If Curtis Martin got in, then Tomlinson will most likely as well. Their career numbers are close.

I wouldn't say either player was transcendent though.

I'm with you.

I think Martin got in because he was a Patriot and a Jet (read: East Coast Bias).

If he was a Charger or a Jaguar, he would have had no chance.

He was incredible and had about as impressive an 8-year span as you could imagine.

He had good size and the power and durability to handle 300+ carries a season consistently.

He could run between the tackles, he could beat the LBs to the outside, and he had fantastic vision- as evidenced by his insane TD production.

He was also one of the best dual-threat RBs in league history.

All of that combined in a guy that was good in pass protection and absolutely, incredibly reliable in terms of ball security.

There was no weakness in his game.

Agreed - Bettis was an animal.

My 5:

Greene
Bettis
Shields
Haley
Brooks

Take a look at the running backs currently in the Hall of Fame. Outside of Curtis Martin, who at least led his team to the Super Bowl and an AFC Championship Game with the Jets, they were transcendent players.

Tomlinson was a very good player that belongs in the Chargers Hall of Fame.

I would not vote for him on an NFL Hall of Fame ballot.

He's not a HoFer by any standards, IMO.

Sayers shouldn't have been either.

Sorry, but the Hall of Fame requires a great peak and significant duration.

Besides, I'm not willing to take Davis's raw production at face value anyway. As Rainman noted, the dropoff from Davis to Olandis Gary and Mike Anderson was pretty nominal.

Davis isn't anywhere close to a HoF runningback. 3 seasons don't get you into the HOF and the only people that think it should are Broncos fans.

Payton. Sure.
Smith. Yeah, can't argue with the numbers, even if his line did most of the work.

Allen - boy, it's getting thin there; I'm not sure I'd consider Allen a clearly more worthy entry to the Hall than Tomlinson.
Dorsett - thinner.
Harris - oh c'mon. Nope, that's where I can't even try to muster an argument. I'd take Tomlinson over Franco Harris 100 times out of 100.

Tomlinson's one of the top 10 rushers in NFL history (#5 by yardage) and was arguably the most dynamic RB out of the backfield in league history.

To use your argument - If Marshall Faulk is a HOFer, so is Tomlinson. And Tomlinson is a hell of a lot closer to Faulk in terms of performance than he is to a guy like Eddie George. I'm not real sure why you keep going to the Eddie George well; he's nowhere near the candidate that guys like Bettis and Tomlinson were, regardless of what metric you want to use. Bettis won a championship and was a more prolific runner (significantly so). Tomlinson never won a championship, but was better in every phase of the game, including the grunt work like blitz pickups.

Yes, Tomlinson absolutely deserves to be enshrined alongside some of the greats you've mentioned.

And ultimately, I'm absolutely confident he will be.

The difference between Franco Harris, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen and Tomlinson is that the former were transcendent players on Super Bowl winning teams.

The Hall of Fame should be about great players that either elevate or transcend and while Tomlinson was very, very good, IMO, he was neither able to elevate the play of his teammates nor transcend the game like a Barry Sanders or even Adrian Peterson (who has a long way to go to be HOF worthy, IMO).

Regardless of whether or not he gets in, I wouldn't vote for him.

That said, keeping a high profile on the NFL Network will certainly help him, as it did Cris Carter at ESPN.

Sense.

You're making it!

Transcendent is the definition you're using, so why don't you explain what makes it such.

Without the immaculate reception, Harris is not a transcendent player. Without a single incredible run against Washington, Allen isn't. Dorsett? Well he just isn't.

You're asking ThaVirus to explain what makes Tomlinson a transcendent player, meanwhile I see nothing to suggest that some of the guys you're holding up meet that test themselves. Franco didn't make his team better - the Steel Curtain did. And the Raiders weren't exactly hurting for success before Allen got there - they won the SB in 1980. Dorsett? During his best years, the Cowboys were largely also-rans. They won a SB with him as a rookie, sure - that's enough to offset the fact that Tomlinson was better than him at literally every conceivable measure of evaluating performance?

