Congratulations to the 2024 Hall of Fame Class
Let’s talk about the NFL honors now that we have some free time. We can start with the newest inductees of the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers, Devin Hester, Patrick Willis, Andre Johnson, Legacy choice Steve McMichael, and Legacy choice Randy Gradishar. I don’t have anything to say about the two old guys, they were before my time and I’m unfamiliar with them. I have zero qualms with the choices of Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers, Willis, and our big beatdown buddy Andre Johnson. Andre Johnson was a monster and him taking Cortland Finnegan out behind the shed is a core football memory for NFL fans. This moment is so great that the Houston Texans website proudly shows the video of what is, remind you, a very illegal fight. You are not allowed to just obliterate another player like that. But everyone who saw that fight understands that if Andre Johnson reached that point then Cortland Finnegan deserved it. Andre was a quiet, stoic competitor who rarely even spoke. Finnegan was an asshole and his NFL legacy is taking two now Hall of Famer punches to the face.
I have slightly more issues with Hester. He feels like a guy who got in based on the strength of his one real skill. He was unquestionably one of the best kick returners ever, and that’s pretty much his entire argument. He was nothing as a wide receiver. Most of his impact was made in his rookie year when he had 6 return TDs, including a then-NFL record 108-yard return on a short field goal vs the Giants. I don’t think I really have a problem with Hester getting into the Hall overall and we are all going to remember him, but I think my bigger issue is did he really deserve it over Antonio Gates? Or Jared Allen? Hell even Rodney Harrison or Torrey Holt? I guess the debate is do you enshrine a guy who was one of the best ever at a very niche skill over a guy who made maybe a less monumental impact playing a much more important position? I’d have replaced Hester with Gates and given us the “played Basketball in college” class (Peppers also played). But the more I think about it, it is the Hall of Fame, not just the hall of stats. Hester is a landmark player for those who watched him. I’m okay with him being there.
By the way, Eli is eligible next year, so brace yourself for that nightmare discourse in 2025.
NFL HONORS WINNERS FOR 2023:
MVP – Lamar Jackson – This was one of the weakest MVP classes I can remember seeing. Lamar feels like he got the award because he was the last QB standing in the regular season. This was pretty much the best possible year to give the award to someone who isn’t a QB, and CMC was right there. Hell, I kinda feel like Stroud might have a better argument than Lamar, but they’ll never give a rookie MVP. They need to just end the entire MVP award and rebrand it exclusively as a QB award. There is no position nearly as valuable in the entire sport so the award is just inherently biased to QBs. Just convert it to be official and be done with it. Give Football our own version of the Cy Young.
OPotY – McCaffery – Pretty much the guaranteed spot for any MVP candidate who isn’t a QB. Just make it offensive MVP. This is the obvious choice.
DPotY – Myles Garrett – Acceptable I guess, Garrett kinda vanished over the last third or so of the season but his work before then was certainly incredible.
ORotY – CJ Stroud – Yeah, pretty much had to be Stroud.
DRotY – Will Anderson – Christ the Texans really nailed it in 2023.
Coach of the Year – Kevin Stefanski – This was certainly an acceptable choice. This award tends to waffle between 2 trains of thought: do you give it to the coach of the best teams in the league, like, say, a Kyle Shanahan, or do you give it to a coach who faced more adversity and was more surprising? Stefanski was the latter this season and he unquestionably got dealt a bad hand with the injuries the Browns faced. But I think credit should be given to DeMeco Ryans after that Texans turnaround, and even Shane Steichen of the Colts, who did his best with a bad roster and his rookie QB gone by week 4. Dan Campbell would be the other guy who most deserved a nod and maybe my personal choice.
Comeback Player of the Year – Joe Flacco – This award needs to be reworked. Split in two, imo, to separate a comeback from injury and comeback from irrelevance. Flacco took the award narrowly over Damar Hamlin, and they pretty much both represent opposite visions of this award. Flacco’s comeback was not a comeback from injury but a comeback from irrelevance. Flacco was shit for a few years now as a mercenary backup floating around the league. He came in off the couch for a desperate Cleveland and made a significant impact on the field. That’s deserving. On the other hand, Damar Hamlin came back FROM THE DEAD. I would like to repeat that: Damar Hamlin briefly died before our eyes last year. The fact that he even put on the uniform this season is a miracle. But, as dissenters will point out, he made zero impact on the field. So, do you give the guy who sucked before but made an actual football impact the award, or do you give it to the guy with the undeniable inspirational injury comeback award who didn’t make an actual impact? There is precedent to both sides here. Geno Smith won last year after coming back from irrelevance to make an impact on the field. Alex Smith won in 2020 after coming back from a horrific leg injury that almost cost him his life, but he only played a few games and didn’t make much of an impact on the field.
The funny part is you can see the split thinking in the voting tally. The NFL went with a ranked-choice voting system that ended up breaking down like this:
(5-3-1 scoring)
Joe Flacco, 13-26-8=151
Damar Hamlin, 21-7-14=140
Baker Mayfield, 10-10-13=93
Flacco won because he got everyone’s second-place vote and the math worked out. Hamlin easily got the most first-place votes but the lowest second-place votes, which tells me this- People who value on-field impact were going to vote for either Flacco or Mayfield, and then whoever they didn’t pick would get the second-place vote. People who were more inspired by the Hamlin story easily voted Hamlin first, but then were likely to just give Flacco the second place vote. Flacco got pretty much everyone’s second vote. Both of these guys (and even Mayfield) were pretty deserving in their own right but for such vastly different reasons. That’s why I say they should split this award up. Coming back from injury and coming back from irrelevance. The injury player doesn’t need to make such a grand impact, and it can be renamed the inspirational award or something. Comeback player can remain for dudes like Flacco or Smith who’s careers we thought were over but came out of the shadows to shine again.
Please god don’t let Aaron Rodgers win this award next year.
Steve McMichael deserves the HoF for this alone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7fJx3CO_nw
I so wish we could have gotten one more healthy year out of Darren Sproles. He was half a season away from the 20,000 yards plateau.
But if Devin Hester can get into the Hall of Fame, then I can still hold out hope for Sprolesy. I would argue a guy like Darren Sproles (or Brian Mitchell) who can legitimately contribute on offense and give you 80% of the return ability of Hester is a far more valuable player.
If we’re going to let guys into the Hall of Fame for doing one thing very, very well a la Hester, then I want to see Charles Tillman make it into the Hall. His ‘Peanut Punch’ forced more fumbles than Hester returned kicks for a touchdown. Getting the ball back when the other team is on offense > scoring when you were getting the ball anyway.
One thing I really like about the Baseball HoF is that they have some sort of description of what made them so good. Bert Blyleven’s talks about his “cruel, knee-buckling breaking ball”. Rod Carew’s mentions his “relaxed, crouched batting stance”. To reduce a career to just a bunch of numbers and talk only about the aggregate seems short-sighted. Then you miss fun nuances like the Peanut Punch (which is just as famous imo as “don’t kick to Hester”), the Thomas Chop, Adrian Peterson’s Trucking, Revis Island, etc. Tell stories, don’t just list statistics.
Andre “Silent Assassin” Johnson
Devin “You are Ridicules” Hester
Dwight “Strip Master” Freeney
Steve “Moncho” McMichael
Patrick “Physical Force” Willis
Julius “Freak of Nature” Peppers
Randy “Orange Crush” Gradishar
Ridicules sounds like a character on Krapopolis.
I’d love it if Julio Franco got in, his batting stance was one of the weirdest ever to be seen on the field
I love Darren Sproles, as a massive K-State fan he was the best player our team has ever had and he definitely deserves to be in the College Football Fame.
But he isn’t a pro football hall of famer, he belongs in the hall of very good.
Teams feared Hester, they didn’t fear Sproles as much
My feelings on hester getting in are simple: if you can’t get into the hall of fame for being the best ever at a special teams role then the role should be legislated out of the game because it ain’t worth playing.
