Farewell To The Greatest Eagle Of All Time
Frank Gore is out. I can’t believe he’s gone. I have no love for the Eagles, but even I can respect this man and what he means to this franchise. For one day in March 2015, Frank Gore became the greatest Eagle of all time. No question. Randal Cunningham? Get outta here. Chuck Bednarik? Brain Dawkins? McNabb? Name whoever you want. None of them come close except for maybe Nick Foles’ third leg. You have to respect a legend.
Frank’s had an incredible career. He racked up a lot of yards. A LOT of yards. But he’s an interesting question for the Hall of Fame. I figured he’d be a shoo-in until I looked back at his career a bit closer. He’s got the volume stats, mainly total rushing yards, and the accolades that come with that, but not as many accolades as you might think. Obviously, he never won a ring. Not any real All-pros to speak of, though many pro bowls. He’s not that high on the rushing TD list. He was basically a compiler iron man of sorts. I think it’s enough to get him in and I wouldn’t take issue with him reaching the hall but I also would understand if it takes him a while to do it or if he doesn’t get in at all. He certainly won’t have much RB competition in this era outside Adrian Peterson. Gore might get in on the fact that he could arguably be the last great workhorse back. Frank Gore was reliable for 3-4 yards up the middle for a long, long time. PFR has him right on the cusp of typical HoF runners.
I hope he goes in as the legendary Eagle he is.
Really nice of you to acknowledge the Eagles legend that is Frank Gore, Dave.
It’s worth reminding his tenure in midnight green https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2015/3/13/8207939/frank-gore-philadelphia-eagles-oral-history-colts
The thing to remember is you have to compare a hall of famer to his the contemporaries of his era. If you compare Gore to Barry Sanders and Emmit Smith then he’s not on the chart. But look back at the last 20 years and compare him to the great running backs of the last 20 years. Gore compares much better IN THIS ERA where RB’s split time, careers are short, and injuries are far more common
Yes, Just like T.O the Raven
Wait…. What?
I think Frank Gore will make the Hall of Fame, but after several years.
I personally don’t think you should make the HOF because of How long you played. Gore had a few decent seasons and he only put up those numbers because he played for so long.
For most sports I’d agree with you, but for football it’s a separate beast. For him to play as long as he did, as a running back is incredible. He played more season than games missed in his career (16 seasons to 15 games missed). Between his counting stats and incredible durability I’d put him in personally.
What is your conception of ‘decent’? He had 9 seasons where he went over 1000 yards, and another 2 seasons where he went over 960. That is more than a few.
I see Gore as a sort of an anti-Terrell Davis. I don’t believe Davis to be Hall worthy, but I understand his inclusion. With these two in the Hall of Fame, Darren Sproles had better make it in someday. He is the third color to this outlier running back TaeGeuk.
For any positions *except* running back, I wouldn’t consider a 16 year career to be hall worthy. There are journeymen who get that, and definitely don’t deserve it. Running Back’s a different beast.
For me, though, the Hall of Fame isn’t the Hall of Stats. For me, the question is, “Can you really tell the story of the NFL without this player?” You can’t tell the story of the mid-late 1990s without Terrel David– you can’t get the Denver Running System without Davis; sure, others ran it well, but no one ran it better, and it was his skill that let it shine. Back to back Super Bowl champs, so completely driven by that one player, so much so that he overshadowed John Elway. He has the accolades that players with career three times as long never sniffed. So yeah, he belongs in the Hall, despite the incredibly short career.
It’s also why Joe Namath belongs in the Hall of Fame, even though he statistically has no place there, and other than like two seasons, he never really had any jaw-dropping on field performance. But you cannot tell the story of the NFL without the Gurantee and Super Bowl III. The drama that this incredibly polarizing figure brought to the game helped solidify not only the AFL (later AFC), as legitimate contenders to the NFL’s primacy, but he provided a villain to counterpoint Johnny Unitas’ heroism. He wasn’t even in the top 10 QBs of his era in on-the-field importance, but only Unitas and Starr meant more to the game.
So for me, the question is: can you tell the story of the NFL’s drama without Frank Gore? What gets lost in the Hall, in that grand tapestry of the sport’s history, if he’s not there? There are some teams– the 1980s/90s Bills for example– who never won a ring, but who still dominated the game, and who ultimately *changed* the game. Gore wasn’t really part of any such system, and his play is, if anything, a throwback to an earlier era. Is being “The Last Of A Dead Breed” Hall worthy? Some’ll say yes, but I don’t think he reaches the heights of an Okoye, or a Campbell, or a Smith. He certainly didn’t have the on-field dynamism of Sanders, Peyton, or David; he’s not a generational player at all.
But… running back. Man, sticking around for 16 years in the most punishing position in professional sports is an extraordinary accomplishment in almost any era, but it’s even *MORE* impressive today. On the one hand, I don’t really think he’s Hall of Fame worthy, but at the same time, it feels like his career deserves more recognition than any other award provides.
For me, I think Frank Gore deserves to get in on the senior committee. He’s not *quite* good enough to get in with his peers, but he deserves to get in as an antique, because that’s kind of what his play and logevity represented, even his time– the pasta.
I have a slightly different criteria, but I end up falling in the same camp. I think that if you can truly say for multiple seasons that a player was or was among the best at their position they should be in the hall of fame. Frank Gore was in the top 10 in rushing yards in 6 seasons. He was top 5 in rushing once. He was top 10 in rushing touchdowns twice, was never in the top 5 for rushing touchdowns, and only once ran for 10 in a season. He was top 10 in yards per attempt 3 times, and top five once.
Comparing that to LeSean McCoy, who I think is also a fringe candidate, McCoy played for 12 years and was in the top 10 of rushing yards 6 times, same as Gore, but also was in the top 5 of rushing yards 4 times, and led the league once. McCoy was also in the top 10 of yards per attempt three times, and all three of those times he was also top 5. In terms of accolades, McCoy went to the pro bowl six times vs 5 for Gore, and McCoy was elected to the All-Pro first team twice, where Gore made second team once.
I do think that Frank Gore’s story is better than LeSean’s, as an individual story I think that the loyalty and longevity Gore had is probably going to get him to Canton eventually, but if it was just up to me I don’t think he’d make it.
The obvious opposite to Gore is Terrell Davis, like you folks have said. From 1996 to 1998 I think it is safe to say that Terrell Davis was the second best running back in the league. Normally I don’t think that would be worthy of the hall of fame, I’d want a running back to be the best in the league if it was that short. Having said that, the guy above him was Barry Sanders…so I’m a bit inclined to waive that particular gripe.
ProFootballReference has their own advanced metric called Approximate Value that tries to tell you how valuable a player was for a team. Gore has 94 AP for his career, while Davis has 73, so overall, Gore contributed more over his career, but during that three year stretch from 96-98 Davis had 57 AV, which was actually considerably more than Sanders had over that same time frame (47), and more than any 5 year stretch of Gore’s career. (I actually looked through a bunch of different running backs, and the only RBs I could find with a better three year stretch by AV were LaDanian Tomlinson, Emmitt Smith, and Jim Brown, pretty good company all things considered).
Frank Gore was a damn good player for most of my life. I wish him the best and definitely wouldn’t be mad if he made it, but I think he would make it off of nostalgia and misremembered greatness more than on his own merits, which would be kinda bittersweet. Frank Gore is the kind of player that I’ll never forget, but that I wouldn’t put in the Hall of Fame.
He’ll get there before London Fletcher, that’s for certain.
Gore should get in just based on his longevity. I think he would have more yards too if he didn’t play behind some trash 49ers lines in his early career. He’d also likely have a ring if tge 49ers ran Gore instead of the pass to Crabtree in the Harbowl.
