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Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2022 Discussion Thread (2 Viewers)

As a long time Bears fan, I’m fairly shocked that Devin Hester made the cut. He was an outstanding returner, no doubt about it. But he made absolutely no impact to the Defense or offense. That one year when he had I think 6 returns for TD’s, that was pretty special. 

 
As a long time Bears fan, I’m fairly shocked that Devin Hester made the cut. He was an outstanding returner, no doubt about it. But he made absolutely no impact to the Defense or offense. That one year when he had I think 6 returns for TD’s, that was pretty special. 
Agree 100%. I think it is inevitable that he will be voted in, but I don't think he should be, and it's not close. To suggest he is more deserving than all of the eligible players on offense and defense is ridiculous IMO.

 
IMO you are criminally underrating Barber.

I get that people will ignore Butler, but he is deserving. I expect he will ultimately be overlooked in the regular process but will get in via the veteran committee.

Don't see two WRs getting in together. Holt > Wayne IMO.
I’m good with Butler and Barber getting in

 
As a long time Bears fan, I’m fairly shocked that Devin Hester made the cut. He was an outstanding returner, no doubt about it. But he made absolutely no impact to the Defense or offense. That one year when he had I think 6 returns for TD’s, that was pretty special. 
But he was the #1 WR one year and that went really well... :)

 
Andre Johnson was one of my favorite players as i started playing fantasy football seriously around that time. So much fun to watch. He was a straight beast for four years straight in his prime and this was with some mediocre qbs as well as not that pass happy of a league. 

 
IHEARTFF said:
Boselli, Wayne, Holt, Thomas, and Willis seem most likely and all deserve. Steve Smith robbed due to positional excellence. 
I think Steve Smith will likely make it in eventually.  He is by no means a no-brainer, so if he has to wait like WRs about as good or better than him have had to, that is fine by me. 

 
@AdamSchefter: Congratulations to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 2022:

🏈Tony Boselli

🏈Cliff Branch

🏈Leroy Butler

🏈Art McNally

🏈Sam Mills

🏈Richard Seymour

🏈**** Vermeil

🏈Bryant Young

 
@AdamSchefter: Congratulations to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Class of 2022:

🏈Tony Boselli

🏈Cliff Branch

🏈Leroy Butler

🏈Art McNally

🏈Sam Mills

🏈Richard Seymour

🏈**** Vermeil

🏈Bryant Young
I'm on board with most of these. All but 3.

#1. **** Vermeil, 1 ring, 2 Super Bowl appearances, barely above .500 record at 120-109. I certainly would have put Mike Shanahan in before him. Probably Tom Coughlin too. Not sure his resume is better than Mike Holmgren's either. 

#2. Sam Mills, probably 5 eligible LBs better than Mills. How the hell is he before Zach Thomas? Mills best year probably wouldn't crack Thomas' top-5. I'm starting to think Thomas is possibly the most underrated player of the last 30 years. He should have been in the HOF on the 1st ballot. He's a top-10 LB in history in my opinion. Is it because his career overlapped completely with the best ILB of all-time in Ray Lewis? Patrick Willis also was light years better than Mills. Mills was a good but not great LB. Arguably the 3rd best LB on the Dome Patrol defense. 

#3. Bryant Young, another good, but not great player. Certainly nowhere near the player Kevin Williams was. Not sure he was better than the likes of Ted Washington or Trevor Pryce either.

I'm thrilled Cliff Branch finally got in. Possible hot take, but I think he was the best WR of the 1970's. Better than Swann or Stallworth. Only eligible guy I thought was better was Sterling Sharpe, but its probably time to give up the dream there. 

Seymour was the best defensive player of the Patriots dynasty in my opinion. Boselli was an elite OT who only had to wait because of longevity. 

Also super happy Butler made it. At his best I thought he was every bit as good as guys like Dawkins and Polamalu. Plus, he invented the Lambeau Leap so that's a pretty huge feather in his cap too. 

 
#3. Bryant Young, another good, but not great player. Certainly nowhere near the player Kevin Williams was. Not sure he was better than the likes of Ted Washington or Trevor Pryce either.


4× Pro Bowl 
First-Team All-Pro 
3× Second-Team All-Pro 
2× PFW First-Team All-NFC (1996, 2001)
Super Bowl champion (XXIX)
NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year (1994)
AP and PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year 

89.5 career sacks as an interior DL

He was better than good, and definitely great. 

