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http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2527277-the-best-hall-of-fame-argument-for-every-nfl-team/page/30
The Best Hall of Fame Argument for Every NFL Team
By Mike Tanier, NFL National Lead Writer Aug 7, 2015
St. Louis Rams: Kevin Greene, Linebacker
Ironically, if Greene had zero official sacks because he played in the 1970s, he'd have already been carried into the Hall of Fame on a velvet pillow. A Rams and Steelers star with a wild man reputation, Lynyrd Skynyrd-roadie hair, and a long post-playing career as an approachable and agreeable assistant coach? Voters would write sonnets about how fearsome and disruptive Greene was, his intensity on the field and (yep) his lunch pail attitude off it.
Hall of Fame voters used to view the all-time sack leaderboard with more suspicion than they usually had when looking at tables of numbers. Sacks only became official stats in 1982, and it was not that long ago that good-not-great defenders like Clyde Simmons and Sean Jones were hanging around the top 10, with Deacon Jones and Buck Buchanan stuck forever at zero. But the leaderboard has stabilized.
Greene is third on the all-time sack list, and there is no one within more than 60 sacks of him under the age of 32, so he is going to stay in the top five for many years.
The two players ahead of him (Bruce Smith and Reggie White) are Hall of Famers, as are seven of the next nine players who are not still active. But in the same way Cris Carter had to overcome the notion that all he did was catch touchdowns, we need to see that Greene was more than just a one-dimensional sack specialist.
Anyway, I scoured some Football Outsiders play-by-plays for reliable Greene stats a few years ago. Did you know that Greene recorded 35 tackles on running plays for 1.79 yards per run in 1989? By contrast, Lawrence Taylor recorded 31 run tackles for 3.25 yards per run that year. I have a lot of data like that: Greene performing comparably to Taylor (or better than him) against the run, Greene defending passes and tackling tight ends after the catch, general evidence that a 16-game starter who recorded double-digit sacks 10 times in his career didn't spend rushing downs at the Gatorade table.
None of this should matter, because the argument is silly. The real reasons Greene has been stuck at the finalist stage for four years are:
All he has are the things that were within his control: 160 sacks, five Pro Bowl appearances, three safeties and more than a decade as one of the NFL's most disruptive defenders, against the run and the pass.
If you are looking for something else, you may be looking at the wrong things.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K86w2lSTm3E&spfreload=10
To read the entire article click the link below.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2527277-the-best-hall-of-fame-argument-for-every-nfl-team
The Best Hall of Fame Argument for Every NFL Team
By Mike Tanier, NFL National Lead Writer Aug 7, 2015
St. Louis Rams: Kevin Greene, Linebacker
Ironically, if Greene had zero official sacks because he played in the 1970s, he'd have already been carried into the Hall of Fame on a velvet pillow. A Rams and Steelers star with a wild man reputation, Lynyrd Skynyrd-roadie hair, and a long post-playing career as an approachable and agreeable assistant coach? Voters would write sonnets about how fearsome and disruptive Greene was, his intensity on the field and (yep) his lunch pail attitude off it.
Hall of Fame voters used to view the all-time sack leaderboard with more suspicion than they usually had when looking at tables of numbers. Sacks only became official stats in 1982, and it was not that long ago that good-not-great defenders like Clyde Simmons and Sean Jones were hanging around the top 10, with Deacon Jones and Buck Buchanan stuck forever at zero. But the leaderboard has stabilized.
Greene is third on the all-time sack list, and there is no one within more than 60 sacks of him under the age of 32, so he is going to stay in the top five for many years.
The two players ahead of him (Bruce Smith and Reggie White) are Hall of Famers, as are seven of the next nine players who are not still active. But in the same way Cris Carter had to overcome the notion that all he did was catch touchdowns, we need to see that Greene was more than just a one-dimensional sack specialist.
Anyway, I scoured some Football Outsiders play-by-plays for reliable Greene stats a few years ago. Did you know that Greene recorded 35 tackles on running plays for 1.79 yards per run in 1989? By contrast, Lawrence Taylor recorded 31 run tackles for 3.25 yards per run that year. I have a lot of data like that: Greene performing comparably to Taylor (or better than him) against the run, Greene defending passes and tackling tight ends after the catch, general evidence that a 16-game starter who recorded double-digit sacks 10 times in his career didn't spend rushing downs at the Gatorade table.
None of this should matter, because the argument is silly. The real reasons Greene has been stuck at the finalist stage for four years are:
- There's a backlog, so everybody has to wait.
- Greene played several signature seasons for the Los Angeles Rams, which no longer exist, at least as of press time, so it is hard to mount a local groundswell campaign.
- Those Rams are remembered as playoff stumblebums. We don't remember Greene sacking Randall Cunningham twice in the playoffs in 1989. (Well, I sure as heck do, but never mind.) We don't remember Greene's sack to help lift the Rams above Bill Parcells' Giants. What we remember is Jim Everett crumpling into a tiny ball in a 30-3 loss to the 49ers. Those Rams rubbed off on Greene's reputation.
- Pro Bowl Counters (folks who start all Hall of Fame discussions by listing a player's All-Pro or Pro Bowl selections) scoff at Greene's five selections without recognizing that Taylor soaked up near-universal acclaim in Greene's best Rams seasons, leaving Greene, Charles Haley, Pat Swilling and a few others to compete for second place every year. Greene's 16.5 sacks failed to earn him a Pro Bowl slot in 1988 because 4.5 of them came in the season finale, a win against the 49ers to launch the Rams into the playoffs. So Greene terrorized Joe Montana and Steve Young for an afternoon and pushed his team into the postseason, but ballots were already being counted, so 30 years later we load up Pro Football Reference and say: "no Pro Bowl, tut-tut."
- Greene's Steelers lost their one Super Bowl and suffer from comparisons to the 1970s Steelers and the 2000s Steelers.
- Rams and Steelers voters sympathetic to Greene's cause are also busy trying to wave the Greatest Show on Turf Rams and Steelers like Jerome Bettis through without too much of a wait. Greene is not a top priority for either voting bloc, and even I would try to vote Orlando Pace and Kurt Warner through before banging a table for Greene.
- Greene's All-Pro season for the 1996 Panthers, who played in the NFC Championship Game, was undercut by his sudden defection to the 49ers the following year. His late-career contract disputes are fresh in many minds; committee members don't often jump at the chance to vote for a mercenary-for-hire who walked away from a playoff team.
All he has are the things that were within his control: 160 sacks, five Pro Bowl appearances, three safeties and more than a decade as one of the NFL's most disruptive defenders, against the run and the pass.
If you are looking for something else, you may be looking at the wrong things.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K86w2lSTm3E&spfreload=10
To read the entire article click the link below.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2527277-the-best-hall-of-fame-argument-for-every-nfl-team
