On his way to Minnesota for Super Bowl week, Steve Doerschuk identifies who he would vote into the Pro Football Hall of Fame while predicting what the Class of 2018 will actually be.
Everyone who has followed the sport for a long time (not to mention everyone else) has his own ideas about who should make up the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2018.
Here are mine, coming from someone who watched the end of Jim Brown's career, began covering Hall of Fame enshrinements when Gale Sayers and Johnny Unitas got in, and has been in Super Bowl cities to chronicle Hall of Fame elections since 2001.
First, I'll share who I would vote for; then, I'll take a shot at who I believe will actually make it. Let's hang out at the hot button first.
Eventually, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss will be giving speeches in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium. Their numbers and highlight reels demand it.
Those wide receivers will have to wait on my "ballot," though, because Isaac Bruce is the wideout I'd pick for this year.
Bruce was second to Jerry Rice in all-time receiving yards when he retired. He won a Super Bowl with a late, great 73-yard touchdown catch.
For the clincher, I'll go to Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian, who said recently on Talk of Fame Network:
"Bruce could do everything. Moss did less things, but the things that he did he probably did as well or better than anybody who played. “And then you’re talking about (Owens), and there are issues in the locker room and within the context of the team that you can’t hide from. So I think you have to be honest about that, and then make your decision.”
I'll be brief as to my other yes votes, starting with modern-era finalists. There are 15 of them, with a maximum of five spots open. My other four:
- Cornerback Ty Law. How can no one from the New England teams that won Super Bowls in the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons not yet be in Canton? Those Patriots were more about defense, and Law laid it down.
- Linebacker Ray Lewis. His game doesn't need to be explained. He made sure everyone saw him out there.
- Left tackle Joe Jacoby. The mainstay from three Washington Super Bowl winners was the skinny "Hog," at 6-foot-7, 295 pounds. "Hogs" guard Russ Grimm is in the Hall. Jacoby played more games than Grimm, 170-140.
- Safety John Lynch. It tends to get assumed Joe Thomas will reach the Hall of Fame simply because he went to 10 Pro Bowls. Lynch went to nine Pro Bowls as a tone setter for Tampa Bay's long-running defensive dynamo; yet, this is his sixth time as "just a finalist."
Voters will be asked to cast separate ballots (80 percent approval required) on "contributor" Bobby Beathard and "senior" candidates (careers ended at least 25 years ago) Robert Brazile and Jerry Kramer. It's a yes for me on all three.
Beathard is a fairly easy choice when compared to the only general manager types elected (Ron Wolf, Polian) since the contributors category was introduced in 2015.
He was an architect of multiple Super Bowl winners in Miami and Washington. He didn't change the build-through-the-draft mantra, but he defied it, liberally trading away picks to get contenders over the hump. During one Redskins stretch, he kept his first-round pick three times in 11 years.
Brazile was an iron-man linebacker (147 consecutive games at one point) well remembered by Browns fans who saw him twice a year as a Houston Oiler. The Browns' home opener in their Kardiac Kids year of 1980 was against the Oilers. He was all over the field in a 16-7 Houston win.
Kramer was the Green Bay Packers' Lou Groza for a while, a superb blocker who also was the team's kicker. He started in six NFL championship games.
Where have I gone wrong?
I suspect the 48-man "committee" will elect a safety, but it will be Brian Dawkins, not Lynch.
I further suspect the receiver who makes it will be Moss, who had a monster year for New England's 16-0 team of 2007.
Overall, it's a hard class to predict, so, we're just spitballing when we imagine the committee making Lewis, Law, Jacoby, Dawkins and Moss its modern-era group, while okaying all three of specialty nominees, Beathard, Brazile and Kramer.
But then, the guess is you'll have your own way of looking at the Class of 2018.
Reach Steve at 330-580-8347 or
steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP