In my opinion, R. Smith, J. Smith, and Bruce should get serious consideration. I'd like to see Bruce get inducted. The other two- not so much. Moore, McCardell, Moulds, Johnson, and Mason are all ticket guys in that they need a ticket to get into the building just like you and I. One of the things that has caused much of the trouble in this thread is that you don't understand what the PFHOF truly is. If the Hall was what you want it to be, there would not be inductions every summer. The building would be about the size of an dentist office due to the small number of players enshrined. Look at some of the players who were enshrined within 10 years of the opening of the PFHOF- Link Lyman, Joe Guyon, Wayne Millner, Alex Wojciechowicz, George McAfee, Turk Edwards, Mike Michalske, George Trafton, Ed Healey, Bruiser Kinard, and Ace Parker. Those were not the top shelf guys like Sammy Baugh, Cal Hubbard, Red Grange, Don Hutson, Bronko Nagurski, Ernie Nevers, Otto Graham, Steve Van Buren, Sid Luckman, Chuck Bednarik, Joe Perry, etc. This is the way the PFHOF has operated since its opening in 1963. I told you earlier in this thread that there are two types of HOFers. There are the no-brainer types and there are the Very Good types. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you'll say, "Hey, Monk was not Jerry Rice or Paul Warfield or Don Hutson, but he was very good, he was a class act, he compiled enough stats, he received accolades, and he played on a bunch of winners. That's good enough for a spot in the PFHOF." Then we can get back to more healthy debates.
I'd always wondered how good Herman Moore could have been had he had a real QB throwing him the ball. Guys like Scott Mitchell, Andre Ware and Erik Kramer could never get it done. Although it could be argued that Moore was the best WR in the game from 95-97. That's the other thing about Monk, he was a great WR with whoever was playing QB for the Skins. It didn't matter if it was Thiesman, Schreoder ,Rypien or Doug Williams throwing him the ball; you knew what you were gonna get from Monk. Monk was also the 1st guy with 100 receptions which we take for granted now but in the mid 80's it was a huge deal and how could we forget his consecutive catch streak which was later broken by Rice.
Its been a few years, but I was engaged with Winston in a furious debate on whether Monk deserved to be in the HOF. I came down on the side of longevity and consistency being just as worthy as putting up huge numbers in a shorter career. I did then, and I still do now. I'm happy for Monk, it shouldn't have taken so long. The fact that he finally has made it is proof enough that he deserves to be there, no matter what my or your opinions may be. So where was Winston on this thread? I don't want to debate it anymore, but I did go back and look for ya :wink: Oh, and BTW, I've told this story before, but I'll mention it again here. I made a trip to Canton about a decade ago, and the jersey Monk wore when he broke the consecutive games w/catch record was on display. It was a Jets jersey, of course, the only item of Jets memorabilia on display. Ironic, and memorable.
nyjunc argued my position in this thread so I didn't see the need to add to it since Cakes and I had this battle on another thread. Monk had a great campaign waged for him, I would hope the same people who pushed Monk so hard will now do the same for Henry Ellard and Carter who clearly now belong in the Hall of consistently very good.
This is the FIRST thing you have said in this thread that makes sense. I would prefer it be the size of a dentists office rather than letting in all the undeserving players they have. A Hall of Fame is supposed to be for the best of the best players not good players. The cream of the crop, the NFL has let a ton of undeserving players and based off that Monk deserves to go in BUT they should not be allowing the undeserving players in and Monk does not belong in the same building that houses the truly all-time greats. Actually Clark is the Moss and Monk is the welker. Monk was the possession receiver and Clark the big play threat. Biletnikoff was in the downside of his career, Branch was in his prime. Monk was still very much in his prime when he was playing w/ Clark in the 80s and let's compare Biletnikoff to Branch: Biletnikoff: 6 time pro bowler, 6 time all-pro(Branch 4 of each) - 5 times top 10 in recs(Branch 2) -top 10 5 times in rec yds(Branch 4) -Top 10 8 times in rec TDs(Branch 5) Biletnikoff was actually better than Branch, the same cannot be said for Monk over Clark. By the way, you brought all those great quotes up about Monk. If my memory is correct during Art's time the fans did not vote for the PB, it was the players, coaches and execs. Since they were syaing so many nice things about him how come he only made 3 PBs?
