4 Former Hawkeyes Among NFL HOF Nominees
- Thread starter RobHowe
- Start date
Of the 4 who's got the best shot? Honestly I don't think any of them really do. Maybe Roby? I mean as a punter the dude was great for a long time. But let's face it they don't exactly have a wing for punters in the HOF.
Sanders just didn't play long enough. Hanks had like 5 great years out of 8 so maybe he could get a longer look then he's had so far.
Clark was awesome but only had 2 seasons of 800 yrds or more. 2009 he had as good of a yr as about any TE has ever had but that was one year. The rest weren't really move the needle worthy. 5600 yards and 53 Tds over 11 yrs..
Sanders just didn't play long enough. Hanks had like 5 great years out of 8 so maybe he could get a longer look then he's had so far.
Clark was awesome but only had 2 seasons of 800 yrds or more. 2009 he had as good of a yr as about any TE has ever had but that was one year. The rest weren't really move the needle worthy. 5600 yards and 53 Tds over 11 yrs..
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
Roby's the only one even remotely close to hall worthy off that list. The ballot lists are just to give hot take throwers something to talk about.
I do think Hanks had an underrated career. He was a ball hawk. He may not have been Ed Reed (nobody else was either) but he was pretty darn good too. 33 Ints over 8 yrs won a ring. I'm not sure I'd go so far as saying he's HOF worthy but I can see having a conversation about him.
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
He ain't among the royalty of DBs in the '90's. Ain't a HOF player. If he gets in, they need to cut the number of guys making the hall every year.
Fryowa
Administrator
They need a stats matrix at each non OL position to get in. At this point they're just giving guys ballot spots based on how many hours they put in at Make A Wish events.
Clark is absolutely one of the best Hawkeye TEs and a top notch human being (he has NW Iowa connections and we've met him a handful of times, he talked my kid's ear off). But he ain't even close to a HOF'er.
Clark made one Pro Bowl...Witten, Gates, and Graham have 24 Pro Bowls between the three of them.
26th all time in TE yardage, and there are 8 eligible TEs ahead of him with more yards.
At some point you gotta just think, what the F...
They need to come up with some sort of matrix for position players, like a combination of yardage, scores, rushes/receptions, yards per catch/carry, yards after contact, credit for games in a row, total games played, etc.
On the other side of the ball you could make it a matrix of tackles, solos, sacks, hurries, passes defended, credit for games in a row, total games played...
Decide on your formula, set a threshold and roll with it. Elect up to one DB, LB, DL, OL, RB, WR, and QB for a maximum of 6 players per class per year. If no good QBs are up for admittance that, year, so be it. Three really good RBs??? Sorry, gonna have to wait. Only four players rate high enough for induction this year? That's the way it is. Take off points for shit like beating people up and drug trafficking, obviously. Once a decade allow a kicker or punter in.
To pacify the participation trophy crowd, create a secondary, watered-down selection into the HOF for the rainbows and Skittles feel good stories like Clark. You know, popular fan favorite guys like Icky Woods or the Fridge, and for dudes who do a lot of community shit like Clark or Greenway.
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okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
The matrix maybe with an era type thing is probably a good idea. I don't think you have to limit it by position each year because if you have a year where some tandem of surefire first ballot guys like Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith or Brady and Manning are both eligible in the same year (just as a hypo) you should let both in.
And for TEs, you listed three who are clearly first ballot-caliber guys. Another is Gonzalez from KC. Those guys are in a different stratosphere than Clark.
Fryowa
Administrator
Just mentioned it to show the ridiculous difference between legit HOF'ers and a guy like Clark. There's clearly more non-football criteria than football criteria being used here which is stupid.
I thought the HOF messed up royally by not having TO on the first ballot. I believe they made him wait 3 yrs to get in. Only because he wasn't widely liked by coaches and other players.... He was as much of a no brainer as there's ever been. His stats are ridiculous. He's a top 5 top 3 WR all time to many. So if they are going to play games like that with who gets in and when it takes some of their credibility away. It just does
WinOneThisCentury
Well-Known Member
I had the pleasure to watch Roby in person in Kinnick. I'm telling you...that dude was a weapon and probably contributed a 3-4 point reduction every year to the defensive points allowed total. He flipped the field regularly. If you never saw him punt...it was crazy. He could hit these line drive punts at times that would catch the returner off guard and the returner would turn and run because he knew it was over his head. Guys were lining up 65 yards from the line of scrimmage for his punts.
okeefe4prez
Well-Known Member
No doubt. TO was, at the time of his eligibility, probably the 3rd best receiver to play the game behind Jerry and my personal hero, Sir Randolph Moss. There are so many star receivers coming up now that it's going to get pretty crowded. TO was the guy who started the new archetype. There are like 5-10 guys in every draft with his body type. It's crazy.
They treated it like it's a sorority or something where you have to be popular to get in and toe the company line or something. That just rubbed me the wrong way. I'm a 49ers fan and I wasn't his biggest fan about the time he started acting out at the end of his tenure there. I just don't think one can deny how dang good he was.
People forget his first 3 yrs or so he just put his head down and balled out. He showed Rice that the writing was on the wall and he was the new age WR. JJ Stokes was there too and he was even bigger then TO but he wasn't nearly as skilled fast or athletic as TO. 6'3 220ish and ripped up. Who's comparable to him now? Julio Jones is pretty close to that I bet. But yeah back at that time in the early 00s not many were at all.
Fryowa
Administrator
Fryowa
Administrator
Not HOF-related, but put Calvin Johnson in front of Manning, Rodgers, or Brees and he's the goat. Calvin Johnson, Barry Sanders, and Mike Trout are the biggest wasted talents in the history of sports or any other profession. It's not a coincidence that 66.6% are victims of Motown.
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I watched him too and agree with everything you said. He probably punted the ball further than just about anyone who ever picked up a football.
The one negative that I will say about him though is he used to outkick the coverage at times and go for distance over field position. Returners got on to him and would go back far enough to catch the ball and sometimes ended up with good returns. I remember Hayden quite upset at him for that.
No doubt. It's funny that Johnson pulled a Barry Sanders and said F it early. Granted he was injured and nicked up more then Barry was but he coulda kept playing. To me his agent did him a disservice and didn't get him out of Detroit. They knew damn well that they'd waste his talents and never win much. His agent shoulda forced a trade or gotten him to free agency. So there's a part of it that's on him for resigning with them. That was his choice too.
Trout if he keeps this up could go down as being as good of a baseball player as theirs ever been. I don't think that's saying too much. He's consistently ridiculous. If they'd have brought in Pujols 5 yrs earlier then they did that'd have helped but he was already past his prime when they broke the bank to bring him in. You'd think being in LA they coulda accidently put a good team around him for a year or two.
WinOneThisCentury
Well-Known Member
Absolutely correct...those low line drives backfired once the returners figured out you had to start 65 yards back. We gave up some big returns. The Dolphins worked with him and he changed the trajectory in the pros. I think they wanted him at 50 yards with 4.5 seconds of hang time.