 
Love the Vermeil selection

Took over three bad NFL teams and had each of them in the playoffs by year 3

Eagles - went 18 years without a playoff appearance, 4 straight incl a SB appearance with Vermeil (following 11 straight losing seasons)

Rams - went from 9 straight losing to winning it all Year 3 - one of three Super Bowl Champs with a losing record the year before they got their ring (1980 49ers SB16, 2001 Pats won SB36)

Chiefs - per usual, git better every year, going 13-3 his third year after KC missed the playoffs 5 straight years (tbf this is his least impressive stint)

Y2 and Y3 were better for all three franchises 

sure, didn’t have gaudy win% stats, only 1 title, no amazing longevity (15 years) - I’m good with that, to me he’s one of the greatest personalities in the history of the NFL

also for some reason I thought he was no longer with us

if he’s going in eventually anyways (deserving IMO), glad he gets this moment while he’s still around

 
4× Pro Bowl 
First-Team All-Pro 
3× Second-Team All-Pro 
2× PFW First-Team All-NFC (1996, 2001)
Super Bowl champion (XXIX)
NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year (1994)
AP and PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year 

89.5 career sacks as an interior DL

He was better than good, and definitely great. 
I just don't see that as a HOF resume. 

 
Glad to see Seymour get recognized for being the elite player he was...he was a foundation player for three Super Bowl championships and often what he was asked to do would not show up on the stat sheet...I still remember how mad some locals were when the Pats took him over David Terrell...in many ways drafting Seymour can be seen as the beginning of their Dynasty. 

 
#2. Sam Mills, probably 5 eligible LBs better than Mills. How the hell is he before Zach Thomas? Mills best year probably wouldn't crack Thomas' top-5. I'm starting to think Thomas is possibly the most underrated player of the last 30 years. He should have been in the HOF on the 1st ballot. He's a top-10 LB in history in my opinion. Is it because his career overlapped completely with the best ILB of all-time in Ray Lewis? Patrick Willis also was light years better than Mills. Mills was a good but not great LB. Arguably the 3rd best LB on the Dome Patrol defense. 


Love the Sam Mills inclusion. You have to remember he was 27 when the Saints took a chance on an undersized LB after he dominated the USFL.

5-9 LB didn't exist in the NFL before him. And this was when fullbacks and HBacks freely roamed the land.

One oddity is he is in the Ring of Honor of TWO different teams - and they're division rivals (Saints/Panthers)

 
Love the Sam Mills inclusion. You have to remember he was 27 when the Saints took a chance on an undersized LB after he dominated the USFL.

5-9 LB didn't exist in the NFL before him. And this was when fullbacks and HBacks freely roamed the land.

One oddity is he is in the Ring of Honor of TWO different teams - and they're division rivals (Saints/Panthers)
As HC of the Philadelphis/Baltimore Stars Jim Mora knew what he was getting when Sam Mills followed him to New Orleans. I was always a huge fan of Mills. I'm also very happy for **** Vermeil. Helluva head coach.

Side note irrelevant to this thread: Mills wasn't the only Star to follow Mora to the Saints. Mora signed FB Jeff Rodenberger to the Saints roster also. He was the lead blocker for RB Kelvin Bryant all three years on the Stars. Rodenberger played the 1987 season with the Saints before retiring. He earned a Pro Bowl selection and was a First Team  AP All Pro that season.

 
4× Pro Bowl 
First-Team All-Pro 
3× Second-Team All-Pro 
2× PFW First-Team All-NFC (1996, 2001)
Super Bowl champion (XXIX)
NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year (1994)
AP and PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year 

89.5 career sacks as an interior DL

He was better than good, and definitely great. 
Def remember him, from college and his long career. But the “similar players” at PFF kind of supports @travdogg - good but not great.

Lyle Alzado, Rubin Carter, Too Tall Jones, Jim Marshall, Dan Wilkinson. Long time NFL fans know of ALL of those guys. None of them are in the HoF.

PFR HOF Monitor: 66.80 (17th among DT, average HOF DT is 110.09)

 
Def remember him, from college and his long career. But the “similar players” at PFF kind of supports @travdogg - good but not great.

Lyle Alzado, Rubin Carter, Too Tall Jones, Jim Marshall, Dan Wilkinson. Long time NFL fans know of ALL of those guys. None of them are in the HoF.

PFR HOF Monitor: 66.80 (17th among DT, average HOF DT is 110.09)
Yes, but you seem to be missing that he was a 49er, so I will be entirely unreasonable about his HOF worthiness.

:pickle:   

 
About time the HoF fixed the Boselli omission.

I get longevity can be a knock but the fact that Terrell Davis got in five years ago and Boselli had to wait until now is one of the biggest jokes in HoF history.