My most damnable hot take is that I don’t think Frank Gore should make the Hall of Fame. It’s hard to deny because people like to look at his place on the all-time rushing yards list and say “Boom, done!”. I think in an age where people can play longer and rules changes favor high-yardage offense, compilation stats like this (while impressive) don’t mean as much.
At some point you have to ask “Was Frank Gore ever a top-3 back in the league?” I don’t know that you can definitevely say that because for most of his career you had AP, Edgerrin James, LT, Shaun Alexander, Beast Mode, Jamal Lewis, CJ2K, etc, that he was competing with. I don’t feel good inducting a guy who’s greatest accolade is a Second Team All-Pro from his 2nd year in the league. His longevity is to be commended, but I think the HoF should be about more than 1 statistic.
I won’t be mad if he gets in though, don’t get me wrong! It’s a helluva career from a true Philly great!
Ya know, it’s hard to figure out which current backs have the best chance for the HOF, since their careers get cut shorter nowadays due to new age training and not getting second chances. Not to mention with the league being a passing fest, the skill gap just isn’t there because it’s so easy to run against Nickel and Dime defenses and smaller defenders.
Frank Gore gets in because he has the most important stat for anybody seeking to get in without having dominating stats – Everybody loves him.
Aside from maybe Skip Bayless, nobody is going to look at Gore getting in and say he doesn’t deserve it even if they think statistically he doesn’t.
The big issue with Gore is he was never even close to being the best runningback in the league. His best year there were 5 guys who outperformed him, and even more his 2nd best year. He was a fine runningback, but never once a top caliber player. There are guys out there with more rushing titles(leading the league in either TDs or Yards) than Gore has player of the week awards. Let that sink in. If he retires when he started to perform as a below average runningback there wouldn’t even be a HOF conversation, and these last few years have been pretty sad to watch. He’s not an effective back anymore, he was an active detriment to the best team he’s been on since leaving San Francisco.
IMO you earn the HOF spot in your prime by being the best of the best, longevity is one of many tie breakers for fringe cases. If I ask myself while ignoring the huge raw numbers in front of me, “Was Frank Gore an elite player in the NFL in his prime” the numbers give a resounding “No” and the eye test does as well. It’s not Gore’s fault we have LDT to compare him to, but that’s the breaks
Good running back, fortunate to have the medical advances and teams who are willing to pick him up. Not remotely close to the hall unless you remove all context from his accumulated stats. I mean, look at this-
Emmit Smith averaged 81.2 yards per game for his career. Walter Payton 88. Sanders 99.8. Peterson, 81.1. Curtis Martin, 83.9. LDT 80.5. JEROME BETTIS, 71.2. The hecking bus. All of these guys from the all time rushing yards leaders
Frank Gore? 66.4. I rest my case.
I’ve made the same case re: his contemporaries. He unfortunately shared the league with guys like LT, Fred Taylor, Priest Holmes when he was young; AD, Marshawn, Shady, etc when he was in his prime, and then the current generation like CMC, Cook, Kamara, etc. Not to mention freak seasons from guys like CJ2K, Jamal Charles, Shady, Stephen Jackson, etc.
A prudent question is: Can you make a case for him without mentioning either the amount of games he’s played or his total yardage? I don’t really think you can. He has one more rushing TD than Edgerinn James despite playing 6 more seasons. He has one 2nd team All-Pro and only 5 pro bowls. He’s not on any all-decade teams. His best season is a comendable 1600 yard season, but then his next best season is barely 1200 yards.
Hall of Very Good, yes. Hall of Fame? I just don’t think he quite measures up.
Hey, another fan of the Hall of Very Good! Yeah, Gore has the total yards stat and the games stat down, but he really doesn’t have anything else. He was never the best in the league, the only time he was ever top 5 in any stat was his second year in the league.
He’s the as close to the opposite of Terrell Davis as you can get.