First of all, the Pro Bowl is utter garbage and the voting for it has always been garbage. Paul Zimmerman had a funny chapter about voting in The Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football. There were cases of coaches voting for a player at guard when he was actually a tackle. One coach voted for a guy who played two games all year. All kinds of wacky stuff. I have all or near all of Monk's game-by-game stats. He had some of his very best games in the Redskins 14th, 15th, and 16th games in various regular seasons. You'll appreciate this- several times Monk finished with better season stats than some of the WRs selected over him to play in the Pro Bowl because the voting was closed around Week 13. Everything about the Pro Bowl is ridiculous.
Oh so Art turned it on the lst 3 weeks when the skins postseason seed was usually determined? I'd rather have a guy turn it on when the team was playing for something and if all these players, coaches, execs had so many great things to say about him then why didn't they vote for him for PBs? I agree the PB voting is a joke but it was less of a joke in Art's day and w/ his reputation he should have made more than the 3 he made in 15 full years.
That's not correct. You need to do some research or just drop the issue. Again, not correct. Art Monk was not some bum who only played well when he felt like it. I just informed you yesterday that the Pro Bowl has always been a joke. Do you need me to find that Zimmerman book? I have it in a box somewhere. It's so old and the paper so decrepit I get a headache reading it, so I don't really want to have to do it. I could simply tell you Ray Nitschke only made one Pro Bowl appearance. That's all you need to know about the validity of Pro Bowl voting.
nitschke made 1 PB but was a 7 time all-pro, Monk made 3 pro bowls and was a 2-3 time all-pro. They played in different eras, in Monk's I believe players, coaches and execs voted and considering they all had such great things to say about him why didn't they vote for him?
Hence, the reason why I rarely ever cite Pro Bowl appearances when discussing how great or not so great a guy was during his playing career. As for Monk, I already stated what the issue is regarding the Pro Bowls. The voting was complete with that farce of a game after Week 13 every year of his career, I'm pretty sure. Almost 20% of the regular season was still to be played. I don't know why you are having such difficulties with this Pro Bowl issue. Monk is on the 1980s All-Decade team along with Jerry Rice, Steve Largent, and James Lofton. All-Decade teams are significantly more prestigious than Pro Bowl appearances.
I agree PBs can be meaningless BUT most top players are voted in based on reputation so why wasn't Art, who you say was great and also had a great reputation among the voters, only voted in 3 times? That week 13 excuse is a poor one. The PB voting has always been heavy on reputation and Art had a great reputation so the fact they decided who made it w/ a couple of week sleft in the year was not the reason he only made 3 and I'd love to see his #s from the final 3 games of his seasons to back that line up. By the way, why would a week 13 vote be the reason when in Art's carer he only had a few top 10 seasons in the major WR categories? Regardless of how well or poor he did the final few weeks his season #s tended to be nowhere near the top and thus he didn't deserve to be a PBer or all-pro. Monk was on the all-decade team b/c he compiled very good overall #s but he was only a top WR in 1-2 seasons.
You posted nothing new here. So, now I'll do the same. The difference is I'm not going to waste my time posting the same stuff all over again. What you can do is pretend that I just did.
The thing that's sad is that if Thomas had lived he'd be in the Hall of Fame already. When he died suddenly there was this rush to enshrine him before the mandatory waiting period, and then people started looking at his falloff in play that had happened a season or two before the accident. That somehow overshadowed his 9 straight pro bowls before the dropoff and ignored the fact that his 1998 season, when he missed, was actually right in line with those 9 seasons. Now, like 8 years later we're still caught in the argument about exactly how good he was, when the answer is clearly first or second ballot worthy.
You wasted most of this thread posting the same stuff over and over again, at least I posted mostly relevant info to back my argument. Your biggest argument was various quotes then when I ask you why those same people didn't vote for Art for the Pb you make up some lame excuse about how Art was great the last 2-3 weeks of his seasons.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Nothing I posted was lame. You are the lame one. If you don't have stats to jerk around with, you are lost. That's why I brought up offensive lineman. It must be impossible for you to determine whether or not an offensive lineman is good because they don't have statistics.
