Hall of fame gold jacket finalists announcements

[RobertWeathers]

Everson

He was excellent. He played for BB in NY and CLE

 

[sb1]

I forgot Law was a Donkey.

 

[Tunescribe]

He’s up there, but the GOAT LB is LT.

No, **** Butkus.

 

[Dr Pain]

1. Ray Lewis

O.J. Simpson Enshrinement | Pro Football Hall of Fame Official Site

 

[Foxypats]

I really really want Ty Law to get in, but I fear he will have to wait awhile !

 

[Mack Herron]

Good times.

 

[long distance]

extra motivation for Gilmore to bring it on in playoffs..

 

[Joey007]

It was a dig at that poster. He says Seymour dogged it here

Yes I remembered that, he made a thread about it and all. I was just talking about Seymour in specific

 

[Ring 6]

As to the Lewis Goat LB discussion.

IMO it is stupid to lump ILB and OLB together. Kinda like comparing TEs to WRs, very different skill sets.

Butkus, Lambert, Nitschke, Nobid, Singletary, Seau. Those are the comps for Lewis. He could very well be the goat ILB. I have seen all the above play he is good as any of them.

Taylor is almost as much a DE as LB the way he was used

First lambert Butkus and Seau were better than Lewis. Singletary too.
Lewis was great at covering a lot of ground and was a tremendous tackler, but needed dL to keep blockers off of him.
The others were more physical.

And LT was by no means a DE.

 

[FCB02062]

I'm utterly shocked to realize that Ray Lewis retired in 2012 and it's 2018 now. What the hell have I been doing the past 6 years?

Obviously not listening to Ray Lewis butcher the English language while attempting NFL analysis

 

[Joey007]

Lewis always had great defenses around him.

Which is not to discredit him, but I compare that to a guy like Seau who was able to dominate despite not always being on very good defenses throughout his career. I’m going to lean towards Seau every time in a comparison if I had to choose.

 

[nabwong]

Obviously not listening to Ray Lewis butcher the English language while attempting NFL analysis

Some English teacher should come on the show and throw a penalty flag.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

what a terrible insult to LT for them to call Lewis better

Those announcers just want to keep staying ALIVE.

 

[jmt57]

regarding Isaac Bruce:

I don't ever recall him being such a dominant player that I considered him to be Hall of Fame worthy during his playing days. Hall of very good, but not HoF.

Yes, his total career stats and rankings are outstanding. But NFL football is constantly changing in a manner that benefits quarterbacks and receivers in terms of their all-time rankings.

I have said before that to me the best way to compare stats of players who played in different eras is to compare how they ranked each year to their peers, rather than to look at their raw final career statistics.

Consider this with Isaac Bruce:

# of seasons ranked in the top ten in Receptions: 2
4th in '95, 8th in '04.

# of seasons ranked in top ten in Touchdowns: 2
10th in '95, 7th in '99.

# of seasons ranked in top ten in Receiving Yards: 4
2nd in '95, 1st in '96, 3rd in '00, 5th in '04.

# of seasons ranked in top ten in Receiving TD: 3
6th in '95, 2nd in '99, 6th in '00.

# of seasons ranked in top ten in Yards per Catch: 2
7th in '00, 2nd in '01.

# of seasons ranked in top 10 in Yards from Scrimmage: 2
4th in '95, 10th in '96.


That's it for a fairly lenient metric, top ten. Fifth best receiver out of 16 teams in a conference makes it that high.

Narrow it down to top five in any given year, and Bruce makes the list only eight times in six different categories.


He'll probably get in because he ranks 5th with 15,208 yards, played with Kurt Warner, and ranked second at the time he retired. But that number is meaningless in the context of the history of the NFL, the same way it was when Vinny Testaverde retired with the sixth most passing yards in NFL history.


As a point of reference, compare to Randy Moss:
Receiving Touchdowns: led NFL five times, 8x in top-4, 9x in top-6.
Receiving Yards: 2nd 3x, 7x in top-5, 8x in top-10.

 

[PatriotsNumero1Fan]

I expect both randy Moss and terrell Owens to go in along with the murderer. I wish law would get in but he might have to wait because the class looks strong right now.

 

[upstater1]

If Bruce gets in, they better put Stanley Morgan in too!

 

[Lee144]

In college Urlacher played the lobo-backer aka Safety in the box playmaker. Pretty big jump for a small town kid from NM. Then made the jump to the NFL to play inside LB on some decent Bears defenses. Good for him, hopefully he makes it over Ray “ I hate everything Patriots” Lewis

 

[Joey007]

Taylor
Butkus
Nitschke
Bell
Thomas
Hendricks
Brooks
Seau
Ham
Singletary
Lambert

He's somewhere in that group. Also, if I were in the mood, I might pull up some tape of Tippett at his best for comparison.

My issue with ranking LB’s: can you really rank a pass rushing LB the same way you rank an ILB like Lewis, Brooks or Butkus?

With LT, Tippett and Thomas, do we almost classify them as DE’s, since the best facet of their games was going off the edge rushing QB’s?

 

[Deus Irae]

My issue with ranking LB’s: can you really rank a pass rushing LB the same way you rank an ILB like Lewis, Brooks or Butkus?

Yes

There's an underlying thread for linebackers, at least since before the SB era. At some point, you have to be able to get away from specialization long enough for evaluation.

With LT, Tippett and Thomas, do we almost classify them as DE’s, since the best facet of their games was going off the edge rushing QB’s?

No

 

[Joey007]

Yes

There's an underlying thread for linebackers, at least since before the SB era. At some point, you have to be able to get away from specialization long enough for evaluation.



No

I can agree that all of the above listed should since they were LB throughout their careers.

My issue is that nowadays you have more guys who have played both DE and LB, depending on the system they’re in. (Demarcus Ware for example)

Where do we classify guys like Ware in the future?