With the Hall of Fame induction this past weekend comes the annual tradition of the large media outlets chiming in on future HOF elections (what a concept), often seemingly displaying less knowledge of the reality of the voting process than virtually all of our regular HOF commenters.
In fact, during Sunday Night’s Hall of Fame game, I heard Al Michaels mention that Adrian Peterson will one day be giving a speech in Canton (after Peterson himself told reporters that he thinks he’s got a good case for the Hall even if he didn’t play another snap).
So I grabbed a couple of articles that I saw on larger sites to put up for debate here.
Half an hour ago (ok, the news leaked yesterday), Patrick Willis shocked the football world when he retired after eight years in the league.
As I sit hear watching NFL Network, they are having the same debate that was my first thought–was Patrick Willis a Hall of Famer?
We’ll update this post in a few minutes, but we wanted to start getting comments from our Hall of Fame community, since we think this is amongst the most informed Hall of Fame communities online…
Willis was a starter for the 49ers from Day one after being selected 11th overall in 2007, after a strong performance at the NFL Combine.
He amassed an incredible 174 tackles in his rookie season, along with four sacks. Over his first seven seasons, he only missed six games, and he compiled over 900 tackles and 20.5 sacks. In 2014, he ended his season after six games due to an injury to his toe that required surgery.
In his career, he was named to 7 Pro Bowls, voted first team All-Pro five times (and one second team), led the NFL in tackles twice, was the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year, was a three time NFL Alumni Linebacker of the Year (whatever that is), was twice named the 49ers MVP, and was in the NFL Top 100 as named by NFL Network each year since they started naming the list in 2011.
Who was the tallest player in NFL history? That would be Richard Sligh, who was drafted in the 10th round by the Oakland Raiders in 1967, out of North Carolina College. Sligh measured in at 7 feet even, the only NFL player to break that mark.
Sligh played sparingly in his rookie year, appearing in eight games, but was a reserve on the team that lost Super Bowl II. He was chosen from the Raiders roster by the expansion Cincinnati Bengals in 1968, but waived before the season started. Slight didn’t play again after his rookie season, and passed away in 1998.
The tallest current active player (as of an update to this article in 2025) is Dan Skipper, offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions, at 6 foot, 10 inches tall. Matt O’Donnell, at 6-foot, 11 inches, spent a couple of offseason stints on the Cincinnati Bengals roster, and several seasons with the Edmonton Eskimos/Elks of the Canadian Football League.
Nearly a year later, and we’re finally back with our latest number segment. In the last 358 odd days, a lot has happened—including a certain popular pro football website absconding with our idea. Of course, they actually pay their writers, so they’ve already made it quite a bit further (maybe even all the way) than we have with five numbers in three years…
Of course, our posts our still better. And the original.
Interestingly enough, when I Googled their site to see if I could find an example, the first one I came across just happened to be the same number that we randomly drew today—the number 14.
There have been a lot of famous players to wear #14 in the history of the NFL, including Hall of Famers (and the best #25 in NFL History) Fred Biletnikoff, who wore #14 for the first two years of his career, Curly Lambeau, who was better known as #1 (according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame) and as the Packers owner/coach than a player, and John “Blood” McNally who apparently wore whatever number he could find.
As for players who wore (or are wearing) #14 as their primary number, here’s the best: (more…)
So we’ve reached the final four, meaning there are four possible matchups for the big game. A couple are intriguing, and a couple are…less so. Here’s my take on the possible matchups–and yes, these might be a bit skewed by the fact that I live in Minnesota and cheer for the Vikings…so facing two weeks of non-stop Packer coverage has me dreading what we could be looking at over the next couple of weeks…
Best Option: Indianapolis Colts vs. Seattle Seahawks – Never would I have imagined that I would have thought the Seahawks back in the Super Bowl would be my preferred option, but when it comes to the choice of two weeks of obnoxiousness from Packer fans and non-stop coverage of the condition of Aaron Rodgers calf, I’ll take the smugness of Pete Carroll, antics of Richard Sherman, and overblown hype for Russell Wilson any day of the week. On the AFC side, this game avoids any mention of Tom Brady and Bill Belichek, which is never a bad thing, and puts the NFL’s next mega superstar, Andrew Luck, on the center stage. Let’s just hope he shaves the beard…and isn’t the next Dan Marino. Unfortunately, not sure I see this scenario happening.
Next Best: New England Patriots vs. Seattle Seahawks – In terms of talent, this is probably actually the best possible matchup. As sick as we are of them, Tom Brady and the Patriots probably have the talent and creativity on offense to inflict some damage on the Seahawks stingy defense. Rob Gronkowski can create headaches for any defender, and who knows which running back Belichek would break out for the Super Bowl–he might have a practice squad guy just for the occasion.
Getting Ugly: Indianapolis Colts vs. Green Bay Packers – Probably the least likely scenario, this matchup does provide the platform for the young and budding superstar, but also puts Aaron Rodgers calf back in the spotlight, and means two weeks of non-stop cheese references. The matchup itself would actually probably be decent–both teams have potent offenses, and suspect defenses, meaning the NFL would probably get the high scoring aerial game it always desires. Of course, if this was Major League Baseball, there would be concern over two small market teams meeting for the title (a la Royals vs. Giants in the 2014 World Series). But this is the NFL, where somehow even a town of 100,000 people somehow supports a franchise–must be the revenue sharing.
Worst Case: New England Patriots vs. Green Bay Packers – Does anyone really want to see a rematch of Super Bowl XXXI? In Foxboro, they want to beat the best–not the Packers. And in Green Bay they’d like to have a shot to win, so they don’t have to pretend the season never happened, like they do in the Packer Hall of Fame for Super Bowl XXXII (seriously, it was like the 1997 season never happened the last time I was there). The general public? I would assume they would like to see a game that is actually somewhat in doubt in the second half. And the NFL just wants to make sure that the peak of the game isn’t hoping that Katy Perry suffers a Janet Jackson like wardrobe malfunction.
Who do you want to see in the Big Game? Let us know in the comments and/or by voting in our poll:
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