They came in the league together and left together. Tony was just as dominant, if not more so, for longer and, unlike RBs, LTs live on an island. Particularly ones who are so great their offense rarely send RBs or TEs to help.

 
Of course on the boards I was like “damn right, long overdue.”
exactly!  I met Young when I was a kid and he was super cool. HOF worthy right there.

Love the Vermeil selection

Took over three bad NFL teams and had each of them in the playoffs by year 3

Eagles - went 18 years without a playoff appearance, 4 straight incl a SB appearance with Vermeil (following 11 straight losing seasons)

Rams - went from 9 straight losing to winning it all Year 3 - one of three Super Bowl Champs with a losing record the year before they got their ring (1980 49ers SB16, 2001 Pats won SB36)

Chiefs - per usual, git better every year, going 13-3 his third year after KC missed the playoffs 5 straight years (tbf this is his least impressive stint)

Y2 and Y3 were better for all three franchises 

sure, didn’t have gaudy win% stats, only 1 title, no amazing longevity (15 years) - I’m good with that, to me he’s one of the greatest personalities in the history of the NFL

also for some reason I thought he was no longer with us

if he’s going in eventually anyways (deserving IMO), glad he gets this moment while he’s still around
Plus the man would cry at the drop of a hat. I say this not as sarcasm, but with love for him, because I truly respect someone who wears their emotions on their sleeve like that. Football is often a cold calculating game. Seeing a coach who lived & died with the team he went to war with was part of what made him special. 

 
Yeah, kind of like Charlie Sanders for me. He was my favorite player growing, 88 was my first Lions jersey. He was a star but HoF? If you say so.

Of course on the boards I was like “damn right, long overdue.”
I can see that. It can be tough to separate fandom from objective opinion sometimes. 

On a somewhat related note. I'm a Bears fan, and while Cris Carter was a great WR, I'd be lying if I said Sterling Sharpe and Herman Moore didn't scare me more when they faced them. Am I arguing they were better WRs than Carter? Maybe, they had higher peaks in my opinion, but the longevity wasn't there. I made a somewhat similar argument that if Antonio Brown never plays again, that he was a better WR than Larry Fitzgerald. 

Anyway, I just wanted to say to a Lions fan, that I thought Herman Moore was an elite WR(for a 4-5 year stretch) and deserves HOF consideration. The fact that he doesn't get it, I guess makes him "my guy" 

 
Love the Sam Mills inclusion. You have to remember he was 27 when the Saints took a chance on an undersized LB after he dominated the USFL.

5-9 LB didn't exist in the NFL before him. And this was when fullbacks and HBacks freely roamed the land.

One oddity is he is in the Ring of Honor of TWO different teams - and they're division rivals (Saints/Panthers)
Love Mills, the Saints LB corps from that era made them one of my favorite teams to watch. Always thought they may have been able to get that team over the hump.

But excelling "for his size" does not a HoFer make. Are we putting Mugsy Bogues in the NBA HoF? Spud Webb? Or, more relevant, does London Fletcher make the NFL HoF now (zero All-Pro). Mills was amazing but always comes with the "for his size" caveat.

I agree with @Ministry of Pain if Zach Thomas isn't in there is no way Mills should be.

Seriously go back and look at Thomas's career he was straight up baller. 

 
Bryant Young, another good, but not great player. Certainly nowhere near the player Kevin Williams was. Not sure he was better than the likes of Ted Washington or Trevor Pryce either.


4× Pro Bowl 
First-Team All-Pro 
3× Second-Team All-Pro 
2× PFW First-Team All-NFC (1996, 2001)
Super Bowl champion (XXIX)
NFL 1990s All-Decade Team
UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year (1994)
AP and PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year 

89.5 career sacks as an interior DL

He was better than good, and definitely great.


I just don't see that as a HOF resume.
:goodposting:  

 
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Love the Vermeil selection

Took over three bad NFL teams and had each of them in the playoffs by year 3

Eagles - went 18 years without a playoff appearance, 4 straight incl a SB appearance with Vermeil (following 11 straight losing seasons)

Rams - went from 9 straight losing to winning it all Year 3 - one of three Super Bowl Champs with a losing record the year before they got their ring (1980 49ers SB16, 2001 Pats won SB36)

Chiefs - per usual, git better every year, going 13-3 his third year after KC missed the playoffs 5 straight years (tbf this is his least impressive stint)

Y2 and Y3 were better for all three franchises 

sure, didn’t have gaudy win% stats, only 1 title, no amazing longevity (15 years) - I’m good with that, to me he’s one of the greatest personalities in the history of the NFL

also for some reason I thought he was no longer with us

if he’s going in eventually anyways (deserving IMO), glad he gets this moment while he’s still around
I have the privilege of knowing **** and his wife Carol personally, I can’t think of someone more deserving from a quality human being standpoint. I agree 💯 with all of your sentiments 👍🏼

 
So happy Butler finally got his due when being passed over for years.  I feel like the same thing is happening now with Zach Thomas who's long overdue as well.
:goodposting:

He has been overdue for a long time. I had assumed for years now that he would be passed over until he got in through the veterans committee.

 
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Love Mills, the Saints LB corps from that era made them one of my favorite teams to watch. Always thought they may have been able to get that team over the hump.

But excelling "for his size" does not a HoFer make. Are we putting Mugsy Bogues in the NBA HoF? Spud Webb? Or, more relevant, does London Fletcher make the NFL HoF now (zero All-Pro). Mills was amazing but always comes with the "for his size" caveat.

I agree with @Ministry of Pain if Zach Thomas isn't in there is no way Mills should be.

Seriously go back and look at Thomas's career he was straight up baller. 
:goodposting:

Agree 100%. This makes Mills easily the weakest LB in the PFHOF, and in contention for the weakest player ever inducted.

 
So I guess we are at that point people have been speculating about for years where there’s so many recent stud WR’s in contention, that they are keeping each other out?

 
So I guess we are at that point people have been speculating about for years where there’s so many recent stud WR’s in contention, that they are keeping each other out?
I think its stretching the meaning of stud to suggest any recent WRs whom aren't in are studs. I actually think WR has been watered down in recent years with non-worthy(in my opinion) inductees in the last 10 years. The only inductees I've really been behind are Owens, Moss, Harrison. Calvin, Pearson, and now Branch. 

If any WR's deserve to go in next, its the older guys like Del Shofner and Lionel Taylor, maybe Charlie Hennigan, or more recently Sterling Sharpe. But that's just my opinion. 

If I were picking the next class, it'd be one of them, Kevin Williams, Jared Allen, Zach Thomas, Patrick Willis, and DeMarcus Ware. 

 
Ronde Barber

Andre Johnson

Zach Thomas

DeMarcus Ware

Reggie Wayne
Not a single player off this list. To swing 0 for 5 out of 15...maybe I need a reset as to what the Hall is voting on but I would put all 5 of my selections before any of these 5 people which is why I say Worst ever. 

Now in hindsight, not that strong of a lit to begin with despite my love for Thomas and Barber, watched both of them many times at home in both Miami and Tampa over the years. no doubt in my mind they were heavily involved in their teams winning despite poor QB play mostly.   

I was shocked when I saw the list and I also seem to remember them all sitting around in a big room like the Hateful 8 on a Saturday and taking a long afternoon to hash all this out. It feels like this was predetermined and dropped a little ahead of when they typically announce these players leading up to the game Sunday. 

Even the NFL is slightly embarrassed it seems. 

 
I would take Darren Woodson over Butler, and Dawkins. Hybrid safety who played the slot, hit like Dawkins and could cover like Butler. 
 

 
Love the Vermeil selection

Took over three bad NFL teams and had each of them in the playoffs by year 3

Eagles - went 18 years without a playoff appearance, 4 straight incl a SB appearance with Vermeil (following 11 straight losing seasons)

Rams - went from 9 straight losing to winning it all Year 3 - one of three Super Bowl Champs with a losing record the year before they got their ring (1980 49ers SB16, 2001 Pats won SB36)

Chiefs - per usual, git better every year, going 13-3 his third year after KC missed the playoffs 5 straight years (tbf this is his least impressive stint)

Y2 and Y3 were better for all three franchises 

sure, didn’t have gaudy win% stats, only 1 title, no amazing longevity (15 years) - I’m good with that, to me he’s one of the greatest personalities in the history of the NFL

also for some reason I thought he was no longer with us

if he’s going in eventually anyways (deserving IMO), glad he gets this moment while he’s still around
Vermeil gracious as always

 
I love Lynn Swann, to me he deserves to be in the HoF. . . 

Lynn Swann - 336 receptions, 5,462 yards, 51 TD, 3 Pro Bowls, 1 Superbowl MVP - class of 2001, inducted while he was still alive
Cliff Branch - 501 receptions, 8,685 yards,  67 TD, 4 Pro Bowls - class of 2022 - died in 2019

I suppose I'm okay with the HoF putting Swann in before Branch, maybe because of popularity or the SB MVP or 4 SB's but not 21 years before.  The man certainly deserved to be inducted while he was still alive at the very least.

 

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