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Bob Hayes and Claude Humphrey were chosen by the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s seniors committee as finalists for election into the Class of 2009, the Hall announced today.
Both Hayes and Humphrey have been finalists in the past, only to be voted down. Hayes was the seniors committee’s candidate in 2004, and Humphrey was a modern-era finalist in 2003, 2005 and 2006.
Hayes, an Olympic gold medalist in 1964, took the NFL by storm as a rookie receiver for the Cowboys in 1965, averaging 21.8 yards a catch and catching 12 touchdown passes. He finished his career with 371 catches for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, plus 104 punt returns for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
Humphrey, a pass-rushing defensive end, suffers in comparisons with more recent players because when he played, the sack was not an official statistic. But Hall of Fame research indicates, unofficially, that he had 122 sacks during his 11 years with the Falcons (1968-1978) and three with the Eagles (1979-1981). He was a six-time Pro Bowler.
The two will be among the 17 finalists the full selection committee vote on the day before the Super Bowl. The 15 modern-era candidates have not yet been selected. Hall of Fame rules say that up to two senior candidates and five modern-era candidates can be inducted each year, for a class no smaller than four or larger than seven.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Looks like Humphrey has a good shot at being the first ever Atlanta Falcon inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It’s a crime that Tommy Nobis isn’t in there.
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August 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Thank goodness…PLEASE put Bob Hayes in the HOF!
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August 27th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
How Bob Hayes is not in the HOF is is a question that needs to be answered by somebody since it should have been done before his death.
Lynn Swann before him? Please…..actually Lynn Swann period is a good question.
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August 27th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Jerry Kramer anyone?
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August 27th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Jerry Kramer INDEED! Put him in the Hall where he belongs,he has been overlooked for far too long.
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August 27th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I’ll second that for Jerry Kramer.
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August 27th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
The selection of Bob Hayes for the HOF has been due for a long time. The man single-handedly changed the way defenses play the game. He should have been inducted into the Hall years ago.
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August 27th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
With Andre Tippett making it, the HOF has gone from the home of the great to the home of the “great” to the home of the “very good.”
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August 27th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hayes did some jail time after football…
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August 28th, 2008 at 10:01 am
@vcbhome
So I trust you’d argue against Tom Brady as a HOF lock before last year’s season? Because it’s obvious to you that a stellar playoff career with Super Bowl heroics mean nothing.
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August 28th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
How is Donnie Shell not in the Hall Of Fame?
5-time Pro Bowl, 5-time All-Pro, retired as career leader with 51 picks at the safety position.
For 5 seasons the man was judged best at his position in the entire league.
I’m guessing there aren’t many 5-time All-Pros not in the Hall. Except…
…L.C. Greenwood. A 6-time All-Pro. With 5 sacks in 4 Super Bowls.
These two players dominated the 1970s at their respective positions and deserve recognition as the all-time greats they were, regardless of how many Steelers from that team are already in.
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September 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Lots of things to comment on:
1. Donnie Shell was a 1st team all pro only 3 times (1979, 1980, 1982) and L.C. Greenwood was a 1st team all pro only twice (1974, 1975), per the Pro Football Reference website and Hickok’s online all pro listings. Shell especially has a lot of DB HoF competition (consider that none of Cliff Harris, Lemar Parrish, Jim Patton, Johnny Robinson, Jack Butler, Bobby Dillon, Abe Woodson, Bob Boyd, Kenny Easley, Joey Browner, Steve Atwater, or Leroy Butler are in, either). Greenwood may yet get in too, but note that Claude Humphrey has twice as many 1st team all pro selections as Greenwood.
2. Whether Bob Hayes is a HoF level player is certainly debatable.
Arguments pro:
a. he had 3 no-brainer HoF-level seasons as a WR (1965-1967) and three others that were varying levels of very good (1968, 1970-1971).
b. his “first team all pro/pro bowl” numbers are 2/3, not exactly earth-shattering, but not unreasonable either for a WR.
c. he was a very good punt returner, in fact excellent for three of the six years he did so on a consistent basis.
Arguments against:
a. his career is not especially lengthy (11 years, with two of them injury shortened). And nearly half of these eleven years are at average or below level performance. Thus his case is entirely peak-based, not longevity based — and unfortunately, his peak is short.
b. his short career and weaker years keep his career counting numbers relatively low.
c. he rarely played well in the postseason. He only had two big games (the initial conference games in 1967 and 1968) in 12 appearances, otherwise being pretty much neutralized in the other ten. And during the Ice Bowl game against Green Bay, Hayes kept his hands in his pockets while lining up on running plays and out of his pockets while lining up on passing plays the entire day, which apparently helped tip off the type of play to Green Bay, giving them an advantage and likely contributing to Dallas’s loss there.
d. he’s not on the ’60s all-decade team, while non-HoF receivers like Gary Collins, Del Shofner, and Boyd Dowler are.
Any claims that Hayes was the first to bring speed to the WR position are incorrect (receivers such as Harlon Hill and Ray Renfro were considered speedy WRs to reckon with in the ’50s, and ’60s star Paul Warfield was a 9.6 sprinter). Hill also drew double coverage in his early years before being slowed with injury. And the zone defense was not created to stop Hayes. Steve Owen is generally credited with inventing both the umbrella and zone defenses in the early 1950s, created specifically to stop Paul Brown and Cleveland. Examples of Hayes “changing the game” would in fact seem to be hard to come up with.
One further criticism of Hayes is that he didn’t compensate well once teams figured out how to stop him, that he didn’t have the best hands and wasn’t especially imaginative running patterns, two things that would have elevated his game and made him a truly great WR. The result was a drop-off in production.
So what one has with Hayes is an on-the-bubble case that could lean either way, depending on how one sees it. I’m glad he was nominated and won’t grouse if he gets in. But he’s not an elite-level player either, and I can see why his HoF candidacy failed in 2004.
3. Lynn Swann is frankly a borderline choice for the HoF, and any comparison of someone not in to one of its weakest members is not a very good argument. This is reflected in the fact that he didn’t get elected until his 14th try as finalist, most of anyone in. But care needs to be taken when comparing Swann to Bob Hayes, as postseason numbers for Swann are very good, not very good at all for Hayes.
4. Tommy Nobis (1/5, on all ’60s team) is also caught in a logjam of excellent possible Seniors Candidate LBs: Chris Hanburger, Maxie Baughan, Joe Fortunato, Dave Robinson, Chuck Howley, Les Richter, and Randy Gradishar would all seem to merit serious discussion as well.
5. Andre Tippett is in fact a good HoF choice if maybe not at the utterly elite level of, say, Lawrence Taylor. His postseason numbers of 2/5 are in line with the best post-’70s LBs still not in, plus he gets a leg up being on the all ’80s team. He was an excellent pass rusher and run stopper and very good in pass coverage — a far cry from several other LBs of his time and later who were more one-dimensional. And this was done while playing strong side LB — that is, with a TE in his face much the time.
6. Jerry Kramer’s omission from the HoF is an interesting case, and the reasons voters have passed on him may include his appearing on only 3 pro bowl squads, his having missed half of 1961 and most all of 1963 due to injury, his authorship of the tell all book “Instant Replay,” his inclusion in an all first 50 years of the NFL team roundly criticized by insiders as a botch job, and the perception among some HoF voters that he was no better a player on his own team at his own position than Fuzzy Thurston and Gale Gillingham. Again, a bubble player I can see arguments against, but I wouldn’t gripe if he got in, either.
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