Steve Tasker should have gotten in before Hester. Hopefully next year. (Tasker was a finalist this year)
If Tasker gets in, Slater should definitely make the Hall of Fame.
Basically this, but without the if/then statement. Special teams is a necessary part of the game, those who perform in it exceptionally should get the nod. When Matthew Slater’s time comes up it’ll be a travesty if he isn’t enshrined as well for one of the best careers as a niche player.
I’m a little peeved that he got in over Jared Allen as well….He’s one of the big ones that I continue to scratch my head about. he’s had to wait 4 years (!!!!!) to get in while others that he is comparable to continue to waltz in. He has comparable numbers to Demarcus Ware overall and better per-game numbers than Peppers, both of whom were in first-ballot, and rightfully so. But now Freeney gets in first-ballot??? I realize he won a championship, but Jared Allen is better than him in every meaningful statistic with two full seasons fewer games while also being (arguably) a more iconic player. I’m happy for Hester, but we deserve a bronze mullet.
This is Freeney’s second ballot.
I used to be on the fence about Hester until I realized that you can just compare his situation to that of an elite CB. Where elite CBs don’t put up big INT/pass defense numbers because QBs actively avoid them, Hester lost out on a ton of opportunities to return kicks because kickers stopped kicking to him. It explains why most of his damage comes from his rookie year and early career. It’s hard to score return TDs when over half of your kickoffs are squib-kicks or touchbacks.
I also have a theory that Devin Hester was partially responsible for a larger change in how teams approach the kicker position as a whole–namely, teams started investing heavily in getting kickers with strong legs who can consistently kick touchbacks, since it meant that they didn’t have to sacrifice field position just to avoid kicking to Hester or players like him. This, coupled with the fact that the kickoff line got moved back to the 35 instead of the 30 in 2011, basically prevented him from having a chance to return most kicks after those early seasons of dominance. For someone to potentially change an entire aspect to that extent–just because he was so damn good at what he did–yeah, I’m more than cool with him going first ballot, even if it was at the expense of other guys you mentioned.
He wasn’t first ballot, this was his third year of eligibility
Oh shit, I didn’t even realize. I could have sworn he retired in 2019 LOL
I remember teams just straight up taking the penalty rather than kicking the ball downfield, shit was wild.
Teams would rather let teams start at the 40 yard line than kick to Hester. Complete insanity what he did.
Clearly Gates deserves to be in, and IMO Hester does as well. The problem is the Hall has an arbitrary limit of 5 modern players a year. They could just raise the limit without lowering the standards, and just not hit the limit most years
Even as a biased Ravens fan, I was a bit confused that Lamar got a nigh-unanimous MVP again. He got hot at the right time to secure the award and I think he’s a better player than he was in 2019 but, as everyone and their mother has mentioned, the touchdown numbers were far from eye popping compared to that year and in a vote that made sense he would have had a vote count somewhere in the 20s or 30s. I don’t like the narrative of good defense being a knock on someone’s MVP case when they are both performing well, Drew Brees would likely have an MVP if his defenses weren’t complete dogshit and dragging the team’s record down.
He didn’t even get hot tbh. He had one phenomenal game and that was his last game of the season. He just avoided any bad narratives so they gave it to him.
Agreed as a creature whose skin is probably 10% Old Bay at any given moment. I think the rationale may have been the context of how good the Ravens have been the past few seasons when Lamar went down (that is to say, not very), so now he’s not only the big-name QB with the best regular-season record, we have the most concrete sense of his value as measured in extra games won/lost.
Cortland Finnegan, the NFL’s Tim Anderson
The NFL and the Associated Press don’t really define which kinds of comebacks the “Comeback Player of the Year” award is meant to celebrate, which makes me think that they kinda want it to be either/or, depending on the year. Every season has plenty of injuries, but not every season has an injury as shockingly bad as what happened to Smith (Alex) or Hamlin, so the injury “comebacks” in the following season aren’t super notable, just guys recovering and rehabbing. In some years, guys like Smith (Geno) will just have the more interesting story to highlight, so they want to leave the award open to those kinds of comebacks as well.
Which I think is the point. The NFL is always trying to show and tell interesting stories. Not in an “omg scripted/rigged” way, but in the sense that stories can always emerge out of genuine real-life competition, out of people all putting effort into trying to win. That’s part of the entire appeal of sports. It’s exactly why the Houston Texans have the Andre Johnson-Cortland Finnegan beatdown video on their website, even if technically they shouldn’t condone that kind of behavior: because it’s interesting as hell and there’s a story behind it, and that’s what makes people watch.
Should the NFL have a clearer definition for CPOTY? Probably. Will they make one? No. They want that leeway.
Cool to see Seahawks legend Devin Hester in the hall. He had a 79 yard punt return in the playoff game against the Falcons that was called back for holding and retired after the game.
Honest question… what part of Hamlin’s story do you find so “undeniably inspirational” ?
Obviously it’s wonderful that the medical staff could save this guy’s life
But from the beginning, the media circus around it has made me extremely uncomfortable– and seemingly Hamlin as well, going off how much he has tried to avoid the spotlight after the events. Getting praised as a hero for doing…. what exactly? Dying? Dying near enough to paramedics that they could (thankfully!) revive you?
What did Hamlin do that deserves so much praise? Especially compared to the actual heroes, the medical staff that saved his life. Why have we heard his name 1000x more than any of theirs?
OBVIOUSLY we should all be glad and thrilled that he’s alive today. But there has been so much talk of what an inspirational story he is. Not just here, but NFL wide, and even in the media outside of the NFL sphere. And I truly don’t get it, except from a cynical point of view: it’s such a close call with tragedy that any media outlet can write/present a fluff piece about it and pat themselves on the back.
Does Hamlin really want that attention? If it were me, I would hate being constantly reminded of how close I came to death due to a freak incident and praised for… being resuscitated.
I hope this doesn’t feel like an attack at you Dave– I truly don’t understand the “heroic” narrative behind it, and I would love if you or anyone else who feels it could try and explain it to me. Why is he held up as an icon, and the paramedics who actually saved his life are complete unknowns?
I don’t know man, I think given the amount of trauma involved in the event, it would actually be pretty damn tough to go back to doing the very thing that caused you to die. And it’s not like it was just some crazy Shazier-like hit, it was a pretty routine hit for a special teamer. So he goes through tons of practices and some game situations, reliving that on some level every time. That’s got to be rough. If I died and had to be resuscitated at a particular venue, I’m probably avoiding that venue as much as possible. Hell, I had a cousin jump off a local bridge to their death and I still can’t drive by without feeling some pain in my chest. I think it’s good to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit over not just physical limitations, but mental ones too.
Now, I agree that we should be celebrating the hardworking medical staff who so quickly brought him back. I also could agree that media doesn’t do a great job of codifying why Hamlin’s situation is so commendable. but don’t discount the level of trauma that he may be going through and the effort it takes to overcome that.
Well, considering the award is called Comeback PLAYER of the Year, and not Medical Staff of the Year, it would be a bit weird if they got the award. I mean I guess if I wanted to, I could make a similar counter-argument to yours in that why are we praising a medical staff for doing their jobs and not letting a man die, I really don’t understand the “heroic” narrative around this, but A. That would be just as absurd an argument as yours, and B. It would make me a pedantic douche who doesn’t understand why asking why a guy is being praised for coming back to play from literally dying on the field would make me seem like a callous piece of shit. So here’s the skinny, TimJohn Horsefuck III, the award is comeback player, not hero, not best guy ever, not god emperor of the planet. He died, and then he CAME BACK from the dying to his career. Came back, or comeback if you put it in present tense. I hope that clears things up for you, and I hope that your friends and family stop hating you and invite you back to Christmas this year.
It was a legitimate question, and you really haven’t helped him to understand.
Yeah, OP’s not really considering the work involved in coming back from this. I mean, treat it like any other injury. A guy has a compound fracture, can’t play for a year, and then comes back to play his position. All he did was get hurt, right?
See, we can appreciate and rationalize the work that goes into physical rehabilitation and coming back from that. Why is it so hard to appreciate the mental load (shit and maybe physical too, I don’t know what being dead does to your body) of getting back to doing the very thing that caused you to die in the first place. Can you imagine falling off a roof at a job site and then coming back to that very same spot soon after? I don’t know, maybe it’s easier than I’m making it out to be?
You should probably try and let go of some of that anger you’re carrying, and work on your reading comprehension
I made 0 comment about him as CPOTY, I fully understand why he was considered for that.
I was entirely referring to Dave’s description of him as “undeniably inspirational”, a sentiment echoed across sports & non-sports media
Seems like you’re projecting pretty hard about missing out on your family Xmas. I truly hope you work on yourself enough to get an invite next year. It’s a wonderful and magical season when you can share it with your loved ones. Good luck out there!
If elite kickers and punters can get into the HoF, Hester should go in. His return against the Colts is the main Bears highlight of that superbowl and his rookie year may never be replicated.
HoF needs to just raise their limit to 7 with 2 legacy. It seems like every year 1 or 2 deserving players miss out.
I think re-naming the MVP would be silly: it’s literally right in the name, the most valuable player. Who are the most valuable players almost every year? Quarterbacks. It’s not the “best offensive player” award (which is already fulfilled by the Offensive Player of the Year award, which went to the right guy in Christian McCaffrey), so it makes sense. I think the real problem is that people just don’t look at OPotY with nearly as much reverence/respect as they should, which is what actually needs to change.
Alex Smith winning the CPOY award is more an argument for Flacco than Hamlin’s case this year. He did come back from a horrific injury but to compare his impact to someone who had maybe a couple tackles all year is insulting. Smith went 5-1 as a starter for Washington in 2020 and led the team to the playoffs (admittedly at 7-9, though that shows how much better he was than the other quarterback on the team at getting value). His wasn’t just a pity award for suiting up after his injury, he earned it on the field.
Smith absolutely made more of an impact on the field than Hamlin did but this is still overstating his impact. Firstly, wins are not a QB stat, and he did not put up great numbers in that stretch and missed a bunch of games, including the playoff game, from complications to the injury. He beat a bad Benglas team that lost Joe Burrow mid-game, he beat a woeful Cowboys team by barely having to do anything, upset what was considered the biggest fraud in the NFL that was the 11-0 Steelers, missed two games, then beat a woeful Eagles team that literally gave up halfway through to play third stringers to win one of the worst divisional races of all time at 7-9. His best game that year was actually the one loss.
Smith absolutely won the award because of the story, not his on-field performance. His performance was not exceptional if you don’t take into account what he was coming back from. Comparing him to Flacco is baffling. If you look at what Smith did on the field that year and pretend he was like Flacco and coming back from irrelevance instead of a life-threatening injury, he’d have never sniffed the award. It was what he was coming back from that made that comeback special, not his performance. I’m glad he won in 2020, he deserved it, but lets not blow up 6 pretty meh games against mostly very bad competition into something it isn’t.
You should make a lateral’s comic on the Innegan Beatdown.
Man, the Texans really dominated the 2023 NFL Honors: OROTY, DROTY, First Hall of Fame, and we were snubbed for Coach of the Year Honors.
It’s nice knowing other non-Texans fans remember Andre Johnson. He was the Best WR in the NFL from 2007-2011 and will likely be forgotten because of what a quiet guy he was and because his teams never did anything.
Gates and Holt 100% should be in. Holt and Bruce both seem to make the other under-rated and Gates was an absolute beast for a long time. No idea how he didn’t get in over Hester.
Devin Hester did not just score special teams touchdowns.
Devin Hester, forever for all of the returners and specialists to come after him, changed the game and how special teams are played by rule.
When you have a career defined by making the NFL come up with new rules for special teams play for everyone else, you have earned a place.