I think you're just calling guys that won rings 'transcendent' and in so doing you're doing a huge disservice to a guy like Tomlinson that simply outperformed pretty much every name you're offering.

:facepalm:

I really have to laugh at this. The guy was one of the most productive backs of all time and an absolute workhorse.

He didn't "elevate" the play of those around him and carry his team to a Super Bowl? I wasn't aware that that was a RBs job. I guess they better toss out Sanders' bust right damn now then.

I think that both you and ThaVirus aren't old enough to either know or remember that the NFL used to be a "Run First" league. Every defense was geared to stop the run and every offense needed a transcendent running back to succeed.

Harris, Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson and Marcus Allen thrived in a league that was primarily designed to stop them from running and gaining yardage. Marcus Allen's Super Bowl run, where he reversed direction, was simply beautiful and amazing to watch, as was his ability to get into the endzone.

Marshall Faulk, IMO, is a borderline Hall of Famer, but he didn't enjoy the relaxed passing rules, which opened up the running game, during the majority of his career.

Tomlinson, on the other hand, did enjoy the relaxed rules. And it's become increasingly clear that teams can find excellent running backs in round three or later (or even undrafted) whereas in the 70's and 80's, those guys were first round picks.

The Chiefs failed mainly in the 70's and 80's because they never found a running back (outside of Joe Delaney, who perished after a single season). And while Okoye was drafted in 1986, it wasn't until 1989 that he was a significant part of the offense, which still didn't stop the Chiefs from taking Harvey Williams in the first round of the 1991 draft and Greg "The Real Deal" Hill a few years later in 1994.

Running backs were at a premium. Today, not so much.

Foolish post is foolish.

LaDanian Tomlinson is not in the same league as Barry Sanders, period.

Ah, the ol' "You're not old enough to remember X" card.

Love that.

Kevin Greene has more sacks than Andre Tippet, Chris Doleman and Howie Long and they are all in the Hall of Fame but he isn't

makes sense.

You've admitted that you are 24 years old. You were born roughly around 1988 or 1989.

Would you care to explain the NFL game of the 70's and 80's? Hell, even the 90's?

How has it changed?

The knock on Kevin Greene has always been that he was a poor all-around linebacker.

As a pass rushing specialist, he was valuable. Against the run?

Not so much.

I presume, then, that given the relaxed passing rules, it should be damn near impossible for WRs to make the HOF now?

And I believe I've had this conversation with you before once and simply don't buy the premise. Yes, defenses used to be geared more to stopping the run. They also used to be built around defensive tackles that weighed 260 lbs; defensive ends that weighed 250.

Buck Buchanan was by nearly any measure the most dominant defensive tackle of the era; the guy was 6'7'' and weighted 270 lbs. That's lighter than Tamba Hali. Hell, he just barely outweighs Justin Houston and he has 4 inches in height on the guy.

And he was huge for his time.

Moreover, while defenses were built to stop the run, offenses were built to help it. WRs were oftentimes glorified TEs. TEs were little more than extra tackles. Single back sets? Pft - I'm not even sure they'd been invented yet.

Disregarding modern RBs ignores any of the factors that have served to make the job a hell of a lot more difficult for them as well.

He was better.

Sanders was much less of a threat as a receiver out of the backfield, awful in pass protection and would oftentimes jitter for a loss of 2 when all his team needed was him to run into the pile to pick up 1.

If I'm trying to build a complete, winning football team, I'd take LDT over Sanders every time. And this is from a guy that worshiped Sanders growing up.

It doesn't change the fact that there were a lot of things he could've done to help his team win games that he didn't do. LDT did all those things and while he wasn't as explosive or electric a pure runner as Sanders was - he was a much better all around football player.

I'd love to see the league average for YPC over the years and whether or not the passing rules have had any impact. I have no idea where to find it though.

