Not bashing Guy. I loved the Raiders as a kid, especially Daryle Lamonica. I HATED the Chiefs. I merely wish to
A) Give the undeniably great Jerrel Wilson his due and
B) Ask if Guy is THAT much worthier than quite a few other punters
Are those illegitimate points to you? To me, they seem to make a pretty good case about Bettis’ shortcomings.
Bettis, to me, certainly deserves to be in the Hall of Good for a Long Time. And if you think those kinds of players should be in the Hall of Fame, then he certainly belongs. But, to me, he was never the best at his position in the league. He was very good for a couple years, but I would never describe him as special.
I think blaming Bettis’ not making the HoF yet on the fact he was a Steeler for part of his career is as ludicrous if not more so, than keeping someone out because there are too many Steelers in the HoF.
Well, I’m from Philadelphia. Strahan was a Giant from when I was 11 years old until I was 25; in other words, he was a major contributor on one of my two very least favorite teams for essentially my entire unreasonable youth. You won’t find anybody in the world who would get more personal satisfaction out of downplaying his accomplishments. The idea that he might not a Hall of Famer is laughable to me. Reggie White was better. Bruce Smith was better. As an all-around defensive end in the last few decades, that’s the end of the list.
Please reread my post. Pre-1973, a punt from inside the 45 yard line was fairly rare-afterwards, esp. for the Raiders, it became pretty common. Wilson’s career took place mostly in the pre-1973 years-and lo and behold his averages mysteriously plummet after the rule change (tho his '73 campaign did lead the league).
To do this justice tho I’d need to examine some box scores which have play by play data, and I’m not sure where they might be hiding (Football Reference doesn’
t have them).
Is yds/punt an adequate measure of a punter’s ability? I have no idea - I just hear Ray Guy being mentioned by current punters as the best in the game. That seems to be a pretty good measure to me.
Gross average (which is the number being used here) very likely isn’t adequate. Net average (which takes into account touchbacks and return yards) is probably a better measure, but a lot of the stats sites don’t have it, particularly for older seasons.
It’s hard to measure. Several more advanced stats that everyone keeps on punters now (net average, punts inside the twenty yard line) weren’t kept until late in Guy’s career.
That said, even if we look ONLY at guys who played at about the same time Guy did (that would removed the much earlier Tommy Davis and the much later Shane Lechler), it doesn’t look to me as if his numbers were spectacular. Rohn Stark and Jerrell Wilson were at least as good, maybe better.
And if you’re going to elect a pure punter at all, I think spectacular is called for.
It’s a travesty that Jerry Kramer still is not in.
The WR thing is weird. I mean, Chris Carter was first eligible for the HoF in 2008. He wasn’t voted in until 2013. Chris effin’ Carter had to wait SIX YEARS! There is no universe in existence where Chris Carter is -not- HoF worthy, and it’s not even like he was up against Rice and Brown etc the first year. Hell, one year he didn’t make it when there wasn’t a wide receiver on the entire ballot.
Absolutely insane.
I just can’t see Bettis as a HoF-er. He was a short-yardage back for the bulk of his career - lots of ‘48 yards on 17 carries with 3 touchdowns’ games. In one game he averaged less than half a yard per carry…and still had three touchdowns. His yards per carry was atrocious- sure, ‘sixth-most rushing yards’ sounds nice, but he had the 4th most rushing attempts. It’s like a baseball player that racks up a lot of hits by playing five extra years getting the extra counting stats but batting .220 while he does it. He never lead the league in rushing, and only made the top five a handful of times.
He had a great career, finished by winning the Super Bowl in his home town, by all accounts a nice guy, and he’ll probably get in eventually, but I don’t think the Hall will necessarily be any better for it.
Well, you just described future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio. Spent the last few years of his career in the sole pursuit of 3000 hits while being generally terrible at everything else. He missed the HOF by one vote this year, he’ll get in next year.
This is a whoosh right? That, or I assume you never really watched a real live game of baseball.
What, that Biggio’s last few years were an embarrassment? No, that’s an opinion held by any number of people. Here’s his career page - he was a shell of his former self at the end, and should have retired much earlier. His legacy wasn’t in question.
Well, yeah - that’s my point: *even if you stopped Biggio’s career a few years early, *he was still very obviously worthy of the Hall of Fame.
The only way Bettis is even remotely in the HoF conversation is because he stuck around for another 800 carries getting a couple of yards at a time for another four years to move up to ‘sixth all time rushing yards’. Take away those last four years and you basically have Tiki Barber or Jamal Lewis, and nobody mistakes them for HoF material.
And my point was that your example was flawed. Your statement perfectly described Biggio - a clear HOFer - in an argument for why Bettis isn’t a HOFer. And it wasn’t even accurate - you cannot say that Bettis’ last few years were flawed, as his production wasn’t all that much off from the rest of his career.
“Take away those last four years”. Why? So you can compare them to Tiki Barber or Jamal Lewis? His production in those years dropped by half a yard per carry - big deal. The argument against Bettis isn’t that he dragged his career on too long, it’s that he never had a spectacular peak or was ever considered the best at his position at any point.
But Bettis had a cool nickname. How can you not vote for a guy with a cool nickname?
I think we’re actually agreeing on Bettis: My point was -exactly- that he never had anything close to a ‘spectacular peak’, never was above third in the league in rushing in any year, and was never considered to be the best at his position. He’s only in the ‘hall of fame’ debate at all precisely because he plodded along at 3 yards a carry for long enough to push himself above the Tiki Barbers and Jamal Lewises in total rushing yards. If there was a ‘Hall of Pretty Good at One Thing for a Pretty Long Time’, I’d vote for Bettis for that.
He did. *And *he was a great humanitarian. I think that, combined with solid production for 13 years - far above the average career length for a running back - should get him some votes. Aside from the championships, it’s tough to tell the difference between his numbers and Franco Harris’ numbers. Is Harris not worthy of his HOF spot?
Sure. Lifetime achievement does matter, or should, and so does off-the-field contributions - just like in baseball.
Serious about the nickname effect, btw, just like playing for an elite franchise. In baseball, Jim Hunter of the A’s wouldn’t have made it, but Catfish Hunter of the Yankees was a lock. “The Bus” of the Steelers has a better chance than Fred of the Jaguars, too.
Might not be directly comparable; Harris played almost half his career - and almost certainly the prime of his career - when the league only had 14 games a season. You could probably tack on another 1,000 yards and half a dozen touchdowns, I suppose, if you added an extra two games for those first six seasons.