New HOF class for the NFL and Curtis Martin leads it. I’m beyond baffled. Career 4.0 yards per carry. Jim Brown is rolling his eyes.
The whole class:
Curtis Martin
Cortez Kennedy
Chris Doleman
Willie Roaf
Dermontti Dawson
Since linemen don’t really have stats, I didn’t try to link to their career.
Martin finished in the top 5 in rushing yards.
Right, he’s one of the league’s all-time leading rushers, but that yards-per-carry average is pretty brutal. I didn’t know about that.
Curtis Martin? What the hell do they have against Chris Carter
Curtis Martin facts about his season rushing totals.
1995: 3nd rushing yards
1996: 9th rushing yards
1997: 8th rushing yards
1998: 8th rushing yards
1999: 2nd rushing yards
2000: 12th rushing yards
2001: 2nd rushing yards
2002: 15th rushing yards
2003: 12th rushing yards
2004: 1st rushing yards
2005: 26th rushing yards
So on average, about the 8th best running back during his career. And that is hall of fame worthy???
I’m not convinced that’s a meaningful way to measure things. Did other guys run for more yards than Martin did over that the entire period?
He was a good back for a lot of years and put up some numbers, meanwhile they have a logjam at wide receiver with Chris Carter, Andre Reed and Tim Brown. I just don’t get it, are Michel Irving and Jerry Rice the only WRs out of that whole era that are going to get the nod. Chris Carter has the second best numbers ever.
In my opinion, he was never considered a dominant player at his position. Numbers can mean a lot but he just doesn’t pass the smell test. I’m not really against him getting in, but there are a lot more dominant players out there. Players that represent the best of their era.
Hell, none of the wide receiver triumvirate of Carter, Brown or Reed made it (I personally was rooting for Brown)? :dubious: Who are 4th, 5th, and 10th in career receptions? Did they all steal votes from each other or something? :mad:
It’s a weak field of candidates. Maybe they should just pass on it this year.
My “criteria” for the Hall of Fame is if that guy was better than my teams’ guy . I don’t even recognise the nme Curtis Martin.
And Eddie DeBartolo didn’t get in!?
:dubious: Let me say it again, slowly: 3 of the top 10 wide receivers in receptions, all time, none of which got elected. Not letting any of them in would be like the baseball Hall not letting in Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., and Frank Robinson (all top 10 in home runs, tho yes I know all analogies aren’t perfect). Apparently the scoop is that the voters are disinclined to vote for more than one guy at a given position, so yes they apparently did dilute the vote between the three of them.
Cris Carter gets snubbed again. Carter had 31 more touchdowns in his career than Martin, and was by most measurements the 2nd best receiver ever at the time he retired. It’s total bullshit he’s not already in the Hall.
Not a Jets fan, but Martin appears to be HOF worthy. But mostly for playing at a top level for a long time for a Running Back. He gets in for durability as one of the “Accumulators”.
He is #3 in Rushing attempts and #4 in Yards. Though only 12th in TD. Still all significant stats and “Accumulators” do make it into the Hall.
I’m shocked Parcels was kept out. I know he was an asshole but damn he was a great coach. Only one to take 4 teams to the Playoffs. 2 Superbowls and how many teams did he turns around? At least 3 and maybe you could say 4.
I can see the argument against Martin, and I don’t think that he was a mandatory choice, and there are plenty of guys I’d rather see get in ahead of him, but I still think he belongs.
Yes, you can look at his YPC and rushing title ranks by season and say that he was never exceptional in those areas, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t exceptional elsewhere. He was a full time, workhorse starting RB for 11 full seasons, and for the first 10 of those seasons he played at high level the entire time: that’s exceptional. In those first 10 seasons, he missed a total of 4 games: also exceptional. He was the master of ball-control: in his first four seasons, he had a very good rate of 1 fumble for every 93 touches.* Over his last seven seasons, however, he was superhuman: 12 fumbles in 2,515 touches, or 1 per 210. His total career fumble rate is 1 per 143 touches; I know of no comparable RB with a better number.
These aren’t the kinds of attributes that show up in a highlight reel or even jump off the stat page, but they nonetheless provide a ton of real value to a football team. Curtis Martin *was *an exceptional football player, just in an unusual way.
It’s a tough situation. I somewhat doubt that vote dilution is the issue, though I could be wrong (Peter King is on the selection committee and usually writes a piece about the deliberations, so maybe we’ll know more in a few days). What I think is gumming up the process is that the selectors just don’t know what to do with the WR position and its exploding stat lines. (For that matter, neither do I.) The Top 6 all-time in receiving yards each retired just within the last seven years. Of the Top 30 all-time, only five got there with a significant amount of production before, say, the mid-‘80s (James Lofton, Steve Largent, Charlie Joyner, Don Maynard, and Stanley Morgan). We can’t just compare these receivers’ numbers to all of NFL history; we have to compare them to their contemporaries, and decide how many players from the same era and the same position we want to enshrine.
YMMV, but of Chris Carter’s (more or less) contemporaries, I know I’d take Rice, Moss, Harrison, and Owens before him (in that order); I’d probably take Tim Brown and Henry Ellard; I’d at least have to think twice before putting him ahead of Torry Holt, Andre Reed, and Isaac Bruce. Is the 5th best WR of the past 25 years Hall-worthy? Probably. 7th best? That’s harder. What about someone who’s arguably the 7th best? For comparison, we only have 3 enshrined Cornerbacks from that time period (that’s including Rod Woodson but not Ronnie Lott). We’ll get a fourth with Champ Bailey, and then we have to argue about Aeneas Williams, Ronde Barber, Ty Law, and Charles Woodson – I think it’s a lock that some of those players **won’t **get in, which sets the bar pretty high for Carter, who most people feel has the *strongest *case of the three WRs you mention; the others have even tougher problems.
So, yeah, I don’t know what to do about these Wide Receivers.
Yeah But Martin has the major overriding statistic, “Played in New York = Y”
It does make him a better person, yes.
Martin is a quintessential compiler, yes. But he was one of the best damn compilers to ever play the game, and on that merit I’d like to seem him in the hall. As a secondary Jets fan, there was a sense of confidence he brough to games that put you at ease. “Hand it to Curtis!”
All of the guys elected seem worthy, in my book, but I’m astonished they didn’t elect Cris Carter, since there weren’t any “no brainers” among newly eligible players.
Carter was put on hold to give previously overlooked candidates their shot. This should have been his year.
Right, the problem with the WRs is that it’s become harder to evaluate the position in absolute terms across eras. Passing yards have increased by so much that the voters apparently can’t decide how those players stack up to later players. It doesn’t help that Reed and Brown and Carter are probably taking votes from each other. I think they should all be in and I think the logjam is getting ridiculous- that’s happening or starting to happen in a couple of sports.