Yes, I believe so. That's why there's been a logjam at WR the past few years which, IMO, only continue. I'm shocked that Cris Carter got in before Andre Reed. If Art Monk is in, why not Reed? Because he never won a Super Bowl, like Monk?

And if Reed isn't in and Marvin Harrison isn't in, how in the world do you put in Tim Brown, who never played in a Super Bowl? Is Randy Moss a Hall of Famer? I don't know. That would be a tough call for me.

I think the only legitimate Hall of Fame wide receiver in the past decade is Calvin Johnson. Regardless of the QB or the team's record, the man has produced amazing statistics along with amazing body control. But other than him, I can't see anyone else in the Hall of Fame.

Players can only play who they play. Rules on the other hand, effect the game tremendously.

Agree to disagree

of course he does, but there are guys on that list the belong there first i believe. Its a nice bottle neck in there, so yes, that was my homer pick. some of them dudes been waiting a while that need to be in there.

Defenses are geared to stop the passing game. The rules regarding CB's and pass rushers didn't exist in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Guys can barely touch QB's these days, let alone WR's, yet back in the day, they could destroy QB's and mug receivers.

It was totally different game, which is why if you didn't have an amazing running back (if not a Hall of Famer), you likely weren't going to the Super Bowl, let alone, win it.

There are lot of old time players i personally dont feel belong in the Hall just based on stats alone. Joe Namath, Lynn Swann to name a couple.

But these guys were crucial to old time NFL lore and helped make the league to where its at today. Thats why they are in more than anything really. Relative to the era they played in....their stats were good, but compared to today, its a joke. Its a different league now. But they made big time plays in big games, thus transcending.

It has, but not to the degree Dane is contending.

http://www.pro-football-reference.co...FL/rushing.htm

In the 70s you could expect YPC to be around 4.0 YPC. 80s - largely the same story.

The 90's looked to vacillate a little more, but YPC do have a downward trend; 3.9 seems pretty fair and by Tomlinson's 'peak' years it had come up to about 4.1 YPC.

We're talking percentage points here and there; in any given 'era' you're looking about a variation of about 2-4%.

He's right that it's gotten a little easier, but not by that much and certainly not when you compare it to the guys in the 70s and 80s.

But there weren't guys running sub-4.5 40's across the board, either.

The game has changed dramatically.

Players can only play under the rules of their time. And the attributes of the players involved effect the game tremendously as well. I don't think there's even an argument to be made that strength and conditioning has had a greater impact on the game than the rules changes have.

And as to LDT vs. Sanders - that's fine. I now my position isn't going to be the more common one there and there are great arguments to be made to the contrary. I just believe the fact that the discussion can be had at all says that Sanders should be a HoFer.

I can't say I agree here, as I admittedly wasn't a football guru at the age of 8 when Barry was in his prime, but you've brought up a point I'd like to delve into that's pertinent to this argument.

(To Dane)

When considering HOF enshrinement, what's the argument against LT? That he's not "transcendent"? LMAO That he didn't carry his team to a Super Bowl? DJ just noted that LT did a hell of a lot more to carry his team to a championship than a guy like Sanders or many others did.

Yeah, Barry was electric and all that. But, once again, speaking in terms of HOF argument, he had weaknesses. He had, what, over 1,000 negative yards throughout his career in gambing for the big run? He also didn't score many TDs, relatively speaking, as compared to the amount of yardage he totalled.

Jim Brown? That dude was dominant but in a time when he weighed probably 20 pounds less than the average defensive lineman.

Emmitt Smith? Don't even get me started on that guy. How many All-Pro and HOF offensive linemen did he run behind? Not to mention the HOF QB and WR that he also had the pleasure of playing with..

The 5 guys with the highest Pro Football Reference Weighted Career AVs (fwiw) are:

1. Derrick Brooks 140
2. Marvin Harrison 124
3. Michael Strahan 121
4. Will Shields 113
5. Aeneas Williams 106

Just missing the cut were a couple of Raiders, Tim Brown and Steve Wisniewski at 104.

Well, for one, when his team needed him most, he was out, injured.

Secondly, the Chargers WERE a loaded team with a Super Bowl winning coach (albeit as an OC but nonetheless). Vincent Jackson, Tomlinson, Gates, Rivers (or Brees), etc. Yet, they could never get over the hump and he never carried them over the hump.

Again, he was a great running back but I wouldn't vote for him as a Hall of Famer, any more than I'd vote Davis, George, Holmes, etc.

He failed to elevate the Chargers or Jets when it mattered most.

Of course it has.

And those guys running sub 4.5 40's are often CBs trying to track you down or even more terrifying, 240 lb LBers. There damn sure weren't any Dontari Poes in the middle of the line that can leg press a light pickup and clock a 4.9.

Speak to the rules all you want, but the results don't lie - their impact on the actual performance of RBs by era has been in the margins at best. Offenses have adjusted the help they give RBs to fit the rules and the gazelles that are built line 70s era lineman are now LBs are that can fly to the edges (on the same sized field, mind you) and keep modern RBs from getting the corner that they would've made it to in the past.

When you're trumpeting Norv Turner in an attempt to run down LaDanian Tomlinson, your argument is really starting to run out of steam.

So, tell us why Tomlinson should be in the Hall of Fame? What makes him worthy, other than some gaudy stats, which other players outside the Hall have as well?

What made him unique? Why should he be revered 100 years from now?

:facepalm:

We've been doing that, Dane..

Not buying it

He's the 2nd best combination of pass-catcher and rusher in league history (behind only Faulk) while simultaneously being responsible in every facet of the game.

His numbers, even era adjusted, stack up to anyone's. And as I've pointed out several times, there's not a good reason to apply a significant era adjustment to RB as they've been remarkably static in their performance throughout history. His regular season record is sterling as well; the Chargers really began their turnaround with him taking the reigns. Despite different coaches, QBs and skill position players, they just kept winning - LDT was the constant.

The only argument you have against him appears to be that he never won a SB. Well I guess Shields and Gonzalez are ****ed. DT shouldn't have been in there. And why are we still discussing Sanders?

You just move the goalposts every time I address an issue. You've now settle on a nebulous definition of 'transcendent'. And for the record, no, there's not a single player outside the hall that has stats on par with Tomlinsons. Not one. In fact, his are better than most of the guys that are already in it.

You're just seeing what you want to see.

If Coryell doesn't get into the HOF, it's a travesty. None of the offenses putting up video game numbers today that Goodell and the owners love so much would have been possible without him.

But he only won 3 playoff games, so I guess he's not "transcendent" enough for the Hall. :rolleyes:

Bullshit.

First off, Will Shields was a Pro Bowler 12 of his 14 seasons, an 8 time All Pro and an NFL Man of the Year. His level of play was unique and unquestioned.

Tony Gonzalez has more catches than anyone in NFL history other than Jerry Rice. He was the first of new breed of tight ends and is a 13 time Pro Bowler that's still an effective player 17 years into his playing career. His level of play is unique and unquestioned.

LaDanian Tomlinson was a very good running back on a team with many offensive weapons and an "Elite" QB (two, if you count Brees). His teams never won an AFC Championship and by the time he actually played in two AFC Championships, his skills had begun to erode.

While I think he was an excellent player in his era, I do not believe that he is a Hall of Famer.

Nothing that you say can change my mind.

Put David Tyree in the Hall of Fame! He has a ring and had that amazing helmet catch, that means he's "transcendent!" /Dane

And I can absolutely guarantee you that as a SoCal resident since 1993, I saw LaDanian Tomlinson in more games, likely at least tenfold, than you.

And I can say, without a shred of a doubt, that I was not as impressed by his play on the field as his stats indicate. He doesn't pass the eye test, IMO, like a Barry Sanders, Emmit Smith or even Priest Holmes.

