You suggested Tasker. I would counter with a current generation S/T player Matthew Slater. Is there much of a difference between them? Tasker played 14 seasons, went to 4 SB's, and was a Pro Bowler 7 times. Slater has played 13 seasons, went to 5 SB's, was a Pro Bowler 9 times and was selected first team All Pro twice and second team All Pro twice. I wouldn't think either one of them have great HOF numbers or chances.

Tasker has a career AV of 7 (yes, that is for his entire career). Slater's career AV is only 3. Taker's HOF Monitor score is 15.38. Slater's is 26.50. Were either one of them all that special in terms of impacting the games they played in? A lot of the geeky advanced stat metrics base rankings and player scores based on value above replacement, and the sad truth is that special teamers really don't impact the game all that much (or very often) and they aren't on the field for many snaps.

There are several positions like that in football. Fullback. Short yardage / goal line back. Receiving back. Blocking tight end. Nickel cornerback. Third down edge rusher. Long snapper. They are all important positions at times, but they aren't really the marquee or banner headline positions that have huge impact on a game's outcome over and over again. It's like a utility infielder, a pinch hitter, middle inning reliever, or a lefthanded relief specialist that only comes in to face a single lefthanded batter. If these players were elite athletes and better at the game, they wouldn't have been in those roles in the first place.

So sure, Tasker was a great special teams player. But that also means he wasn't an elite offensive or defensive player. Statistically, even the best special teamers weren't leaps and bounds above the rest of the league and the better known ones didn't move the needle a ton in terms of their impact on a game week in and week out. If they start inducting special teamers or specialists, that will mean other players that played a ton more snaps won't get in (unless they start elected way more players than they do now).

Neither are worthy. ST performance is like banana bread. Everyone can do it but even the really good ones are just ok. 

 

[Mister CIA]

Coach - Air Coryell 

Don Coryell blazed a trail that stuffed $billions into NFL pockets.

 

[JetMaxx]

**** Vermeil 

 

[Tau837]

Neither are worthy. ST performance is like banana bread. Everyone can do it but even the really good ones are just ok. 

Come on, banana bread > ST

 

[oukurt]

The ones that bother me are Roger Craig, Cliff Branch, and LC Greenwood.