Charles Woodson to Retire: 1st Ballot Hall of Famer?

by Tony | Dec 23, 2015 | Hall of Fame

Nearing the end of his 18^th season, Charles Woodson announced on Monday that 2015 would be his final season. With the Raiders eliminated from playoff contention, barring injury, his final game in Oakland will be this Sunday, and final game overall will be 1/3/16 in Kansas City.

He most likely retires in the 5^th overall spot for interceptions, with 65 (and an outside chance of catching Night Train Lane, who has 68, and tied for second overall in interceptions returned for touchdowns, one behind Rod Woodson. Barring injury, he will have played in 254 games, and also amassed 18 fumble recoveries, 20 sacks, 155 passes defensed, and at least according to Pro Football Reference, just under 1,000 career tackles.

He has 8 Pro Bowl appearances—four in his first four seasons, then four more consecutively with the Packers from 2008-2011, and three First Team All-Pro selections (and for those that care, he was also a three time 2^nd Team All-Pro). He was the 1998 AP Defensive Rookie of the Year, the 2009 AP Defensive Player of the Year, and was on the 1^st team for the Pro Football Hall of Fame All-2000s Team.

Frank Schwab of Yahoo! Argues that he is a Hall of Fame lock, and the kind of player that shouldn’t have to wait five years to be tabbed. He has even argued that Woodson is the greatest defensive back of all time. For my money, I’m not even sure that Charles is the best defensive back named Woodson of all time–and I would still put Deion Sanders (and maybe a couple others) ahead of him for pure coverage skills, but as an overall defensive back, he’s certainly in the top tier, and probably top 5 in the last 20 years. I’m not sure he’s a lock for his first ballot, but I don’t think he’ll be waiting long.

But let’s hear it Zoneblitz regulars—is he a first ballot HOFer, given the position change, and the difficulty some DBs have had making the Hall?  Is he in your Hall of Good, but not quite Great, due to those years from his injury in 2002 through 2007, before his resurgence in Green Bay?

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Big Media Hall of Fame Thoughts

by Tony | Aug 10, 2015 | Hall of Fame

Courtesy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame

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.

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Patrick Willis: Hall of Famer?

by Tony | Mar 10, 2015 | Hall of Fame

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.

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