**** off, Dummy.

Jesus.

LMAO

Clearly.

But as I've said 1000 times over - I'm not in it to change the minds of the militantly entrenched. All I can do is speak to those that will listen.

Agreed.

Charles Haley has eight votes so far.

Laughable.

And LT holds the record for most single-season rushing touchdowns and is second only to Emmitt Smith for most career rushing touchdowns. Neither has a ring. Hell, Gonzalez didn't even win a playoff game until he was 36 years old.

How is one any more "transcendent" than the other? Let me guess the real reason: Gonzalez was a Chief for most of his career, LT was on a division rival.

Whatever, Dude. I never said he wouldn't get into the Hall of Fame; I said I wouldn't vote for him.

And, I've given several reasons why I wouldn't vote for him, regardless of your stats.

Gee, I'm sorry I based my opinion on dozens of San Diego games I watched over the years, some of which were actually in San Diego, in their stadium.

:rolleyes:

Well I guess that's better than "I'm older", so you're clearly progressing.

He's going to the Hall. Period. He's probably going to go in within the first 3 ballots, if not the first.

But I'm sure your opinion will be far more knowledgeable than those guys...

Thanks for acting like a dick. And that's not what I said, Dick.

My "opinion" will be far more "knowledgeable"? That doesn't even make sense.

Yeah, the Haley thing is confounding.

That guy was one of the first player I recall watching and just being amazed by how clearly physically superior he was to everyone else on the field.

If we're counting rings, Haley was a five time SB champion and likely the best player on the defense for at least 4 of those. Haley to the Cowboys may have done as much to swing the balance of power in the NFC as anything.

Ah I see, now we're moving on to grammar police; I guess plugging your ears and sticking out your tongue got tiresome. This is a better look for you.

My apologies. I'm sure your opinion will be more informed than the HoF selection committee's will be.

Jesus, you're acting like a dickhead tonight. Rough day in court?

The HOF is a colossal waste of time and arguing about it with some overweight slob living in his mom's basement is pointless. Academy awards, Emmy's, Avn's, CMA's, PRO Bowls, All Star games are time occupiers for people with no life and no personal accomplishments. Their biggest achievement was finishing 1st on a Battlefield 4 level.
Opinions from a douche that has Andre Reed's pole in his throat are worthless.

Never. Too short a career.

Don't bother bringing up Sayers.

Cleveland screwed itself out of the Modell Browns. Municipal Stadium was a nightmare for a couple of decades and everyone knew it. I'm opposed to public funding of stadiums for the most part, but Cleveland knew what was at stake. The issue didn't just suddenly sneak up on them.

Shields belongs as do a lot of the others listed.
Doubt if he makes it though, OGs never get in. FFS the last time I checked Jerry Kramer wasn't in the HOF. DeLamellure and Shell are the only ones I can think of ,off the top of my head. I'd vote for him if it were up to me. Really doubt it though.

Ray guy wasn't even the best punter from his era: Jerrel Wilson was.

So true

I nominate Todd Haley.

It should be hard to ignore 12 pro bowls and never missing a game.

That said, I'm going to be seriously upset if they pass him over for Walter Jones.

Shields will eventually get in but it may take five years, as it did for DT.

The Hall of Fame voting process seems to be a very strange process, so it may take the voters hearing about Shields achievements over and over.

huh?

I had Greene instead of Bettis and no Ray Guy.

Not sure why but I thought Roger Craig was already in the HOF.

You would think so wouldn't you! In a just and fair world you would be right.
Guards and centers have been almost totally ignored by the HOF voters. If they do their job well, NOBODY mentions them in the News, and look who the voters are. The sporting press from the East and west coasts.

If your team and players have been toiling away in a small market city out here in fly over land they'll probably never make it!

I can name you at least 6-10 players from the Chiefs, Raiders,(puke), Cards and Broncos who should've been in the HOF for decades.